The Edinburgh Festivals are internationally renowned and create serendipitous experiences of discovery for live audiences within various formats, including art, theatrical and musical performance, science and literature. At these events, the line between performer and audience member is blurred, as many both participate and observe events, creating a spirit of creative play. 

How can remote audiences, those who cannot attend the festival physically, also experience this environment? Capturing the design opportunity from this context, we created Actor Who. 

Actor Who is a transmedia platform (involving a Twitter account and phone booths) that connects people from all over the world to create stories together during the Edinburgh Festival. Online audiences are allowed to direct a story by voting on Twitter polls, making plot choices. Once the choice has been made, casting calls will be distributed to select phone booths in Edinburgh, allowing physical attendees to enter the booth, find the role best suited to them by quiz, and audition for the role in front of a camera. The auditions will then be uploaded online for people to vote for their favorite actors’ auditions over a set period of time. From these popular selections, a chapter of the story video will be edited together with additional content and released online, before the process begins again with a new plot question to advance the story.