New theater, obsession, mental illness?

Ha ha ha.

I've been a champion of "hyperdrama" since my introduction to the new theater form in the mid 1980s, when I was commissioned to write one for Portland's Pittock Mansion. I probably have written more, and had more produced, than any other writer in the world. I have a one-act "in the canon of first generation hypertext." I've had several graduate dissertations written on my work. My work is studied in universities that teach hypertext. Hyperdrama has been the focus of much of my writing career.

And yet I failed. No hyperdrama theater or company yet exists that I am aware of. Those attracted to the form go into narrative computer games where the money is, ignoring the live performance version. So I will die "a failure," as far as my dream and obsession go. I still believe that traditional theater is a version of hyperdrama, a subset, just as Newtonian physics is a subset of quantum physics.

So be it. Failure or not, my work has been challenging, fun and productive. Check some of it out:

Changing Key, a video introduction to hyperdrama.
The Chekhov hyperdrama.
Other hyperdrama material.


A few studies of my hyperdrama:

In the canon of first generation hypertext
by Astrid Esslin

Hyperdrama as a New Kind of Dramatic Texts

by Nahla Sadek Elgawahergy

The dramas under study in the research are The Bride of Edgefield (1994), The Last Song of Violetta Parra (1996), and The Seagull Hyperdrama (2004). The three dramas are written by the American writer Charles Deemer, who is a pioneer in the field of hyperdrama. Like all works written in hypertext, the dramas are created on a computer device and can be read on one as well. The action in the first two plays revolves around themes of greed, torn family relations, theft, and murder. While the last play The Seagull Hyperdrama is Deemer's biggest hyperdrama, where he adopts Anton Chekov's famous masterpiece The Seagull (1896) and adds many scenes to the original text. 

A Dutch Translation of Charles Deemer's Hyperdrama "The Last Song of Violetta Parra" with an Introduction to Hypertext

by Nele de Roy