iTalk, YouListen, WePerform: Participatory Media on the Canadian Stage

This article investigates how Theatre Replacement’s WeeTube 5400 (2010) and Les Petites Cellules Chaudes’ The iShow (2012) re-frame social media in a performance context. Through re-mediation, these productions explore the kinds of social relations participatory media catalyze. WeeTube 5400 and The iShow—using YouTube and Chatroulette respectively—ask audiences to consider the productive and unproductive conversations taking place via social media. In doing so, these companies go beyond simply critiquing the social web and use performance to imagine new modes of connection possible in digital spaces. While the theatre space transforms the possibilities for social media use, in both productions the interactive potential of the social web is limited as the audience remains separated from direct digital engagement.