Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. © 2022 Association for Computing Machinery. 1556-4673/2022/1-ART1 $15.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3524024 J. Comput. Cult. Herit. Virtual Reality in Contemporary Theatre KATERYNA V. IUDOVA-ROMANOVA Department of Directing and Acting, Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, Kyiv, Ukraine TETIANA K. HUMENYUK Department of Event Management and Leisure Industry, Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, Kyiv, Ukraine SERHII I. HOREVALOV Department of Cinematography and Television Arts, Taras Schevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine SERHII HONCHARUK Department of Television Journalism and Actor's Skill, Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, Kyiv, Ukraine VOLODYMYR YA. MYKHALOV Department of Cinematography and Television Arts, Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, Kyiv, Ukraine This study examines how virtual reality images are used in contemporary theatre. Modern technologies get into various areas of life including the theatrical environment. Therefore, the study of the role of virtual reality in contemporary theatre is crucial for the qualitative understanding of the tendencies in development of the contemporary theatre scene in the context of the development of contemporary art. This determines the relevance of this study and subsequent academic research in this field as well. The purpose of this study is to assess the degree of influence of modern technologies on creating virtual reality in the development of theatrical art. The leading approach for this study is a combination of a systematic study of the main trends in the creation of virtual reality within the framework of the development of modern technologies and the logical construction of conclusions retrieved from the results of this study. The main results obtained in this study are supposed to be the identification of the main areas for creating virtual reality in the activities of contemporary theatres and changes in the work of theatre groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. Prospects for subsequent academic research in this field are determined by the increasing usage of modern technologies for creating virtual reality within the framework of the modern development of theatrical culture and the need for a deep study of this factor as the one that defines the prospects for the technological development of the contemporary theatre scene. The practical significance of this study lies in the possibility of using its results obtained to assess the role and place of modern technologies for creating virtual reality in contemporary theatre. CCS Concepts: Hardware → Emerging technologies → Electromechanical systems; Memory and dense storage → Nanoelectromechanical systems. Additional Key Words and Phrases: Culture, performance, art, spectator, author Authors’ address: K.V. Iudova- Romanova (corresponding author), Department of Directing and Acting, Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, 01133, 36 Yevhen Konovalets Str., Kyiv, Ukraine, iudova-romanova11@tanu.pro; T.K. Humenyuk, Department of Event Management and Leisure Industry, Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, 01133, 36 Yevhen Konovalets Str., Kyiv, Ukraine, humenyuk@toronto-uni.com; S.I. Horevalov, Department of Cinematography and Television Arts, Taras Schevchenko National University of Kyiv, 01033, 60 Volodymyrska Str., Kyiv, Ukraine, si_horevalov@toronto-uni.com; S. Honcharuk, Department of Television Journalism and Actor's Skill, Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, 01133, 36 Yevhen Konovalets Str., Kyiv, Ukraine, shoncharuk@lund-univer.eu; V.Ya. Mykhalϝv, Department of Cinematography and Television Arts, Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, 01133, 36 Yevhen Konovalets Str., Kyiv, Ukraine, mykhalov@singapore-uni.com