Learning to Ceilidh dance to a Gay Gordon in an immersive 360° video

Looking back at the development of our production, Eigg, it is amazing to see how early experiments shaped the final performance in 2023. One of our most exciting workshops took place way back in 2019, when we were figuring out how to seamlessly integrate a traditional Scottish Ceilidh dance into several key scenes of the show. To pull this off, our team needed to deeply understand the spatial dynamics, energy, and steps of the dance long before tech rehearsals began. Enter Tim and Jennifer Luscombe, who kindly stepped up to teach us the Gay Gordons, captured entirely in 360-degree video.

Why 360° Video for Choreography?

A standard flat video only shows you one perspective. But a Ceilidh is all about community, movement, and rotating through space. By recording Tim and Jennifer in 360° during that 2019 phase, we were able to:
• Study every angle: Viewers could click and drag the video to watch the footwork, hand positioning, or the progression of the couple through the room.
• Map out the staging: It allowed us to visualize how a crowd would move together, which directly informed how we blocked the scenes for the 2023 live performances.
• Preserve the choreography: It served as an interactive, digital archive that performers could virtually "step onto" to practice their timing.

Watch the Archive: The Gay Gordons

Check out the interactive video below. If you are watching on a desktop, you can click and drag your mouse to change your perspective. If you are on a mobile device, simply move your phone around or use the YouTube app to experience the dance in full immersive 360 degrees!

Capturing the Process This 2019 workshop was a fantastic proof-of-concept for our creative process. It proved that immersive tech isn't just a gimmick for the final audience, it was an incredibly powerful tool for rehearsal, choreography, and collaborative development that ultimately brought the spirit of the Isle of Eigg to life on stage in 2023.

Alice Alsup - The Poet Walks Away

Alice Carey Alsup June 26, 1990 – June 8, 2014

Alice Carey Alsup was a native Houstonian and attended St John’s School where her earliest poems appeared in “Imagine” and “Writers in the School.” She was a National Merit Scholarship Finalist and active in many extracurricular activities, including singing her own songs.

Alice attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, for over two years before returning to Houston in 2011. She was majoring in Journalism and Creative Writing at University of Houston. She interned at Houstonia Magazine where her quirky reporting on the Texas Prison Museum, resale fashion, and Houston bartenders was well received.

Alice co-founded “Write about Now” poetry group, participated in the 2014 Boldface poetry workshop, and often performed in local poetry slams and workshops.

She was greatly admired for her beauty, sensitivity, passion, and for her poems that bravely confront the difficulties of adolescence and bipolar illness.

Youtube Playlist Available on Viewmark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1h4Z25cssk

🎶 For All We Know | George Shearing Arrangement | Jazz Piano

For All We Know continues Viewmark's Songs That Tell a Story YouTube series, celebrating the timeless melodies and sophisticated arrangements of the Great American Songbook.

Written in 1934 by composer J. Fred Coots and lyricist Sam M. Lewis, “For All We Know” was introduced by vocalist Morton Downey on his popular radio program. The song became a hit during the Great Depression and enjoyed renewed popularity in 1949 with a memorable recording by the Nat King Cole Trio. At its heart, “For All We Know” tells a tender story about love, uncertainty, and the fleeting nature of time. Unlike romantic ballads that promise everlasting devotion, its bittersweet lyrics remind us that tomorrow is never guaranteed, making the moments we share today all the more precious.

Legendary jazz pianist George Shearing brings his distinctive harmonic sophistication to this beautiful American standard. This piano performance explores his arrangement, highlighting the rich chord voicings, elegant phrasing, and expressive jazz harmonies that give the melody its intimate, reflective character. Songs That Tell a Story, a Viewmark YouTube series, revisits the music, melodies, composers, lyricists, and performances that helped shape American musical theatre and popular music.

📱Can You Hear Me Now? The Cell Phone Props of BANNED and WYSIWYG!

Sometimes the simplest theatrical props get the biggest reaction — and over the years, our handmade cell phones have become some of the most talked-about props we've ever created! For WYSIWYG and BANNED the Musical, mobile phones weren't just accessories. They were an essential part of the storytelling, helping bring the wonderfully absurd world of social media, online identities, and digital communication to life onstage. But rather than putting real smartphones in the hands of our performers, we decided to get a little creative. Using inexpensive materials, simple hardware, and a bit of theatrical ingenuity, we built lightweight cell phone props that could be handled, displayed, and incorporated into the music, song, dance, and choreography without the distractions of actual electronic devices.

Making the phone props for BANNED Musical

The construction was surprisingly straightforward. As these behind-the-scenes photos show, the process involved assembling the phone facades, fitting the components together, and experimenting with different finishes and designs. The result was a collection of colorful, unmistakably theatrical mobile phones. What made these props especially fun was how naturally they became part of the performances. In a musical comedy where characters spend so much of their lives staring at screens, the phones helped emphasize the contrast between their online personas and their real-world relationships. And audiences noticed! Of all the scenery, costumes, and theatrical gadgets we've created over the years, these little cell phones have inspired more than their share of conversations and questions about how we made them. It's another example of how creative prop design, music, dance, choreography, and a little imagination can turn an everyday object into something memorable onstage.

Licensed and produced by Viewmark®.

#Viewmark #BANNEDMusical #WYSIWYG #TheatreProps #PropDesign #BehindTheScenes #MusicalTheatre #Stagecraft #Choreography #MusicAndDance

🎭 Revolution, Rivalry, and a Patriot Jig!

Broadside the Musical - Song: Liberty or Loyalty | Viewmark (@viewmark)

The stage is set at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall, where the Loyalists, Tories, and Whigs are going at it! Political tensions are running high, tempers are flaring, and everyone has something to say about the growing unrest in the American colonies. But in Broadside the Musical, a heated political debate can only go on for so long before someone strikes up the music!

As the arguments give way to the spirited rhythms of the “Patriot Jig,” the opening scene erupts into a lively celebration of original music, song, dance, and choreography, transforming the political divisions of colonial Boston into a theatrical spectacle. With a colorful cast of historical characters, spirited exchanges, and plenty of musical entertainment, this opening number sets the stage for a story of divided loyalties, revolutionary ideas, and the extraordinary events that would change the course of American history. Join us at Faneuil Hall, where the arguments are loud, the music is lively, and the revolution is just getting started!

Produced and Licensed by Viewmark®

#BroadsideTheMusical #PatriotJig #AmericanRevolution #FaneuilHall #MusicalTheatre #OriginalMusical #Choreography #MusicAndDance #Viewmark

🎭 Nobody Knows and Anything Goes - Welcome to the World Wide Web!

BANNED the Musical - Song: The World Wide Web | Viewmark (@viewmark)

Phones out, screens glowing, and thumbs flying! BANNED the Musical opens with “The World Wide Web,” a high-energy musical number that takes audiences headfirst into the wonderfully chaotic world of social media, digital identities, and the strange ways technology has changed how we connect. Through original music, song, dance, and inventive choreography, the cast brings two very different worlds to life. Online, our characters are confident, outspoken, and larger than life. Offline? Well, that's an entirely different story! As they move between their carefully crafted digital personas and their often awkward real-world selves, the stage becomes a playful collision of virtual reality and human interaction.

With mobile phones becoming an extension of the characters themselves, the choreography captures the familiar rituals of modern life; scrolling, swiping, posting, and desperately seeking attention, while the music and dance reveal the hilarious contradictions between who we pretend to be online and who we really are. Packed with theatrical comedy, contemporary social commentary, and plenty of entertainment, “The World Wide Web” sets the stage for BANNED, an original musical comedy that asks a delightfully uncomfortable question: In a world where everyone has a voice, is anybody actually listening? Now, put down your phone (unless you're watching this on it!), turn up the volume, and enjoy the opening number of BANNED the Musical!

🎶 “The World Wide Web” - BANNED the Musical

Produced by Viewmark®

#BANNEDTheMusical #TheWorldWideWeb #MusicalTheatre #OriginalMusical #SocialMedia #Choreography #MusicAndDance #LiveEntertainment #Viewmark

Unafraid: Where the Absurd Journey Begins

Absurd Hero Musical - Song: Unafraid | Viewmark (@viewmark)

Every musical needs an opening that tells the audience what kind of world they’ve entered. In Absurd Hero the Musical, “Unafraid” does something more, it introduces the philosophical idea underneath everything that follows. This is a world where life can be confusing, unpredictable and downright absurd, but that doesn’t mean we stop living it.

Inspired by Albert Camus and The Myth of Sisyphus, Absurd Hero asks what happens when we stop waiting for life to provide us with a tidy explanation. Camus’ Sisyphus is condemned to push his rock uphill knowing it will inevitably roll back down. In our musical theatre version of that idea, the question becomes wonderfully practical: If the rock is going to roll back down anyway, what are you going to do on the way up?

That is where “Unafraid” begins. Through music, song, dance and choreography, the opening number establishes a company of characters living in a world that doesn’t necessarily play by sensible rules. Rather than beginning with an explanation, the music invites us into the absurdity. The movement and ensemble choreography give that philosophy a physical language; people moving forward, colliding, regrouping and carrying on.

That idea runs through the entire show. Sid will try to change his community. Zeus will attempt to control it. Ari, Darby, Dawn and Tony will each stumble through their own wonderfully complicated versions of love, ambition, identity and purpose. The mythology may be ancient, but the problems are remarkably familiar. Everybody is pushing some kind of rock.

And that is what makes “Unafraid” such an important piece of the musical. It isn't simply an opening song designed to get the show moving. It establishes the argument Absurd Hero will spend the rest of the evening exploring: perhaps meaning isn't something waiting for us to discover. Perhaps we create it ourselves through living, loving, laughing, dancing, making mistakes and continuing forward anyway.

That is also where theatre and choreography become especially powerful. Philosophy can sound terribly serious on the page. Put those same ideas into music and dance, surround them with Greek gods behaving badly, and suddenly Camus becomes something an audience can laugh at, sing along with and perhaps recognize in their own lives.

The rock may roll back down tomorrow.

Today, we push it uphill unafraid.

Music, Lyrics & Libretto by April Alsup

Absurd Hero the Musical Produced by Viewmark.

Step Off the Ferry and Into Eigg the Musical

Eigg the Musical - Song: Welcome to the Isle of Eigg | Viewmark (@viewmark)

When we first arrived on the Isle of Eigg, there was something about the experience that stayed with us. You step off the ferry onto this small Hebridean island, surrounded by an extraordinary landscape, and immediately sense that you've arrived somewhere very different. When it came time to create the opening of Eigg the Musical, we wanted the audience to experience a little of what we felt when we first stepped ashore.

That became “Welcome to the Isle of Eigg,” the opening song of the musical. The visitors arrive, the islanders are there to greet them, and almost immediately the stage comes alive with music, song, dance and choreography. We didn't want to begin by telling the audience about Eigg. We wanted them to feel as though they had just stepped off the ferry themselves.

The music and choreography became a huge part of recreating that feeling. Scottish influences, ensemble movement and the communal energy of ceilidh dancing allow the entire company to become part of the welcome. There is a wonderful informality to it, the feeling that you've arrived somewhere and suddenly found yourself in the middle of the music and dance.

That first visit also changed the way we thought about Eigg the Musical as a whole. The more time we spent on the island, the more we understood that we weren't simply creating a piece of musical theatre about a series of historical events. We were telling the story of a place and the generations of people connected to it. The landscape, the history, the music and, especially, the sense of community all became part of the show.

And that is why the musical begins with a welcome. Long before we get to the lairds, land reform, changing generations and the remarkable story of community ownership, we want the audience to meet Eigg in much the same way we did: arriving by ferry, stepping ashore and discovering the island for the first time. Of course, our arrival didn't come with an entire company singing and dancing. That's where musical theatre comes in.

Welcome to the Isle of Eigg.

Music & Lyrics by April Alsup
Book by Mark Sbani
Eigg the Musical licensed through Viewmark.