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Engage New and Younger Audiences
Youth aged 12 and above and adults
Poland
Creative Europe Programme
STRENGTHS
Low-Tech, High-Engagement Model
Uses minimal technology (mostly analog props and settings) combined with a lightweight digital app, keeping costs and tech barriers low while maximizing immersion.
User-Friendly Digital Layer
A web-based app provides intuitive character and role management without overwhelming the experience with complex tech.
Educational and Locally Relevant
Grounded in a city’s real history, it connects directly with local identity and civic memory, making it highly relatable and easily adaptable in local communities.
Blended Formats (Theatre + Game + Education)
Combines storytelling, gameplay, and learning, an attractive, dynamic formula for school groups and younger audiences.
Modular and Scalable Format
Can be implemented in small venues, libraries, or community centres—ideal for cultural operators with limited infrastructure.
Modular and Scalable Format
Can be implemented in small venues, libraries, or community centers—ideal for cultural operators with limited infrastructure.
OPPORTUNITIES
Cross-sector Partnerships
Collaborations with educators, local historians, and accessibility experts can enhance relevance, inclusiveness, and reach.
Growing Demand for Participatory Culture
Audiences increasingly seek interactive, co-created cultural experience, especially youth
Funding from Inclusion & Digitalisation Programs
Aligns with priorities in EU/national funding around digital inclusion, youth engagement, and cultural accessibility.
WEAKNESSES
Staff Expertise Requirements
Successful delivery depends on a multidisciplinary team (theatre direction, LARP design, education, digital facilitation), which small organisations may lack in-house.
Limited In-House Digital Capacity
While the digital layer is modest, even basic app development or UX design can exceed the skills or budget of smaller organisations.
Complex Planning and Facilitation Needs
Designing coherent, immersive, and participatory narratives with open-ended structures requires significant preparation time and facilitation training.
Resource-Intensive for First Implementation
Custom scripts, character sheets, props, set design, and onboarding procedures represent a heavy initial investment of time and creative labour
Limited Audience Throughput
Due to the participatory nature, group sizes are small. This limits audience volume per session, making scaling or monetization harder for small operators.
THREATS
Low Digital Literacy in Some Communities
Target audiences (especially older adults or underserved populations) may face barriers to using even basic digital interfaces.
Competition from Heavily-Funded Digital Products
Flashier digital experiences (VR exhibitions, high-end escape rooms) may overshadow low-tech LARP-based initiatives, despite the latter’s educational value.
Limited Pool of Experienced Facilitators
Few professionals are trained in LARP facilitation with a focus on inclusion and education, making scaling or replication dependent on rare expertise.
Custom Web Application
A dedicated web application was developed to support the LARP (Live Action Role-Playing) experience. This application likely serves multiple functions, such as providing character information, guiding the narrative flow, and facilitating participant interactions.
User Experience (UX) and Interface Design
The application's UX/UI was meticulously crafted to ensure intuitive navigation and engagement. Specific roles in UX writing and information architecture were undertaken to optimize the user journey within the digital platform.
The initiative's active participation in prominent cultural events and its alignment with contemporary educational and technological trends underscore its success and influence.
Knowledge
Skills
Attitudes
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“Teatr Ludowy spod lady. Opowie?ci z Nowej Huty” is an immersive theatrical Live Action Role-Playing (LARP) experience set in a stylized 1960s Nowa Huta. Designed for youth (12+) and adults, the project invites participants to step into the lives of fictional shopkeepers, customers, officials, and workers, all entangled in the complex socio-political atmosphere of a socialist Polish neighbourhood. This initiative is part of the broader Creative Europe–funded PlayOn! project, which supports immersive and digital storytelling practices across European theatres. The LARP experience is supported by a digital platform introducing participants to the game, the plot, the key characters, and the locations. It helps participants get prepared for the in-presence gameplay in the theatre under the actors’ guidance. Rather than observing a performance, participants become the characters, shaping the outcome of the story through real-time decisions and interpersonal dynamics. The narrative evolves based on how each individual performs their role, interacts with others, and navigates scripted objectives or ethical dilemmas. |
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Innovative and Transferable Principles
1. Role-Play as a Tool for Historical Immersion
Participants assume historically inspired roles rooted in local, working-class life in 1960s Nowa Huta. In the LARP, the audience becomes part of the action. They play characters such as shop assistants, customers, or party members, experiencing themes like censorship, solidarity, and daily life under socialism.
Transferable to: Museums, heritage sites, wishing to use re-enactment and character-driven education to make historical events more tangible and empathetic.
2. Interactive, Participant-Led Narratives
Instead of a scripted plot, the narrative unfolds based on the participants' decisions and improvisation. The storyline is open-ended, with multiple outcomes possible depending on how characters interact and resolve their internal dilemmas.
Transferable to: Any cultural or educational format seeking to prioritize agency, self-expression, and active learning—particularly effective with youth, neurodivergent individuals, and socially excluded groups.
3. Blending Theatrical and Gaming Structures
The experience borrows elements from games: role assignment, conflict resolution, time-based missions, and a “sandbox” world. Participants receive character sheets and objectives. There is no passive observation; everyone is involved in storytelling, like players in a narrative video game or tabletop RPG.
Transferable to: Cultural institutions looking to merge performative arts and gaming to build participatory learning experiences.
4. Focus on Place-Based Storytelling
Grounding the story in Nowa Huta’s socialist past connects participants to the specific socio-political context of the district. The setting (a delicatessen) is symbolic: it reflects the scarcity, ideology, and community bonds of the time.
Transferable to: Local histories and marginalised narratives that can be rediscovered and reinterpreted through performance and participation.
5. Social and Emotional Education Through Fiction
Using fictional characters and dilemmas to explore real issues—social class, power, conformity, friendship, and fear. Each character has a backstory and a personal challenge. Players experience moral and emotional conflict in a safe, fictional space.
Transferable to: cultural organisations and programmes aimed at developing empathy, emotional intelligence, and critical thinking.
6. Inclusive Design for Non-Professional Participants
The LARP is not for trained actors but everyday people—students, locals, teachers. Scenarios are written in accessible language, and facilitators help ease participants into their roles.
Transferable to: Wider community and participatory projects, especially those involving disadvantaged or less culturally engaged audiences.
The Spod Lady initiative blends immersive theatre, Live Action Role-Playing (LARP), and lightweight digital support to deliver a deeply engaging educational experience. Core elements of the methodology include:
This model is highly participatory, emotionally immersive, and adaptable to local stories or educational goals.
Though lower-tech than VR or projection-heavy projects, Spod Lady requires a creative and well-organized setup:
Core Resources:
Estimated Start-up Cost:
A low-budget version of Spod Lady can still preserve its essence using simple adaptations:
Estimated Low-Cost Implementation:
This stripped-down approach maintains the core participatory and educational goals while making it feasible for smaller communities or cultural organizations with limited funding.
