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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Alysia Judge

All the (open) world’s a stage: how the video game Fallout became a backdrop for live Shakespeare shows

Bottom and Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, as performed in Fallout 76
A most rare vision … Bottom and Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream, as performed in Fallout 76 Photograph: Bethesda/Wasteland Theatre Company

One crisp spring evening, the Wasteland Theatre Company gathered to rehearse Romeo and Juliet. Jonathan “Bram” Thomas was playing Romeo. A self-confessed Shakespeare geek, he’d graduated with a BA in theatre, and this wasn’t his first time playing one half of the star-crossed lovers. But it was the first time a mutant scorpion the size of a Jeep had rampaged on to his stage.

Panicking, the show’s crew rained bullets down on its blackened shell, but not before Juliet fell to its sting. A poison death, certainly – just not one the Bard ever dreamed of writing.

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