Matt Apfel, the director of augmented reality and virtual reality content at Google, said there was a “sizable void when it came to arts and culture and V.R.,” so when Mr. Maler, who does consulting for Google, pitched the idea, Mr. Apfel and his team were intrigued.

The possibilities of using “Hamlet 360” as an educational tool were also exciting, Mr. Maler said. One of his central goals for the project was to bring this Hamlet into classrooms and schools, where performances of Shakespeare are common, but professional-caliber productions are not.

“Many young people’s first experience of Shakespeare is not all that great,” he said. “This is a way to put into the classroom an extraordinary experience of this play, and give teachers another tool to bring the material to life.”

Although you watch it on a screen, “Hamlet 360” feels in many ways more like theater than cinema. The takes, for example, are extremely long — the “get thee to a nunnery” scene lasts nearly 10 minutes and is composed of only two shots. Matthew Niederhauser, a technical director and cinematographer on the project, said that quick takes can be hard to watch in V.R. because viewers have to reorient themselves every time the camera moves.

To capture the action, a camera called the Yi Halo 360, lent by Google, was planted in one spot and the actors moved around it, aiming for the sweet spot of its focal depth, about three to eight feet away. The Halo is made up of 17 cameras, one pointed up and the rest fanned around in the shape of a wreath.