A large assault weapon picks off an enemy in the distance, a familiar visual for any fan of first-person shooters. But the audible bang of the weapon isn't the only sound being heard. A narrator orients the audience: "I—Ismenus, Niobe's oldest son—was guiding my horse's reins when an arrow planted itself in my chest."

Huh? Perhaps a line from Greek mythology about Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, isn't the commentary or soundtrack you'd find paired to your run-of-the-mill FPS even in the most avant-garde of Twitch chats. At Pierrepont School in Westport Connecticut, that's precisely the point. Members of EK Theater (who double as students at Pierrepont) are busy preparing for their forth-coming adaptation of Osiris, a classic Egyptian story. And rather than mulling over costumes and traditional stage direction, these thespians worry about selecting a virtual gaming stage and programming the choreography.

It's all part of a little-known theater genre known as Machinima Theater (a live-theater format inspired by the Machinima concept employed by game and filmmakers). Invented by Pierrepont instructor Eddie Kim in 2007 for a theater festival that challenged entrants to limit physical space, Machinima Theater utilizes traditional theater texts as live voiceover for visuals that students dream up within their preferred video game world. After debuting their new genre, EK Theater has been performing its productions in professional theaters, at conferences, and at schools around Connecticut ever since.

“We’re telling stories using video game characters as puppets,” Kim told Ars. And this means Machinima Theater exists at the intersection of cultures: ancient and modern, highbrow and popular, digital and physical. Maybe Tennessee Williams could be set to Assassin's Creed; Shakespeare may prove more interesting with Mirror's Edge. EK Theater has already put on combinations like Ovid's Metamorphoses to Halo: Reach or Romeo and Juliet to World of Warcraft.

Kim recently invited Ars to sit in on an early rehearsal for Pierrepont's latest production. Rather than interviewing prospective actors, the group was in the thick of auditioning video games that might be suitable for the plot points of this particular narrative. They debated which format (PC, Xbox One, PS4, etc.) best provided their desired aesthetic and joked about blocking that may too closely resemble the film Titanic. In all, the group obviously approached its craft with a high level of seriousness, but they managed to keep things loose and display camaraderie much like what you'd find among their more traditional high school theater peers. The outputs are drastically different, but a lot of the behind-the-scenes work feels the same.

"It was sort of intimidating at first, being in the theater," said Connor Sedlacek, one of the first students Kim recruited to do a performance outside the school. "But for me the big juxtaposition is the ancient and modern—one is super old while the other is very of our time."

One of EK Theater's next performances will be the Ovid/Halo mash-up mentioned above on January 28 in Westport, Connecticut. If any fans of the stage want to check out the group but won't be in the area, EK Theater hosts video from many of their performances online... and they were kind enough to let us provide the behind-the-scenes glimpse above.

Listing image by Nathan Fitch