This play was produced by KIT Theatre, multi- media house Urbi et Orbi and theatre group Urban Myth to give children of African descent insight in their history. Live music, actors and animation are used to tell the remarkable story of Jalaani, an otherwise ordinary Dutch boy. Through an old rusty lock that is given to him for his 10th birthday, Jalaani gets sucked into a computer game that teaches him about the path of his ancestors.
The animations that are used to tell part of this story are projected on a big screen in the center of the stage. As the actors' performance and animations are sometimes densely interdependent, it was important to find an interface that allowed the actors to have control over the timing of the animations. In this theatrical setting it was essential that this solution be both robust and inconspicuous. A combination of a wireless game-controller and custom software turned out to be a perfect fit for this particular situation. The game-controller fitted nicely as a prop into the setting of this story, was easy to use and proved reliable. Because there was an opportunity to work closely with both animators and actors, it was relatively painless to quickly implement any script changes in the software.
Jalaani and the Lock was performed in several theaters all over Holland and even made a trip to Surinam in 2004 for performances in Paramaribo. The play provoked an enthusiastic response of its audiences everywhere. The flawless operation of the hard/software solution made at least a small contribution to this success.