Connectivity: Grand Theft Hamlet

In Grand Theft Hamlet (2024) , actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen find themselves out of work when theaters shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic. Uncertain about their futures, they turn to the virtual space of Grand Theft Auto Online, embarking on the improbable project of casting and producing a live staging of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet within the game’s chaotic landscape. Directed by Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls, the documentary is comprised entirely of in-game footage, with all of the subjects depicted by their online avatars. The film chronicles the challenges of mounting theater in an unconventional space—from scouting locations and coordinating auditions with players around the globe to navigating rehearsal conflicts—while also capturing unexpected moments of connection during a period of global isolation. Both a celebration of the creative possibilities shared by theater, video games, and cinema, and a poignant reflection on the artistic process, Grand Theft Hamlet explores the enduring human need for connection through art. The film received widespread critical acclaim, winning the SXSW Jury Award, a Grierson Award, and two British Independent Film Awards. Please note: This event did not feature a screening of the documentary. The format for this event was a live discussion between filmmakers Sam Crane and Pinny Grylls, and moderator Miguel Penabella (Carsey-Wolf Center, UCSB) . They discussed the making of Grand Theft Hamlet, and the process of casting, producing, rehearsing, and staging a live production of Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto Online. This event was presented in conjunction with the UCSB Library exhibition Infinite Variety: The Many Lives of Shakespeare’s Texts. Sam Crane is an award-winning actor, filmmaker, and researcher. With his partner Pinny Grylls, he runs Project 1961, a creative studio working at the intersection of cinema, live performance, and video games. They are currently developing the hybrid IRL/video game performance Sound & Fury, and the documentary Non-Playable Character, which explores identity and agency within virtual worlds. A seasoned stage actor, Sam has starred in many West End and Broadway productions, including Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and 1984. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of York. Through autoethnographic practice, he investigates how the presence of a live performer is mediated and transformed within digital gamespaces. British filmmaker Pinny Grylls is BAFTA Breakthrough Artist and BFI Chanel Award winner for her debut feature Grand Theft Hamlet. As a filmmaker, she works across documentary, theatre, and ethnography, and is known for formally adventurous work that finds new ways to film performance and human connection. With nearly two decades in the industry, her films have screened internationally and received major awards. Her first short film, Peter and Ben, won awards at Aspen, LSFF, and SXSW, and she has directed for Channel 4, The Guardian, and the BBC. She lost her hearing later in 2016 and is now a proud member of the deaf community and is a British Sign Language user. Miguel Penabella is Assistant Director of the Carsey-Wolf Center and a PhD candidate in Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He writes as a freelance videogame critic, with bylines in Playboy, Vice, Kill Screen, and Unwinnable, among others. He is a former editor and monthly columnist for Haywire Magazine and was named “Blogger of the Year” by Critical Distance in 2017. At UCSB, he taught the Experimental Games course as part of the campus’s Creative Computing Initiative and was co-organizer of Parameters of Play, a research focus group on videogames. This event is sponsored by the Carsey-Wolf Center. Presented in conjunction with the UCSB Library exhibition Infinite Variety: The Many Lives of Shakespeare’s Texts. The Carsey-Wolf Center’s 2025-26 feature series Connectivity examines the evolving meaning of connection in our contemporary moment. While the term “connectivity” often invokes our ever-increasing entanglement with digital infrastructure and social media networks, this series reimagines the term not only as a technical feature of media, but as a humanistic value and a condition of social and public life. This series embraces connectivity as a framework for thinking critically about the ways in which people use media to connect with ideas and with one another, from the shared experience of moviegoing to the collective bonds forged through storytelling and public dialogue. The Carsey-Wolf Center is committed to screening documentaries from across the world that engage with contemporary and historical issues, especially regarding social justice and environmental concerns. Documentaries allow filmmakers to address pressing issues and frame the critical debates of our time.