Russian Theatre

Russian Theatre
Game:	LittleBigPlanet

Russian Theatre was a cut theme intended for the original LittleBigPlanet. Intended as a secondary Russian theme to the Wilderness, Russian Theatre was designed around traditional Russian circus culture from the 20th century.

History

During development for LittleBigPlanet, much of the story mode's design structure was based around having two or more themes per country. This could be seen in multiple cases of cut content, such as the Seaside for England, American Mid-West Train for the United States, Japanese Akihabara District for Japan, and Russian Theatre for Russia. Like the other three cut themes, Russian Theatre had extensive development progress in terms of assets, including two unique outfits (Alfonzo and Red), an interactive music track, and a background. At some point in early to mid 2008, Russian Theatre was cut, with most of its assets redistributed across LittleBigPlanet's story mode. As its name suggests, Russian Theatre was designed around circus and theatre culture in Russia, particularly in the 20th century. Based on concept art designed for the theme, many gameplay elements would be based on circus acts and games. Its background reflects this, taking place on a large stage decorated with various backdrop set pieces.

Like other cut themes, Russian Theatre had certain assets redistributed or repackaged. Unlike the Seaside, American Mid-West Train, and Japanese Akihabara District, which all had their interactive tracks sold in the Mm Music Pack 1 DLC under different track titles, Russian Theatre's theme was repurposed for the Monster Kit, with its track being renamed to Party Ghouls. Russian Theatre's background went unused but was planned to be one of multiple backgrounds reused in Studio Liverpool's unreleased Playstation Portable project, developed adjacently to LittleBigPlanet.