Caroline Murphy– or Caro (CARE-oh) for short– is a game and interactive experience designer. Caro works for Disney Live Entertainment as an Immersive Experience Director for the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser. They are co-Executive Director of the the Playable Theatre Company, a nonprofit that supports interdisciplinary creators who are engaged in designing, producing and disseminating interactive live performative works.
Prior to relocating to Orlando in 2021, they taught game design and the business of games at Northeastern University for both the undergraduate and graduate programs for 5 years, as well as game design courses at MIT and Harvard.
Caro is a co-founder BostonFIG, a non-profit organization that dedicates itself to cultivating the next generation of game creators, where they served as Executive Director for nearly a decade, guiding the volunteer organization’s growth and sustainment. In 2019 they received Playcrafting’s Rising Pixel Award for industry leadership in the games community.
They create independent playable works in their role as Chief Creative Officer of Incantrix Productions, an interactive theatre company, and continue to produce independent interactive work in collaboration with many different writers and designers across the U.S. and around the globe. Caro has done freelance narrative design for a number of larping and interactive theater companies across the U.S., including Sinking Ship Creations, Jackalope Live Action Studios, Hanging Lantern Studios, and more.
They act in many immersive productions as well, including works by Green Door Labs, Mirror World Creations, Reverie Studios and others. They received an Ensemble Award from No Proscenium for voice acting in the 2021 Club Drosselmeyer 1944 production. They are cast on the popular Fast Times at D&D High actual-play podcast, and have voice acted for Earplay’s interactive audio games including Mr. Robot: Daily Five/Nine, Wraith:The Oblivion-The Orpheus Device, Codename: Cygnus, and Office Hours.
They write nonfiction and fiction works, and are releasing their first full-length urban fantasy-adventure novel, The Chronicles of Alastair Violette and Lilith: The Book of Man, co-written with Elise Nguyen, in 2022. You can see more of their writing on the Playable Theatre Blog as well as this website under the tag “Writing“.
On the business side, Caro has been helping game and tech companies succeed and grow for over a decade with their expertise in marketing, business development, and strategy. They received their MBA from Babson in 2011 and spent many years in tech as a leader with a track record of success at companies like Kinvey (now Progress Software), Intrepid (now Accenture Interactive), and Cybereason. A systems thinker with a storyteller’s mindset, Caro possesses the rare ability to both think big picture and to execute on detailed work.
Caro is also a proud part of the LGBTQIA+ community, and can offer insight and consulting around language and terminology education, and corporate training for allyship in the workplace. They help to lead a LGBTQIA+ affinity group with their Sangha, the Greater Boston Zen Center, and worked with the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization to bring meaningful social justice legislative changes to fruition in Massachusetts. They also now volunteer for Orlando Come Out with Pride.