Hi there, everyone. Do you notice a new font, new layout, some new car feeling in this email? You’re not wrong. What’s happened is that I’ve decided to move this list over to Substack. Two main reasons why. First, I realized that typical to my sloppy documentation of my practice, I wasn’t archiving anything, and that’s not good, so I figured I should at least move this where I can keep track of things. Second, there’s always a landmine of me forgetting to put everyone in BCC as long as I’m doing this by email and the stress of that has become too much to bear.
And so, here we are, on Substack. I’m calling this Immersed in NYC — it’s succinct and true in my case as a die-hard NYer. Otherwise, it’s the same - a free list of my DIY listings and reviews for you to check out and join if you feel so inclined. The other nice thing is that Substack makes it really easy for you to share this if you want your friends to see it without the awkward step of asking me about it, so feel free to share.
Ok, on to the stuff. I have three buckets today: upcoming immersive, upcoming concerts (a few this time), and a few loose reviews. Stay for what you’re interested in:
Upcoming Immersive Shows
This is the buzzy show in NYC right now, a combination circus and musical performance that’s some re-imagining of the Bluebeard myth. Lots of hype on this one, which means nothing, but the bit I’ve seen looks interesting to me. I’m catching it on February 16th. If you’re interested, it’s at The Cell in Chelsea and it’s $75 for the base ticket.
Casting is a pretty famous small work in immersive from the LA scene that’s coming to New York for a short run. It’s Koryn Wicks’s short surreal piece about getting an audition for a dream role. It’s for an audience of 12 and it’s only running from March 15th to 17th, so this will be tight. Tickets aren’t up for general public yet, but if you back No Pro (see the footer), you can get access to the pre-sale. I’m seeing it on March 16th.
This is a light installation show that’s housed at Rockefeller Square. I’ve been to a few of these things and they tend to be very shallow, but I’m curious to see if they do anything interesting with the technology. There’s an off-chance that I can get a free ticket, but if not, I’m looking to go on an off-time weekday to get the $36 price rather than the $41. If you’re up for this kind of suffering, let me know. It looks like it ends this month.
Billed as a show that “transforms the museum experience,” artist Roy Nachum has designed 15 installations that “redefine the relationship between art and technology.” None of those words give me confidence, and $52 is lot for something like this, but Nachum does seem to be a legit artist, so I’m going to perhaps foolishly hold out hope this isn’t a pretentiously presented Instagram museum. A buddy for this one would be great. Just let me know.
From the always slightly-reckless brilliantly-fun crew of Shadow Traffic, this is a pun-laden outdoor-food-prep costume fest. I’ve never done this one personally, but I’m a long time fan of their Lost Horizon Night Market and I have a team this year, so it’s go. Event is on March 2nd (rain date: March 9th) at McGorlick Park in Brooklyn. Come and see the crazy.
There are a few other things I’m still considering, such as Ask Roulette at Caveat and Hi My Name Is… on March 5th. If either of those grab you, let me know and I’ll consider them harder.
Upcoming Concerts
A lot in March and May for some reason.
Sleater-Kenney, March 14th, Brooklyn Steel - Is 2024 too late to see Sleater-Kenney? I don’t know. Having never seen them before, I feel like this is an outstanding merit badge I need to claim. You have to go to resellers at this point, but you knew that already.
Cherry Glazerr, March 16th, Music Hall of Williamsburg - If you like emotionally raw punk music, Cherry Glazerr delivers. The new album is good and I can vouch that the shows are solid, having seen the last one.
Dry Cleaning, March 26th, Bowery Ballroom - I am just going to keep plugging this one. They are exactly what you expect listening to the recordings, except harder in the best possible way. They are also playing on March 25th.
Feeble Little Horse, May 3rd, Racket - Always ready for the dissonant noise rock. This is one of those that has a shot of being incredible if they can truly pull it off live.
Mannequin Pussy, May 16th, Brooklyn Steel - New album is better than the last one, if you are into angry pop-punk the way I am.
Camera Obscura, June 20th, Webster Hall- One of my favorite bands of all time, with new music after about a decade. Very happy this is happening.
Quick Reviews
Someone asked if I could cross-link my No Pro reviews here, so get ready for that below. I’ll give you a tl;dr version before the link in case an additional 400 words about one piece is in fact too long.
The Nose — This was an immersive show based on the Gogol short story about the functionary’s nose leaving his face and becoming a successful and controversial public rival. The performance got the story and tone right; the plot and acting had an appropriate level of absurdity and silliness and the action was compelling. However, the advertising of the show told you that you would get a flashlight and that you would explore the space for clues and that failed entirely. The space wasn’t really dark and there were basically six things to explore before you exhausted them, and in later scenes the actors would eventually find and use anything you could have found anyway. After about ten minutes, you realized there was nothing to find and then just waited for actors to show up. When you sell your show as interactive, that’s a pretty big issue. So mixed bag, good job with narrative and performance, bad job with space and audience participation.
Fantastical Fellowship - A very playful and silly take on RPGs, the Fantastical Fellowship is a play where the actors occasionally poll the audience (which is cast as ancestor spirits) to determine the direction of the story. I’m not going to bother to explain the plot — it’s essentially a vehicle for in-jokes about different fantasy games and roleplaying conventions — but everyone gives it their all in a clownish way and it generally lands. The interactions range from voting between options to free improvising plot elements, and the cast does a great job rolling with the punches and holding it together. Nothing profound is happening here, but the piece does a great job including the audience and getting laughs.
Esther’s Revenge - A true story from Nigeria, Esther’s Revenge casts the audience as a jury hearing the story of Esther, a local accused of murdering a white businessman. The monologue performance is powerful and the storytelling is compelling, but the interactions of the jury have no structure and so the end of the work loses all of its power as the audience disintegrates into groundless and facile debate. You can see my fuller review here.
The First Bad Man - A play set as a book club where four actors talk about and then loosely re-enact the Miranda July novel of the same name. It wasn’t immersive really; you sit in the round and in the first beat the cast asks your name, but the interaction stops there. As an absurd play, I liked it. The company, Pan-Pan, understood the off-putting surrealism of the novel and created an interestingly stilted and ambivalent take on it. It’s just that all the immersive stuff was pointless. They would have had a better piece if they just staged it traditionally.
The Eagle and the Tortoise - A fascinating mixed media play exploring the different perspectives in colonialism focusing on the Kurdish people of Turkey and a particular story of a young revolutionary. You alternate between reading between a handmade book quietly at your seat and watching videos and live-camera work on a screen in front of you. The simple interaction of reading and manipulating a book do a wonderful job of reinforcing the themes and the whole thing ties together into a powerful meditation on war and politics. Check it out if it ever plays where you are. You can see my fuller review here.
That’s all for now. Feel free to email me if you’re interested in any of the above and want to coordinate. And now that I’m all official, you can easily unsubscribe or invite others to subscribe using the fancy buttons and website.