This One's Optimistic
An overdue post that finally updates you on upcoming immersive
Sorry for the delay, immersonauts. Those of you who have seen me recently know I’ve been dealing with some family health stuff that has sucked up all of my spare time for a while. I’ve still been doing immersive stuff, but not so much writing. I’m going to try to use this post to get back to the intended cadence of at least once-a-month and ideally every couple of weeks, but your patience is requested as I navigate the health care system. That too is something I’m going to write about at some point.
Enough of that stuff. On to the immersive. There are some things to look forward to that I’m posting here. Given how long this would be, I’m going to follow this up in a few days with my back catalog of reviews. I will tell you right now that The Listening was not good; you’ll know more when I post my review, but there’s a reason it’s not in the Upcoming list below.
In terms of stuff for the future though, I will be in Los Angeles at the beginning of May for the Immersive Invitational. It’s a collaboration of After Hours Theatre Company and The Immersive Experience Institute (sister organization to NoPro) in which a handful of curated immersive creators do a 48 hour jam and show off their material. This is previously produced some pretty acclaimed work, so I’m looking forward to seeing the ensemble. If you’re going to be in the area, you should too. I’m also looking forward to catching some more immersive in my brief stay, so share if there’s something I shouldn’t miss.
And there was an immersive meetup in NYC on March 17! Hosted at Brooklyn Art Haus by the aforementioned Immersive Experience Institute, it was a chance for the immersive community of NYC to reintroduce itself, hang out, share news, and generally be the very charming, very fun people we are. I have strong feelings that there will be more of these in the coming months and I will be certain to spread the word as it becomes open to the public.
Alright, on to the stuff you can see, with thanks again for your patience as you wait to hear what I’ve vicariously experienced for you.
Upcoming Immersive
Off the Record: Acts of Restorative Justice - An examination of the American Criminal Justice System in which one woman decides to question the game itself, enlisting the audience to help her fight against the forces of capital. I’m sympathetic to the theme and it’s at HERE Art Center, where I’ve seen interesting political work previously. Also, it’s by James Scruggs, a play maker with some good interactive pedigree. I’m seeing it this Friday the 10th. Runs until April 19th, $31.50
Music in the Crypt - Friend of the show Alex brought this one to my attention — call outs always welcome here. St. John the Divine regularly puts on some interesting performance events, and now they are throwing their hat into the music-in-a-mausoleum format with this new string quartet performance in their very own crypts. It’s pricey, but not crazy for this kind of music, and I’m curious about what St. John the Divine is going to try with immersive work, so I’m seeing it. It’s only up April 10th and 11th, $100.
Anotherland - Hendrick’s Gin is hosting a 90-minute immersive multi-room experience of roving performers and interactive discoveries. I have to say that I’ve found these brand experiences to be of high quality generally, so even though I’m straight-edged, I’m interested in checking this out just to see what they do. Tickets are going fast (it’s free), so act quickly if you’re curious. April 18th and 19th at various points through the day and night.
Motion Picture House - So maybe you heard that Radiohead did a virtual experience to commemorate the release of Kid A Mnesia. Well, they are now bringing it into a real-world immersive space. It’s a 75 minute Radiohead environmental audio-visual experience — what more would any immersonaut want? It launches at Coachella and comes to NYC May 6th to May 31st, as well as other cities after. You can’t buy tickets yet, but you can pre-register to get access to buy them at the link above until Sunday April 12th. Don’t sleep on it — this is really happenin’.
Theaterlab Festival TBD - Theaterlab, a venue which regularly hosts really interesting small immersive content, is working on a festival of small works featuring a number of emergent creators — a collection of five small shows that you can catch on multiple nights. (Full disclosure: I’m helping to organize this, although none of my work is in it.) I’ll provide more details as it’s made public, but it’s going to run at the end of May and the true immersonauts out there will recognize at least one of these performers. Be ready to stop by Theaterlab in a little over a month.
Keep in mind you can also still catch a few older things: a top-shelf, Broadway musical immersive with Masquerade and less expensive white-magic, ritual narrative with The Haven. Both of them are interesting and quite good, with Masquerade being well-nigh ummissable.
And one of the announcements of Immersive Meet-Up was that a NYC version of the Immersive Invitational will be coming later this year. The rest of the details aren’t public yet, but rest assured I will get them to you as soon as I have them.
Alright, that’s your quick hit while I tidy up my reviews. Larger post soon with the praise and snark you’ve come to expect.