Three Reviews; One More Event
Hi there, everyone. As promised, I’ve got a a couple of reviews to push and one more event to recommend. Also, I’m going to lock down dates for a couple of the things I mentioned already, so this is your chance to get on board if you’re interested.
If you’ve been on the list for a while, you might be noticing a higher volume of emails. That’s not your imagination; all of my NoPro colleagues have been commenting on how much immersive seems to be coming back strongly. So this list is probably going from a once a month cadence to a once every two weeks or so. Hope that’s okay. Unsubscribe if not.
And now that I’ve got a pay gate set up, feel free to forward this list to anyone you think is interested. As I mentioned, all of the reviews and upcomings will remain free, so all I need to control the list for is tickets. When I have a second, I’ll come up with a logo and start pushing this to social media like a good proto-influencer.
Anyway, on to the reviews. Be sure to stay for the new event in the second section.
Reviews
I’m very happy to say that you can still see the first two if you want to, so seize the day.
Vicky Archives - Here is my NoPro review, as I told you before, it’s worth seeing at the price for sure.
Exagoge - Again, my longer review here, but the summary is the theater group is doing interesting stuff with mixing opera and puppets and seder, but the core story isn’t as experimental and the piece ends up not hitting its smart theme as well as it could. I can’t wholeheartedly recommend this one, but the company is good and it’s got a number of good parts, so if the idea of a meditation on Jewish history and community in an interactive form intrigues you, I would try to catch it before it closes on Sunday the 12th.
I Do Adore You - An interesting experiment in interactive theater over the phone. In it, creator Parker Sala meditates on and reads some historic love letters and then walks you through a love letter (which could be platonic, romantic, familial, or religious) that you might write yourself. It was clearly an early test to get the kinks out, but what I liked was having a meditation on exposing feelings while seeing really interesting examples of that practice in history. The piece needs editing, but I would keep an eye out for it in its next iteration.
Upcoming Events
Wonderland Nights - You might recall that I mentioned Thistle Dance was going to move their dance piece Poison and Pearls to a new location. I can now announce what that is — three nights of immersive dance in the New York Botanical Gardens as part of the Garden’s Wonderland: Curious Nature show. A ticket to this is entry to the Gardens plus $29 if you’re a member or plus $39 if you’re not. I really liked what Thistle did in the original piece and it’s in the Botanical Garden FFS — this is worth checking out for sure. We’re going on June 1st, but it runs the next two Saturdays as well.
Inside Light - This is Park Avenue Armory immersive light and music show based on excerpts from Stockhausen’s 29-hour opera cycle, Licht. We decided we’re going to see the marathon of both performances on June 14th for a 5-hour block of operatic immersive overload, because that’s what you do as a researcher, I guess. (There is an hour dinner break in the middle, and it’s $25 cheaper as a marathon ticket.) It’s first come first serve seating, so if you want comrades at arms for this, just let me know you’re going and we’ll coordinate.
Cycult - Are you still on the fence about joining a bike-riding, challenge-solving, cult-parody quasi-race? This is your last chance. We’re a team of 3 or 4 at this point, and we’ll lock it down by Monday, but you could also do your own cult and compete against us, I suppose. It’s on June 8th and runs at night. Not much more detail at this time, but it’s supposed to end by 2:30am.
Still figuring out Convergent Waves. The rest of the things I’m seeing in the near future you can find here. As always, write with comments, tips on shows, or scheduling ideas. Summer is coming and in NY, that means buckle in for news about way more cool things than you could ever do.