COMING SOON: Reunion ’85

The Class of ’85 is having its reunion, and everyone is expecting to see you there.

Reunion ’85 is coming to Dallas this month: an interactive concert experience that sets you up as one of the members of the class, with improv actors keeping up the illusion. The show plays for five nights — Oct. 23rd — 26th — at the AT&T Performing Arts Center Wyly Theatre.

Matthew Schneider, producer of the show, tells us what to expect, and how an unexpected wig incident changed the way the creative team thought about what the audience wants out of an interactive reunion show.

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NO PROSCENIUM: Tell us a little bit about your experience! What’s it about? What makes it immersive?

Matthew Schneider: Our Reunion ’85 audiences are transformed into “alumni”: they become members of the Class of 1985 attending their own high school reunion. The show is an interactive musical concert hosted by improv comics in an immersive reunion setting. Basically, it’s a big, fun, nostalgic party!

Fans of immersive can grab a name tag and build an identity for the evening, and some “spotlight” guests are incorporated into the show through fun, easy, and uplifting interactions. Wallflowers can choose to sit back and enjoy the music: our bodacious band rocks out on beloved, chart-topping tunes of the 80s including Madonna, Bon Jovi, Whitney Houston, Cyndi Lauper, and more. We open the time capsule, play games, laugh our butts off, and we have a bitchin’ good time!

NP: What was the inspiration for your upcoming experience?

MS: Over ten years ago, with no prior knowledge of the immersive industry, an award-winning music director/arranger/orchestrator named Susan Draus conceived of Reunion ’85 simply because she thought it would be a ton of fun.

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Since then, we’ve realized how powerful fun can be: human beings are intensely social creatures with a desperate need to belong and to connect — but modern life deprives us of it. We’re starved for it. Our show unites guests, through the power of play and the power of nostalgia, in an uplifting experience of social interaction and human connection. It is silly, big, fun party — but underneath, it is quietly fulfilling this profound human need.

NP: What do you think fans of immersive will find most interesting about this latest experience?

MS: Onboarding! Our attempts at onboarding our guests were lackluster. We asked the brilliant Andy Crocker (of Mister & Mischief) to rethink everything and she has designed a brand new, fun, compelling, and successful onboarding process for us. We can’t wait to try it out.

NP: Once you started designing and testing what did you discover about this experience that was unexpected?

MS: We were unprepared for how fully audiences embrace interaction, once they have permission. We used giant 80s wigs as centerpieces on tables in our first production, and the moment the dance party started, guests ripped the wigs off the table so they could wear them on the dance floor — and why wouldn’t they?!? We were unprepared for that…and the wigs still had pins in them!

NP: What can fans who are coming to this, or thinking about coming to this, do to get into the mood of the experience?

MS: Get your look ready! Find your neon scrunchies. Wash your leg warmers and scrunchy socks. Velcro in your shoulder pads. Dust off your Members Only jacket. Crack open a cold can of Tab and buy a ticket!

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