COMING SOON: Undersigned

Shrouded in secrecy, Yannick Trapman-O’Brien’s Undersigned has become a cult hit amongst the immersive set on the East Coast. The production from the creator of the online hit The Telelibrary, which became more than one patron’s obsession during lockdown, is a “deeply personal and introspective psychological thriller for an audience of one.”

If that sounds like catnip to you, read on as we check in with Trapman-O’Brien about the upcoming run of the show Los Angeles this month.

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

Yannick Trapman-O’Brien: Undersigned is an unconventional kind of thriller — when people tell me it sounds too intense for their liking, I’ve taken to assuring them “there is no monster in the room but you.”

This does not always prove reassuring.

In a lot of traditional senses, this piece checks the immersive boxes; you step into a setting that surrounds you, you make choices that affect the story, you engage through multiple senses. But more for me, this piece is a really exciting opportunity to play with a quality of immersive work that I find most compelling, which is responsiveness; the feeling of being totally in conversation with the setting, of being seen and witnessed and distinctly “live” in a space. Undersigned isn’t an interactive story, so much as it is your story. Nothing moves here without you, nothing can be written without you, and the narrative is what you make of it. You don’t have to play a role, or author, or meta-game — all you have to do is arrive, and respond to what you encounter.

NP: What was the inspiration for your upcoming experience?

YTO: Undersigned actually emerged from a small something I built on a private commission in 2019. That client and I are good friends now, and I always enjoy hearing his perspective as someone who has been a big supporter and connector for the Philly performance and circus scene for a long time, but when he cold-called me 5 years ago I had no idea who he was. He said he wanted something scary and immersive for a halloween party, and was inviting a few different artists to put their spin on that, and he’d heard good things about my work, and I did I want to take part?

And I thought, “no, I don’t think so — I don’t like horror, I don’t even like the part of Return of the King where the spider is big, I’m probably not the right person.” But then he said “here’s the budget, you can do whatever you want,” and I said “horror is such an underrated genre, I really would love to explore it.” And on that phone call he asked what I had in mind and I sort of pulled a story out of thin air and said I’d like to see what would happen.

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In the end what happened was I did like 12 shows in one night, and was completely blown away by how much those 12 random partygoers took the premise and ran with it. And it was clear to me that I wanted to be doing this as much as possible — and clear to me that at the time I didn’t have the tools to meet people at the level they were ready to play. But after the first year of performing The Telelibrary, with about 700 fifty-minute one-on-ones under my belt, I felt like I had a large enough set of approaches and best practices to make another attempt — and that attempt become Undersigned.

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

YTO: I pride myself on making pieces that aim to really recognize, honor, and value what a participant offers through their engagement. A big part of that is ensuring Care leads the way, both in design and facilitation. Another is ensuring that choices are meaningful, and the co-authorship real; I don’t offer choices I don’t welcome people to make, and I’m very intentional about what I promise.

But another way to respect a participant is to invite them to take their stories seriously. I wanted to build a place where people can tell heavy, powerful stories that matter. That’s a big task for me, and a big ask for the people who show up. It’s no coincidence that the payment system for Undersigned takes the form of a gamble — we ask participants to make a “down payment,” but we know that their money is only the tip of the iceberg on their risk. There’s also the time you’re investing in showing up, in getting there — that evening of your life that could have been something else. And maybe even greater, there’s the faith; choosing to believe any immersive experience could all be worth it, coming through for an experience that is undefined and unknown. Yes, maybe your friends told you “it’s great, you have to see it.” but with Undersigned, your friends won’t be there. You are alone, and the story you make rests entirely on how you choose to show up.

I happen to think those are big stakes, and as a show of faith, I wanted to share that risk with the participant. So when you come to an appointment with us, we place 30% of what you paid in an envelope with your name on it, with the promise that when the show is done, we’ll leave you alone in a room with that envelope, and let you adjust the contents up or down until they reflect what the show was worth to you.

On some level, I think every piece of art dares you to care, and to think that your experience of that art could matter — at the very least, I know the pieces of art I love do. I hope fans of immersive will get excited by the chance to make that gamble literal, and will come out swinging. Because after making this offer more than 200 times now, I can say if there’s one thing that’s a safe bet, it’s this: however hard you’re willing to hit Undersigned, it’s ready to hit you right back.

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

YTO: As I mentioned before, the first discovery was just how deep participants had the potential to go if they wanted to (and just how often they were ready to build a story that really matters). But the process of taking the tools and learnings from Telelibrary to make something entirely different was also very much an unexpected journey-mainly because it’s really challenged me as a creator and performer in terms of how I think about the balance of comfort and care.

The Telelibrary has a deep coziness at its center — a recommendation to get cozy is basically one of only two instructions participants receive before that piece, with the other being a phone number. And historically, I’ve always been inclined to think of discomfort as a kind of “expense” — which is to say, a participant is only willing to experience x amount of discomfort in exchange for y amount of gain or positive experience, so “spend” that discomfort wisely. But as I started putting in reps co-authoring the kinds of stories Undersigned invites, I began to reexamine that framework, and think more about whether or not a given discomfort is “functional” or just negligent; is this part of the experience hard because we haven’t removed an obstacle to participation, or because the participant is undertaking something challenging or difficult, which they can surmount, or survive? People have a right to upset themselves; participants have a right to write sad stories if they want to. I’ve really had to deepen my understanding of the difference between supporting someone by sitting alongside them and their discomfort versus protecting people from risks they want to take.

I’ve consulted with so many people in so many fields to keep building a better container for this piece — it’s one of my favorite things about this work; you go in asking a simple question, and you come out with a bunch of reading on aftercare and how to make your own candles.

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

YTO: I feel really good about the work we’ve done on the onboarding for this piece. My favorite experiences in work and in my personal life are those in which I can show up ready to not be ready, and that’s enough — I strive to offer that to my participants, and the precious few things you need to know you have multiple chances to catch.

But if someone wanted to have the best possible experience of Undersigned, I’d advise them to look up a nice, wholesome activity in the vicinity of their appointment — maybe a cute cafe, or a matinee at a cinema nearby. I’d say make a plan for the alternate version of what to do that day, research it so well that you could convince even the people who know you best that this harmless little daytrip was all you did. And once you have the perfect alibi, come out and do Undersigned instead, and never tell a soul.

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