NOW PLAYING: Poe-Etique: An Immersive Experience

Elysian Valley plays home this Spooky Season to Skiptown Productions’ Poe-Etique, an immersive experience which takes elements of Edgar Allen Poe’s famous stories and draws them together in an evening long show.

Step beyond the veil and into Raven’s Manor, an elite sanctuary sealed off from the plague-ravaged world beyond. But what begins as a promise of salvation quickly spirals into a fever dream of ritual, deception, and madness. Inspired by the haunting works of Edgar Allan Poe, Poe-Etique is a fully immersive theatrical experience where guests are not just witnesses — but chosen participants.

Inside the manor, a desperate Doctor races to complete a volatile cure. A host of tormented aristocrats unravel under the weight of guilt, hallucination, and dark secrets. As guests are guided room to room, their fates entwine with cursed lovers, deranged scientists, and a masked figure known only as the Red Death. Some may be pulled into secret experiments. Others may never be seen again.

After a preview run in August and September, the production returns on Oct. 11th, with a run through November. We checked in with Writer / Director Vincenzo Carubia about the show whose tickets run from $145–225.

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

Vincenzo Carubia: Skiptown Productions presents “Poe-Etique” is a sandbox, fever-dream immersive experience with endless possibilities of what you can see, set in an 1800’s warehouse designed to be the Raven’s Manor. Everyone in the audience is a member of the Raven Society invited to the manor to escape the plague. That is until the red death appears and says the plague is already behind the walls and everyone will die. This jumps us into a race against time as a cure for the plague is launched and the characters begin their decent into madness. It is a high intensity, fully immersive, performance art pieced inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe. The audience members have a mix of free-roam, one on one interactions with characters, as well as assigned moments where they go to particular rooms. The audience becomes active participants in the storyline.

NP: What was the inspiration for your upcoming experience?

VC: When creating “Poe-Etique” I really wanted to craft and experience that contained what I loved from the Immersive Experiences I’ve visited already and add an Emotional connection to audience members which sometimes was the piece of the puzzle that was missing for me. I was heavily inspired by Sleep No More and The Willows as 2 fantastic Immersive experiences that really created that unsettling suspense while also crafting a unique and stellar storyline. I wanted to take the elements I loved from those shows and expand on them. I already knew I loved Edgar Allan Poe, and his dark macabre world of characters that are so beautifully crafted. I had recently started leasing a warehouse and was working on my script for this show for several years, but having this vast warehouse I knew I wanted big elements of dance. There are so many opportunities to pull the audience in and really play. Keeping the audience small gives more opportunities for the cast to connect with them one on one giving them that special moment or memory to take home with them. For me, the number one component was emotional connection.

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

VC: There is nothing like this in Los Angeles to this extent from what people have been saying. It’s a unique blend of immersive and narrative storytelling. There is a blend of interactive and Observational which always leaves the wall down between whats true and whats not. From what we have heard, people forgot that they were even watching anything because it started to become so real. I think the added dance element and expression as well as emotional and personal connections are what the fans will find more unique than any other immersive experience in LA.

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

VC: I discovered through designing and testing that people need to be guided and given the rules from the beginning, even if the rule is there are no rules. Otherwise people will stand back and just observe and not know how far they can go or when they can move. So we are aware of how to move our audiences now, and when we have to draw the line.

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

VC: If fans want to come to this experience and really get the most out of it or get into the mood here are some tips for this. Definitely come in costume, period piece 1800s victorian is a great place to start. Though it’s not required it’s heavily encouraged. I would also recommend going on YouTube and listening to Edgar Allan Poe’s works because you will identify the various stories peppered throughout our story and that is always exciting to see. Be open to separating from your friends and explore the story that suits you. You will have a lot to talk about watching this from different individual perspectives. Follow our instagram, start listening to spooky music before you come, old victorian orchestral music. Interact with the characters when asked.

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