Review Rundown: Coast to Coast Across the Immersive Spectrum
A broad mix of experiences in Miami, NYC, Philly, LA and SF. (SEVEN REVIEWS)


Some weeks have a theme and some weeks… well some weeks are just a bit of everything. That’s this week. Five cities, seven reviews. Everything from large scale haunts to LARPs, intimate stories to raucous interactive game shows.
Last week’s Rundown, The One With Things That Go Bump & Buzz In The Night? WHY IT’S RIGHT BEHIND YOU!
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The Blues Opera — Juggerknot Theatre Company
From $85.00; Miami, FL; Through 30 October, 2022
The Blues Opera is a deeply personal show. Miami’s Eric Garcia — also known as Uncle Scotchy — is the lead and sole actor of the performance, and his presence is deeply arresting, the space he inhabits comfortable and intimate. Garcia does an incredible job immediately smoothing over any instinctual awkwardness — that human desire to pull back rather than experience vulnerability, even secondhand — and pulls the audience into the events of his life without ever cajoling or admonishing.
The set design of The Blues Opera is smooth, curated without ever feeling like it. Natural. I walk into a room covered in soft pastels, A/C-cooled tile — the kind that sucks the heat out of your feet at the end of a long day, and wakes you up in the morning. Breathe in, that smell that says “an old woman lived and was loved here”, that comforting melange of Coty’s Airspun and blankets that were knitted before the Kennedy assassination. Our storyteller gazes up at the ceiling, reduced to a kid in this representation of his mom’s old bed, and tells us about her in a space that makes me forget (so easily) that this is a set, that this heightened reality can’t really be the place where these memories were made.
But it’s hard to convince myself of that, just now. I’m a hometown boy, and I can’t stop thinking about my own grandma’s house, those viejita-adored pastels. The timing of every cue is so natural, the story ends just as you smell coffee brewing in the kitchen. You’re a guest in a Cuban-American household, of course there’s coffee.
This use of space, this duplex with a thousand lookalikes, is stunning throughout. It’s a place with real history overlaid with the story being told. There’s a sheet of paper with painted palm-leaf prints on it, a common Miami preschool art project. The architectural oddities and not-strictly-up-to-code features of the place blend with honest-to-god hidden compartments and dramatic secrets. Soft lights and a touch of fog blur the real and the artificial.
Uncle Scotchy talks us through experiences we all have our versions of, our own little tragedies, etched into the foundations of houses just like this. We relate to him, we feel for him, and our hearts beat in time with his kick-drum as he sings us a blues song, a next-door-neighbor and figure of folklore both, bathed in neon and wrapped in palm leaves.
— Nicholas Krug, Miami Correspondent

Halloween Nights — Eastern State Penitentiary
$34–74; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; through Nov. 12
In last year’s review, I said that there was no winning for Eastern State in revising their Halloween event to balance chills with good taste. This year though, with edges smoothed, the event seems to have found solid footing once again. Adding an optional “high intensity” necklace to the mazes means that thrill seekers can chase the ghoulish delights of Terror Behind the Walls, but the context can be the far more tasteful, carnival-like experience of Halloween Nights.
Favorite mazes from last year Machine Shop and Delirium are enhanced on the optional high intensity route, with additional scenes, branching paths, and added interaction. New mazes Nightmares and Big Top Terror double down on interaction though, staggering attendees to allow for thrilling scenes that are the equivalent of one-on-ones. Highlights of the night included skittering through a seemingly endless cell block alone as a ghoul on rollerblades glided behind me silently, ready to scream if I turned around, and being pulled on stage to “volunteer” for a deadly knife throwing act. The interaction makes the mazes feel cinematic and personal. Only one maze, The Crypt, felt confusing and unfocused.
Non-maze attractions like the dancing “Skeleton Crew” (yuk yuk yuk), S’mores and Lore campfire storytelling, and the Kaleidoscope Hall lights show are similarly improved to the mazes. Last year’s standout, The Speakeasy at Al Capone’s Cell was the same as last year, but now also serves as a template for the smaller scale vampire themed Bloodline Lounge.
While Halloween Nights will never be the overwhelming extreme haunt that fans are calling for, this year’s production has proven its capacity to be something great. While audiences seemed sparse for a Friday night, probably a residual effect of disappointment for the change, Eastern State feels poised for a comeback with this year’s strong showing.
— Blake Weil, East Coast Editor-at-Large
LIAR — Pop Up Theatrics
$25; New York, NY; Run Concluded
The Name of the game is Liar, but the only rule is Honesty.
What do you get when you cross a game show with the concept of existential deceit? Something close to this! From Pop Up Theatrics comes their latest experimental experience, LIAR, an evening dedicated to the pursuit of what lies are, and what they mean to us.
Over the course of five rounds of questions, we go through the surface level fibs right through to the innermost fraud we grant ourselves. The audience are split into four competing teams, based on how honest we are about our lying habits, and as the game progresses we discuss the lies we tell each other, why we tell them, and who they effect, all for points — and points mean prizes!
Center at West Park is a wonderful space, which in my opinion really wasn’t utilized to its full potential for this run. An evening like this could be a real intimate affair, and so LIAR would honestly probably play better in a bar, as the pub quiz nature of the game play felt far more suited to that type of space than the front two pews of the grand church we were sitting in.
There are some wonderful moments in the piece, with a strong concept which felt more impactful as the night went on. Even so, I feel like there was more lurking underneath that could be brought to the fore, which as the piece continues to develop I hope to see happen.
The truth is, I enjoyed my time at this unique game show, but came away wanting just a little bit more.
— Edward Mylechreest, New York City Correspondent

Project Ascension — Sinking Ship Creations
$990; New York, NY; Run Concluded
The Lower East Side of Manhattan is the only safe space in New York for Stringers right now. And the walls around us are closing in. Over the course of one fateful weekend, the world around is collapsing, and there are only hours left to make a decision. Make it out, ascend, or face the consequences.
Sinking Ship Creations has firmly established itself as one of the top Blockbuster LARP creators in the world, and this 2022 run of Project Ascension was a showcase of excellence on every front. With a dedicated Discord server, personalized character creation, and then the LARP itself, this pervasive LARP took over my life, and I became someone new.
CRASH has to do his best to keep his crew safe. That’s what he tried to do at least.
I have found that LARP is an artform I struggle to properly review, as there is just so much that one has to try and cover. While the stories we told weren’t true, they were real to us, with every emotion and feeling that comes with it. As I write this review now, I am still in something of a state of shock as I think back to all that my character saw and experienced. I can of course only speak to my own experience, as every individual character in this sprawling cyberpunk epic had their own story they chased. But for those of us in Kennedy’s Crew, over just a few hours a group of total IRL strangers became a unit, and we shaped a story of revenge, acceptance, hope, sadness, love and family.
An incredible team of 30+ writers, facilitators and run crew ensured that the grand story of Project Ascension continued, even with the 65 characters running around, chasing their own stories, and leaving chaos in our wake (particular shout-out to run-time director, Ericka Skirpan). The approach to story, character, consent, development and equality that Sinking Ship brings to its creations, is what brings me back time and time again.
LARP as a medium continues to reinvigorate, inspire and educate this reviewer. Sinking Ship Creations are some of the best story tellers and facilitators of LARP in New York City, and I am indebted to them for their truly stellar work, yet again. I leave the experience, once again a changed person.
CRASH to Kennedy-Crew-IC: I’m out. Hold on. Please.
— Edward Mylechreest, New York City Correspondent

The Summoning — Into the Dark
$55-$75 ; The San Francisco Mint; Now through November 5th
The Summoning, this year’s rendition of Terror Vault, is a genuinely unnerving haunted theatre experience by Into The Dark, the Bay Area production company run by Peaches Christ, David Flower Productions, and Non Plus Ultra. With over 100 actors and its endless labyrinth-like format, this was the most interactive and prolific haunted house I’ve experienced.
The San Francisco Mint is the perfect setting. The imposing building is vaguely deteriorating with echoey hallways, dark vaults with thick doors, and the experience takes you through its tunnels and hallways, and down stairs into a dark basement that feels like it’s full of real ghosts.
The plot is as follows: a vampire queen is aiming to overtake humans, and your group (around 10 humans) needs to retrieve her missing head to kill her. The storyline took as many turns as the labyrinth we were in, and was hard to follow. Ultimately I was so engrossed by the wildly different experience of each scene–from a dance performance to a beheading– that it didn’t matter. There was little time (or reason) to notice a plot hole.
I opted to wear a glow stick necklace, consenting to a fully interactive experience. It amounted to more interaction than I’ve had with some friends: I received an electric shock, performed a dance, was given a makeover, and was hand fed. While some of the interaction felt random (a lot of stroking of hair), most of it added to the experience for the whole group, even those who opted out.
Unlike some other haunted experiences that rely heavily on jump scares and jarring sounds, The Summoning was pleasantly creative in its scare tactics (for context, I’m not easily scared.) All told, the experience was highly amusing: disgusting, creepy, occasionally hilarious, but mostly, extremely fun.
In addition to the main experience, you can hang out at Fang Bang, a vampire themed pop-up bar, before or after the show, or you can get a private VIP party room. The evening performances are rated R, for good reason: there’s a good amount of close up nudity and sexual content.
— Elissa Mardiney, San Francisco Correspondent

Urban Death: Tour of Terror — Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre
$20; North Hollywood, CA; Through Oct. 31
The laughs, gasps, and hollering cheers from the crowd gave the night a truly communal feel, fueling the performers’ go-for-broke boldness with appreciative, raucous energy that carried over into the final moments. When the house lights came up, the room was abuzz with people excitedly discussing what they had just seen and comparing notes on which scene had “got them.” As we slowly filed out the way we came, we were confronted by an entirely new collection of spooks and frights populating the maze on our reverse course back to the beginning.
–Chris Wollman, from his full review

Wonderland Dreams — Alexa Meade & Catching Flight
$36 and up; New York, NY; Ongoing
Taking up the space of a gigantic flagship store on fifth avenue, Wonderland Dreams is the latest Instagrammers fantasy world, just a few steps away from Times Square. A collaboration between Catching Flight and artist Alexa Meade, this Alice in Wonderland inspired immersive art exhibit is sure to prove popular with social media superstars and artists alike.
Known for her living portrait approach to art installation, everywhere I turn in Wonderland I see the brush strokes of the artist, as we are invited to walk into the painting itself. Props and costumes are strewn around, still with this brush stroke style on them, so that I may make myself more of the painting around me. I guide myself through the 26,000 sq/foot space as I choose, with each room having clear identifiers to an individual part of the familiar Alice tale, and I enjoy recognizing each moment as I eagerly pose for another photo. Painted rabbit statuettes are a nice through line that connects each room to the next, but these details may well be lost in the sheer splendor of the rest of the art on display.
I will fully admit that I am not the target demographic for this experience. I am a little too old, too self conscious, and not nearly technologically savvy enough to be an ideal Wonderland visitor. But even with all that being said, I had a wonderful time. I am struck by the simplistic beauty of the rooms, and am amazed to find that every photo and video that we take in the space, truly looks like a work of art. Even those taken by me.
This is an outstanding showcase for the art style of Meade, and is a great example of a well thought out and detailed selfie-palace. Time will tell whether the art will hold up and survive the many influencers who will enjoy this space, so I suggest following the rabbit down the hole as soon as you can.
— Edward Mylechreest, New York City Correspondent
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