Review Rundown: The Wide World of Immersive

For those still reeling from Sleep No More’s closure announcement or concerned about the general state of immersive, this week’s Review Rundown is a testament to the strength, tenacity, and vitality of our industry.

Our amazing correspondents bring you thought-provoking reviews from all over the world, from local, independent creators to a massive conglomerates, with each experience featured pushing boundries regarding audience engagement and production design. It’s a fantastic showcase and a signpost that immersive is indeed everywhere, having seeped into the cultural zeitgeist as a sought-after form of entertainment.

Basically, not only is it onwards and upwards, the best is yet to come.

Looking for more to see and do? Last week’s edition had EIGHT REVIEWS featuring experiences in LA, Las Vegas, NYC, and London!

Still need more? Search the latest listings near you at Everything Immersive!

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Disney100: The Exhibition — Disney
£19.75 — £33; London UK; through Jan. 21, 2024

Celebrating the centennial of arguably the most recognizable name in Western cinematic history, Disney has created the largest exhibition of their archival materials since the company’s inception and have sent it on tour.

London is currently playing host to the international branch of two separate tracks (one domestic, one abroad) before the show moves onward: 20,000 sq. feet of original animation cels, scripts, and props, as well as interaction points where guests can engage with the material. Touchable storybook projections; a maquette puzzle box treasure chest; knobs with hydraulic control of animatronic displays — the exhibition is a please-touch playground for visitors of all ages.

Make no mistake: this is first and foremost a mini-museum of Disney history presented along their own narrative. It’s a tour for nostalgists and fans, not those seeking a critical eye for context of any whitewashing or glazing over problematic periods. Through this rosy lens, what the experience truly offers is a taster of the master-level production quality of the parks: expertly designed set dressing, light/sound/projection quality, and slick hands-on electronic interactive points showcasing the Imagineers’ portable feats.

Is it immersive? In short, no. There’s no narrative sucking guests in, there’s no role to play, and you don’t lose yourself in the experience nor forget where you are at any point. But there are warm fuzzy bonding moments with others: in the music showcase where vignettes of famed scores are played, we flinch as a unit watching the “Married Life” segment of Up, only to sigh with collective relief and smile as the segment ends before the infamous climax.

If you’re looking for an immersive angle, there’s a magic moment on entry with Walt himself welcoming guests with some clever projection trickery. One of my personal highlights is the theme park design section with iconic ride buggies on display and details about how the parks are structured for best enjoyment — experience designers could do worse than to study this chapter from the Book of Mouse.

In the end, it’s Disney: it’s major IP, with a major budget behind it and shows zero cracks in the presentation. It’s a highly-polished reduced-scale local substitute for a trip to Disneyland Paris and a great family activity or saccharine date night. You’ll spend an hour or two wandering the galleries taking it all in, you’ll play with some of the toys, you’ll learn a lot.

And you’ll leave smiling.

— Shelley Snyder, London Curator

Hallowmass: Echoes From The Āoth — Itchy-O
$37; Denver, CO; Run Concluded

I would categorize an Itchy-O show as a concert before anything else, but on that spectrum, it is perhaps the most immersive concert I have ever experienced.

And yet, with the drumline at the center of it all, it is not a concert in the “listen to the band play” way so much as it is the “let the rhythm take hold of you” way. There wasn’t a still body in the room at Hallowmass, which was a large part of what made it such a communal experience. United through the irresistible, driving beat of dozens of drums, the crowd instantly became one with the performers as we all bopped around and swayed to the music together.

With the stage full of drummers, other Itchy-O performers wandered the crowd with devices strapped to their backs that spewed bubbly foam or carried instruments that emitted otherworldly screeches and squawks. During one song, a large multi-person puppet appeared and wiggled its way through the audience several times. At one point near the end, a giant blow-up figure escaped from a hard case that had been wheeled into the middle of the room and surrounded by drummers from the stage. Large squares of paper confetti rained down upon us.

There truly wasn’t a bad seat in the house because the spectacle was constantly moving and always changing — just like the beat.

With every single Itchy-O member’s identity completely obscured by full-face and head coverings, their anonymity added to the dark mystique of the experience. It also had a freeing effect that made it fun and easy to engage as they passed by me in the crowd, shoulder to shoulder, eye to eye.

I found Hallowmass to be a truly unique, enriching experience that anyone who enjoys live music could show up to enjoy on that level. However, for those who crave more narrative and wish to engage with Itchy-O on a deeper level, a patreon membership unlocks access to lore and activities that give special context to the live event that one wouldn’t otherwise pick up on.

Itchy-O made a fan of me three years ago when they helped me forget about Covid at the height of the pandemic with their drive-in sound bath series. Now, having seen a proper show in a proper venue, I can say that the hype is real and Itchy-O is a true Denver treasure.

— Danielle Riha, Denver Correspondent

The Haunting of Your House — Audacious Theatre
$25 — $35; Denver, CO; Run Concluded

The premise for this show (as communicated in pre-show emails and gentle onboarding as I was checked in) was that I had recently died and was about to receive the necessary training I would need to successfully navigate the afterlife.

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Immediately leveraging the site-specific setting, we aptly began our quest at our own wake in the cavernous sanctuary of a large, old church in downtown Denver. From there, under the guidance of our psychopomp, we rotated through a series of rooms that each taught us a new tool or method for interacting with the living.

Each room had its own theme and unique way for us, the ghosts, to try our hand at making contact with those who have not yet passed over. From the hilarious medium who attempted to draw meaning from our farcical drawings on an overhead projector to the oversized Ouija board that we used to scare a couple of teenage girls, our lessons in haunting were comical, engaging, and made just enough sense to roll with it.

The coolest, and creepiest, moments of the show came during our lesson on psychic force manipulation i.e. moving physical objects from the spirit plane. We practiced these manipulation skills on a life-size “doll” named Lucy, who mirrored our motions as if she were a puppet controlled by our own movements. Unfortunately, a malicious, poltergeist-like spirit stepped in to take control of Lucy and we had to (quite literally) run before we were able to complete that particular lecture.

At the end, we reflected on all that we had learned about life in the afterlife, and reminiscenced about the truest joys of actually living. Then, we made a choice about where we went next: to continue using our new tools and knowledge to roam the Earth with unfinished business, stuck somewhere between living and dead… or to leave it all behind, to put it all to rest, and to ascend to eternal peace and tranquility.

Although this one was not as murder-y as some of their seasonal performances in the past, Audacious Theatre’s annual Halloween show has become a favorite tradition of mine because I can always count on it for dark humor, lots of engagement, and a few magical moments along the way.

— Danielle Riha, Denver Correspondent

Lost in the pages — DAZZLE
¥6,000 — ¥11,000; Toyko, Japan; through Nov. 30, 2023

It starts in a department store. The department store leads to an escalator. The escalator leads to a back room. The back room leads to a library, and a surgical suite, and a boudoir, and a cafe, and a bench under an old tree, and a witch’s shop.

I am in Tokyo, about as far from my home in New York as I can get, and I am experiencing Lost in the pages, an immersive experience by Japanese dance company DAZZLE, found tucked away in this unassuming location.

It is beautiful. The lighting of the production, in particular, strikes me. A character leading the audience by lantern light. A writer lit brightly, hiding underneath their desk. Threatening red lights clutched in hands. Beams shining out from the center of a book.

The show is organized and easy to engage with, setting audience members on rails for one half, and in a sandbox for exploration in the other half. I found it easy to tell when I was being prompted to move without it breaking my focus. Even without speaking Japanese in a text-heavy show, I was able to complete the engaging fetch quests given to me, and delighted in the numerous moments of tactility and connection I was invited to engage with.

The real stars, though, are the performers. They are beautifully emotive, captivating in their movement, patient in the moments where the language barrier made me a less-than-ideal scene partner. I am caught off guard by how proficiently a smaller company has managed to create something so complex yet clean, while keeping the performance so emotionally impactful.

As of writing this review, it’s been three days since NYC’s Sleep No More (my home turf, beloved) was announced as closing, and I hadn’t cried yet about it, not as I expected. But here, almost 7,000 miles across the globe, in this liminal land at the back of a department store, I am crying. I am crying like a child and trying desperately to hide it. I am crying an embarrassing amount, because these artists are doing the thing. They are dancing like their lives depend on it. They are telling the story. They are looking me in the eyes in a way that makes me feel like a spell is being cast on me. They are handing me ordinary objects that feel inexplicably sacred. I can’t understand a word that’s being said, and yet what I’m hearing over and over again is: “there is hope, there is hope, there is hope.”

There is hope, I feel, I believe. Because there are artists making exactly the work we are so desperate to see. Because, as scary as it is to lose a giant and a safe space, there is still more to come. Because across the world, I am still being served tea in a porcelain cup, in a secret little room, inside of a whole new world.

— Leah Ableson, New York City Correspondent

Nosferatu: A 3D Symphony of Terror — THEATER IN QUARANTINE
$20; Remote (Livestream); Run Concluded

The fact that the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t feel quite real to many of us, what with being trapped in the time loop of quarantine, it’s easy to forget how odd some of the theatrical experiments of the era were. It was quick and easy to throw up a fairly professional promotion, and so you never knew whether you were getting schlock or brilliance, immersion or merely a play on Zoom, until you had your ticket in hand and your computer on.

This brings us to Nosferatu: A 3D Symphony of Terror. While the company name defines it as THEATER IN QUARANTINE, definition’s become muddy. Yes it’s a live stream, but it’s pre-edited like a film. But so was fan-favorite Darkfields Radio. But, then again, that had slightly more immersive elements than a livestream…the arguments can go back and forth, but they really don’t matter at the end of the day. Nosferatu: A 3D Symphony of Terror is pretty fun.

The ingenuity of Joshua William Gelb in transforming his closet space to be whatever the play needs can’t be overstated. While the play, like Nosferatu itself is a little dry, the continual effects and manipulations of perspective keep the audience engaged. The frame story, in which a sinister cross between Rod Serling and Uncle Fester invites you to take in Nosferatu as a midnight movie, lands well, providing an effective layer of chills over the intrigue of the main feature. That frame story also provides some of the best effects of the evening as the fourth wall begins to thin, if not all-together break.

No matter what we call this show — pandemic theater, a skillful phone movie, a YouTube chiller — it’s a hit. Beyond that, it illustrates the importance of keeping remote art alive. There is nothing like this available in in-person theaters at present, and the pandemic still isn’t over. Beyond that, for those who can’t access in-person theater, be it by distance or disability, still deserve the arts. Even when we can safely say that the COVID-19 pandemic is dead, long live pandemic theater.

— Blake Weil, East Coast Curator At Large

Tales of the Grotesque — White Mills Theatre Co.
$38 — $53 CAD; Toronto, Canada; Run Concluded

As an immersive horror opera adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s works, Tales of the Grotesque doesn’t rely on jump scares or traditional frights like your typical Halloween haunt. Instead, it explores a nuanced type of horror — the supernatural was present, but our real antagonist was the madness seemingly sane people might work themselves into.

We started our evening in the chapel, where everyone paid respects to the recently departed family matriarch. From there, the audience was split into groups based on the color of rose each received upon arrival. Three interconnected narratives were presented, borrowing characters such as Roderick and Madeline Usher, Annabel Lee, Lenore, Morella, and The Raven from Poe’s works.

Of the three acts, the first story of my evening, an adaptation of The Tell-Tale Heart, proved the most compelling. Unlike the other narratives, it utilized only one of the Campbell House’s many rooms. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, it presented the most immersive and focused chapter of the three. Though other acts contained snippets of participation (giving an audience member a key, leading us between rooms, presenting the occasional question) this segment provided the most rationale for our presence, and in doing so, a genuine reason for us to engage in the horror as it unfolded. Further, while all three storylines incorporated a musician, this section made the most active use of musical accompaniment — with foreboding violin tones successfully punctuating the tension of the scene.

Though the majority of Tales of the Grotesque’s lines were delivered in spoken tones, operatic portions highlighted poignant moments and heightened the atmosphere. The show would have been just as engaging without this addition, but the opera performances felt in line with the intensity of Edgar Allen Poe’s works.

Both opera and classical literature are subjects known for being difficult for the average showgoer to wrap their head around, but Tales of the Grotesque does an admirable job of presenting these two art forms in an engaging and surprisingly accessible manner. As someone with limited knowledge of Edgar Allen Poe’s works, and only a passing appreciation of opera, the show drew me in and gave me a newfound appreciation for both forms.

With its operatic leanings, basis in classical literature, and distinctive brand of horror, Tales of the Grotesque is a less conventional spooky season addition, but that’s exactly what makes it such a charming addition to Toronto’s Halloween lineup.

— Katrina Lat, Toronto Curator

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