The Immersive 5 with Patchwork Adventures

Puzzle, play, and mysteries are core ingredients of many an immersive experience, as they open up pathways for participation. The upcoming ‘The Order of the Golden Scribe: Initiation Tea’ is a pop-up escape game dining experience that will mix high tea with secret societies, the kind of theatrical gaming experience that always intrigues us here at NoPro.

Ahead of its debut at the cell theatre in Manhattan, we checked in with Shuai Chen, Founder and Chief Puzzle Officer of Gr8er Good Games/Patchwork Adventures, and Patchwork’s Head Game Designer Arlo Howard about the company’s approach to making work.

The Immersive 5 series asks creators across the various immersive disciplines the same five questions in search of both their approach to crafting work, and the elusive nature of immersive work itself.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

No Proscenium: What does “immersive” mean to you, and what terms do you use when talking about your own work?

Shuai Chen: Immersive theater is such a broad term, basically, all of life is immersive except for traditional theatre with a proscenium. Anywhere that you’re more than a mere spectator, but actively participating in the action. I usually use interactive experiences since my goal in creating events is to get participants to play, to touch things, to speak with actors, and be fully engaged in their time with us. Specifically for The Order of the Golden Scribe, we’re calling it an afternoon tea escape game with immersive/interactive theater.

Arlo Howard: From my perspective, “immersive” is a very broad and widely used term. I do sometimes use the word immersive to describe my work but it’s not always the most helpful descriptor. The Order of the Golden Scribe, I would describe as interactive because it is more about how the audience/players engage with the experience. They have some genuine agency in how the afternoon unfolds. The playout of the overarching narrative borrows some game mechanics from role playing games. I’ve also drawn inspiration from some of the work I’ve been a part of in London. And as Shuai has mentioned, the escape game elements and the afternoon tea have provided some core structure for the experience.

NP: What should every creator be thinking about first and foremost when designing for the audience?

SC: Who’s your target audience? Is it first timers who don’t know anything about immersive theater? Is it someone who reads NoPro and Room Escape Artist religiously? Is it someone who’s traveled the world looking for unique, special immersive and interactive experiences? Is it someone who was dragged to Sleep No More once and thought it was meh? Is it someone who’s played 1000 escape rooms or someone who’s played two? At the end of the day, if you make the most beautiful, wonderful immersive experience, but you have no idea who the target audience is, you can’t figure out who to market to and so won’t be able to sell tickets…

AH: I think Shuai has hit this bang on. Who we’re making for is always in the front of my mind. I will often design with a really specific target audience in mind and then explore how we open it up to invite more people in and make it more accessible. In tandem with this, I am always thinking about what I hope people will go away with. What do I hope will change in the world (in their world) because of this experience? (I’ve loosely referenced Prya Parker’s “The Art of Gathering” here. I highly recommend that book to any experience creator.)

Do I hope they will leave with a particular feeling, curiosity or desire to do something? An experience will always resonate differently with each person but I find it helpful to have an aim. I believe that immersive/interactive experiences have great change-making potential so I think carefully about what I am putting out into the world.

NP: What did you wish you knew when you were starting out with this stuff and what’s the one thing you’d tell a creator starting out today?

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SC: Gather collaborators who are better than you and empower them to do their thing. You don’t have to do everything yourself and you probably shouldn’t (most people aren’t great at all five thousand things you need to be great at to succeed). At the beginning, I tried to do everything (I literally taught myself Illustrator over the course of three days while trying to figure out how to make a logo). It always ended up taking way too long, and some things just don’t click with my brain. I can’t even start to rave about how amazing my collaborators are. I’m still shocked how brilliant everyone on the Patchwork team is. From Ali’s beautiful logo to Nell’s storytelling abilities to Arlo’s incredible world to the cast’s fun characters, everyone has been so talented. And of course, the team at the cell have been incredible by giving us this beautiful space, coming up with unique marketing ideas, and being a general thoughtpartner in this show.

AH: Follow your joy. Trust what draws your passion, create something you’d like to see in the world. Shuai and I have a shared passion for creating experiences that generate connection and change through play. Our collaborations always include this at their core. For this project, Shuai really wanted to combine two things she loves, afternoon tea and escape games. I was really keen to create a project that was highly responsive to the audience. The melding of these three elements was bound to create a dynamically playful experience. We had batted around a few different concepts, had landed on an idea, and I had even started writing. Then we were joking over text about a secret society idea. A funny “what if”. In that moment, we realized this idea was the thing we should be making. I’m so glad we did because creating The Order of the Golden Scribe has been challenging and invigorating and I cannot wait to share it with people.

NP: Why do this kind of work and not something more “traditional” that might have more mainstream appeal at the moment?

SC: Escape rooms are basically mainstream now. Selfie museums are popping up all over the place. Immersive and interactive are becoming mainstream while “traditional theatre” is dying out. I love this kind of work because there’s more space to play and to become the hero of the story. It’s not someone else that you’re watching join this Order of the Golden Scribe, it’s you, the audience. The actors have a loose script, but they react to you, the audience, and what you give them. If you want to try to just have a lovely tea with some light puzzles, that’s great. If you want to completely overthrow the Order, you can do that. If you want to be a spy for the hosts, you’ll have to figure out how to do it, but you totally can.

AH: I totally agree with Shuai here that escape rooms are pretty mainstream at this point. And as I’ve been living in London for the better part of the past few years, immersive feels fairly mainstream to me as well. That being said, we didn’t opt for a more obvious Alice in Wonderland themed tea experience or anything of that nature. It can be really easy for experiential to get swallowed up only doing Intellectual Property work. Generally I hear this used as a shorthand to refer to experiences created using a known/already-existing work as a starting point. Films, television, books, etc.

While that work absolutely has its value; I think it’s important that we, as an industry, continue to create original work. One of the joys of creating The Order of the Golden Scribe has been creating our own world, with its own mythology. For the audience, I think there is a lovely freedom to be able to come in with no prior knowledge required. You don’t need to have watched the film or read the books. Everyone can arrive and uncover the world together.

NP: What inspirations — and anything is fair game here — are currently shaping your creative practice?

SC: Life is the best inspiration. I take inspiration from the experiences and people who give me joy. From moving immersive theater like Yannick Trapman-O’Brien’s brilliant experience, Undersigned to joyful escape rooms like The Ministry of Peculiarities’s Hope’s End to having an afternoon tea at Lady Mendl’s Tea Parlour. The reason we’re making The Order of the Golden Scribe is because I love all three types of experiences and wanted to combine them together into something unique and special.

AH: Recently I’ve been getting inspired by RPG (role playing games) and LARP (live action role playing). I am really curious and excited about the mechanics of these forms and what I can learn from them as an experience creator. So that is coming more into my work, in addition to influences I’ve had from working with Coney, a playful change-making company.

With any project I do, I start by doing a lot of research and draw inspiration from that. (I’m a huge nerd) For Order of the Golden Scribe, I delved deep into the history of tea and pulled a lot of inspiration from the shady dealings of the early English tea trade. The backhanded opium dealing, the elitist popularity of tea, and the rampant colonialism tied up into all of it. But don’t worry, tea is a lovely, refined, polite thing. So we’re having lots of fun with that, plus big National Treasure energy. You may not see all these things directly within the experience but they are the influences underpinning the world we’ve created.

Shuai Chen (She/Her) is the Founder and Chief Puzzle Officer of Gr8er Good Games/Patchwork Adventures. Her core values are curiosity, community, and creativity. She is an escape room enthusiast (having represented Team USA in the Escape Room World Championships) and immersive theater lover. She’s based in NYC and her company focuses mainly on corporate teambuilding events (specializing in virtual events since 2017).

Arlo Howard (They/Them) is an award winning, non-binary creator working at the intersection of theatre and games. Their work focuses on creating positive change and learning through playful theatrical experiences and games. Arlo has directed and created immersive and interactive theatre in five countries and is the former Artistic Director of Chicago based (re)discover theatre. Their work includes full building immersive take overs, intimate one-on-one experiences, and board games. Arlo is a Coney Guild Member and the Head Game Designer at Patchwork Adventures. Arlo has trained with Third Rail Projects, The Neo Futurist and Punchdrunk and worked with a variety of interactive companies including Blast Theory and ZU-UK.

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