Everything Immersive > No Proscenium > Trailheads (7/13/22)
Trailheads (7/13/22)
by Chris Wollman
A weekly feature pointing you towards the current experiences that have people talking.
For people who leave a concert and immediately need to buy the album...
CAGES [LOS ANGELES]
Sure to fill LA immersive-goers with an entire symphony of emotion, news has broken that Woolf & the Wondershow’s dystopian synth-pop masterpiece is transferring to London after nearly three years Downtown. The timeless tale of Woolf bringing love to a numb, isolated world through the idiosyncratic alchemy of his music awoke a passion in its audiences, especially as the metaphor took on even greater meaning during the fraught, fractious, isolating times that would shortly follow its premiere. For just a few more weeks, see the eponymous duo broadcast their shockwaves of live musical bliss (with Woolf on vocals and the Wondershow on a 360 degree keyboard setup) synced with ingenious precision to the German expressionist-inspired projections and deliciously complimented by the transportive, immersive lobby/bar that serves as your welcome to Anhedonia, a far away land that doesn’t feel quite as far off as it should.
Why we know you’ll love it: Achingly romantic, unembarrassedly sincere, winkingly facetious, and grimly prescient, with an army of loyal citizens who return time and again to experience the genius on display, RUN RUN RUN to see Cages before it's gone. It’ll do your heart good.
For people who turn down their TV to listen when they can hear their neighbors fighting...
Within Our Walls [LOS ANGELES]
Peer through the cracks forming around a family’s grief with this (at times literally) pitch black horror experience. You are the unseen voyeur peaking from behind the walls as the Pierce family unravels after the untimely death of their young daughter. Private moments never meant to be seen are yours to peruse in this sandbox-like experience where you are free to roam the halls, lingering on whatever fresh anguish catches your eye. Boasting spine-tingling tech sure to heighten the dread wrung from this self-described one-act immersive play that offers the audience a vantage point as unsettling as the events they quietly watch unfold before them.
Why we think you’ll love it: For those among you already longing for the dark days of spooky season, every aspect of this show’s marketing seems to go out of its way to play up the creepy, skin-crawling, disturbing nature of what may turn out to be the first big scare of 2022.
For people who are going to lose it if they're put on hold just one more time...
Interdimensional Phishing Scam [REMOTE]
Featured as part of the Offbeat Festival in Oxford, this surreally comic app-based experience is available on demand until the festival’s conclusion. You receive an unusual call that would under normal circumstances be most welcome: it appears you have some money coming to you. The one snag? It’s actually owed to a different version of you from an alternate dimension. Check your greed and hang on to your sanity as you’re randomly passed off from callcenter to callcenter as you try in vain to connect with the one person in the multiverse who may be able to get you paid.
Why we think you’ll love it: Put on by award winning Nottingham-based experimental theatre company Chronic Insanity, this audio-based experience is part of their self-imposed challenge to produce twelve different theatre pieces in twelve months— a feat they already achieved once in 2019-2020— spanning several festivals across the UK and featuring many other works currently available remotely.
**Have an upcoming/ongoing immersive experience that has you buzzing? Point it out to us through pitches@noproscenium.com with the subject line "Trailheads" and we might include it in the next issue!