asses.masses (Ann Arbor)

Experience asses.masses as a spectator, a player, or both! The unemployed donkeys have one demand: the humans must surrender their machines and give all donkeys their jobs back. But revolution is never easy! asses.masses is a custom video game designed to be played from beginning to end by a live audience. This is gaming as theater: an immersive, cheeky, and highly original work about labor, technophobia, and sharing the load of revolution. Audience members cheer on and coach brave spectators who choose to take turns at the controller to lead the herd through a post-Industrial society, where asses are valued more for their hides than their potential. asses.masses is Animal Farm meets Pokémon meets Final Fantasy: as exciting in form as it is in content. Confronting automation driven job loss, nostalgia as a barrier to progress, and the role of technology in adaptation, we are encouraged to find space between the work that defines us and the play that frees us. “Hands down one of the best live experiences I’ve ever had in a theater…Milton Lim and Patrick Blenkarn are geniuses.” (Mayfest, Bristol)