Scout Expedition Co Offers a Designing Immersive Environments Workshop (Now Coming to LA!) →

*Note: This review was originally published on Haunting.net – 1/19/2018

The below Scout Expedition Co Designing Immersive Environments workshop will be remounted in Los Angeles on Sunday, January 28th via a partnership with us! For more information and tickets, please visit scoutworkshop.eventbrite.com.

Nestled in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, a group of strangers huddles together in a dimly lit basement. I scramble to cut out photos of children’s faces and paste them on the concrete wall. The man next to me furiously scribbles various ransom notes and throws them onto the ground. Time is running out.

On Saturday, November 4th, two of the most prominent immersive designers (with the generous help of San Francisco’s Rathskeller Club) hosted a class of twenty people. This class, entitled Designing Immersive Environments (or DIE for short), offered a blend of theory, practical advice, and hands-on experience.

Photo Credit: John “Seg” Seggerson

 Jarrett Lantz and Jeff Leinenveber of Scout Expedition Co., the hosts of the seven-hour class, have deep roots in immersive set design. After experiencing their gateway drug, Punch Drunk’s Sleep No More, Jarrett and Jeff were hooked on immersive theater. They quickly found themselves attending every experience they could, becoming increasingly enamored with the magical word they had stepped in to. While the duo had previously worked together on both long-running immersive horror theater piece Delusion and with Third Rail Projects on a number of experiences, Scout Expedition Co. fully came to fruition with their award-winning project, The Nest.

The Nest, inspired by the stories buried within items from estate sales and narratively-driven video games, invited guests into a storage locker to entwine themselves in the intimate life story of a deceased woman. This was all accomplished through interactions with her personal belongings—with the notable absence of any tangible actors. This played to Scout Expedition’s strengths, as they paid painstakingly close attention to the emotional effect of the space, from lighting to the smallest possible item. The environment itself became the star of The Nest’s narrative, with guests acting as conduits of emotion and narrative progression, which allowed Scout to forget about rules of interaction and focus purely on the story.

Photo Credit: John “Seg” Seggerson

 Leveraging the knowledge and expertise they gained from these various projects, Lantz and Leinenveber wanted to share their knowledge with the immersive community. Focusing on their creative process and lessons they’ve learned, the workshop begins with a practical discussion of their design process, how to effectively utilize props and lighting, and an in-depth look at the psychology of space.

This all culminates in getting your hands dirty: working with a team of five to create your very own immersive space using the principals discussed in the class. We were provided some bare essentials (tape, pens, paper, etc) and were also able to select a few items from Jarrett and Jeff’s treasure trove of odds and ends that they had brought up from LA. Each team was assigned a theme (ours was Little Red Riding Hood) and allowed to choose a location based on the list provided to us. Creating a film noir that was Little Red Riding Hood themed, out of trash bags and tape was challenging but provided a kinesthetic application to the previous lessons—solidifying the ideas into my mind. We were then given the chance to explore each group’s environment, followed by a discussion of each lead by Lantz and Leinenveber.

Photo Credit: Katherine O’Harrow

A truly unique and hyper-specialized course, this workshop was perfect for those interested in immersive set design and essential for creators who are or will be producing experiential work. Don’t miss your chance to learn about immersive set design from experts in the subject and connect with your local immersive community at the same time.

Special thanks to both Scout Expedition Co., as well as Rathskeller Club for bringing together creative minds within the immersive theater space, and encouraging others to create engaging and unique work. Follow Scout Expedition Co. on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for the latest updates on their upcoming work.

For more information on this workshop, as well as tickets for the upcoming Los Angeles remount, please visit scoutworkshop.eventbrite.com!!

“Stay on The Line” Recalls Tragedies from The Near and Distant Past →

*Note: This blog was originally published on Haunting.net – 11/11/2018

The woman in front of me faces a blurry projection on the hotel room wall and starts an odd dance-like movement that instinctually makes me shiver. She rocks back onto her heels, and onto the tips of her toes. She looks behind her, turns around as if looking for something, and then returns to her twisted waltz. These movements, while intensely strange, ring familiar in my mind. It’s not until the projection on the wall focuses in on a building marked with a sign reading Cecil Hotel that I piece together why I may have seen these exact movements before. Stay on the Line. 

 Stay on The Line includes an unsettling, yet somehow tender, remembrance of Elisa Lam. In February of 2013, her body was mysteriously found decomposing in a water tank at the Cecil Hotel – renamed Stay on Main after being unable to shake the infamy of her death, as well as other unsavory moments in its history. Elisa Lam was last seen alive in video surveillance footage of her making these very strange movements in the hotel’s elevator, stepping in and out as the door unexplainably remained open for the several-minute duration of her frantic movements.

Stay on The Line is a single-guest immersive experience based in Chicago, which has returned after a sold-out first-year run last Halloween. This year they’ve done it once again; tickets sold out within the first few days.

Whitney Currier, Nicole Faust and Emily Sharp return with nine new storylines built for a single guest to experience, two stories per visit. This year, they invite guests to step into a hotel room at The Martin (a performance space located in West Town in the WOW district of Chicago) and experience two back-to-back storylines inspired by the wild and private world of hotels and what can go on behind closed doors.

With a fairly sparse environment and zero artifices, the team behind Stay on The Line manages to inspire awe and create palpable tension, with precise movement, emotive body language, and thoughtful story. The two narratives that I experienced were STAY ON MAIN (the new title for the hotel post-death of Elisa Lam) and DEAD GIRLS DON’T LAUGH, a story inspired by the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and the death of Grace E. Magro, another woman who met her end at the Cecil Hotel/Stay on Main.

 Both experiences took me on a journey through wonder, anxiety and fear, all in a span of 20 minutes. While this year’s run has sold out, be sure to keep an eye out for more works from these very talented actors. And, of course, grab tickets to Stay on The Line’s remount next Halloween season.

For more information on events at The Martin Chicago, visit their website.

Epic Immersive’s Infernal Motel Offers a Descent in to a Surreal Afterlife →

*Note: This review was originally published on Haunting.net – 1/10/2018

“I need something from you.

It just might change a man’s life.

I have arranged for you to stay at an exclusive underground resort…”

I’m handed an aged enveloped, sealed by a red wax; but what’s inside is far more interesting. Within, I find a mysterious letter and a small slip of paper that reveals itself to be a useful, if not ominous, map of the seven levels of hell as described in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno.

It’s an odd feeling, to be excited to descend into hell; but, as an ecstatic bellhop in a 1930’s uniform leads me down the street and asks me about my stay, I grow more eager to check-in to The Infernal Motel. I swipe my keycard, adorned by the word Envy, into the card reader and begin my voyage into the unknown.

Alika Spencer-Koknar as “Beatrice” – Photo Credit: Tyler Heibeck / The Rathskeller Club

Director Steven M. Boyle helms an extremely talented cast and crew in this immersive production of Epic Immersive and Rathskeller Club’s The Infernal Motel. From wise-cracked jokes to truly sentimental moments, this show elicits a wide range of emotions from guests while they traverse a surreal realm. Much like a dream, parts of this production feel strange and mysterious, while others make one feel comfortable and oddly at home.

The immersive set design of The Infernal Motel successfully imparts a sense of wonder through clever abstraction. Environment designer Jackie Moy juxtaposes objects from various time periods (think a dusty SNES game console next to an oil lamp) to create the sense that you are existing within a memory, and not within any given year. Everything seems to fit perfectly in the environment, but nothing quite makes sense, which sets an unsettling tone for the experience. In conjunction with the beautiful space that almost acts as a member of the cast itself, Sound Designer Andrew Lowe creates an audio element that seamlessly follows guests through the story and solidifies the more emotional aspects of the show in the audience’s memory.

Max Koknar as “Dante” – Photo Credit: Tyler Heibeck / The Rathskeller Club

 While the gorgeously detailed environment is a definite highlight of the production, it is the cast that truly makes this experience memorable. In particular, Bora “Max” Koknar’s Dante Alighieri brings a frantic energy that at once is both simultaneously disarming and comforting. At times, he is a caricature reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland’s Mad Hatter, while at others, he is a sympathetic friend sharing some very real hopes and fears with his guests. The supporting cast does double (sometimes triple) duty by each playing multiple characters. While this makes sense in the context of the narrative, one would be advised to brush-up on at least a high-level synopsis of the source-material, Dante’s Inferno. While by no means a direct translation of the famous novel, without this context, the show may read more disorienting than mysterious.

A note on ticket selection: for my initial foray into this show, I chose to check-in to the Envy suite. From what I could gather from speaking to others who attended the show, each of the four suites (Lust, Greed, Gluttony, and Envy) offer unique elements to the overall narrative. As someone who is claustrophobic, it was advised that I select the Envy suite option, and I’m very glad I did. If you’re someone with similar phobias or have slight mobility constraints I would recommend this option as well. Envy is also one of two options (the other being Lust) that allows you to go through the experience with one other individual by your side, the other suites are individual experiences.

Dana Soliman, Photo Credit: Tyler Heibeck / The Rathskeller Club

Checking-in to The Infernal Motel is a truly unique experience that has the power to make guests forget where they are, and at times who they are. I’m personally crossing my fingers for another extension to the show’s run, for a chance to explore additional suites and get lost in the in-between once again. For more information and tickets to San Francisco’s Infernal Motel please see here. Learn more about Epic Immersive here, and catch them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as well.