Immersive Companies Archives

April 23, 2025April 23, 2025

Life and (No) Trust, or how to be a better manager than Emursive

A news-bomb went off this Sunday morning at breakfast, when Cameron showed me this screenshot of an email…

This is how ticket holders, fans, and the greater community found out.

Emursive’s Life and Trust was not announcing closing, but was OFFICIALLY CLOSED.

But at least their regret is so sincere that Sincerely got capitalized.

Breakfast was now served with a side of “WHAT. WHAT???” We only had the chance to see the production once, but we had plans to return multiple times; in fact, every time a new immersive would entice us to NYC, we planned to collect more viewings of Life and Trust. Much like we did with Sleep No More (see my tribute).

Life and Trust was in many ways meant to replace Sleep No More. Six floors, 100,000 square feet of space, over 25 characters, a masked sandbox structure with dance and nudity and mystery and a build budget comfortably in the millions.

But that was not only not meant to be. It was suddenly, violently not meant to be.

It ran for only 10 months.

Let’s parse this email’s sentence for a moment: “We apologize for the late notice and for the disappointment and inconvenience this has caused, and appreciate your understanding and support.” 10 million dollars says that sentence was written by ChatGPT. Look at all those weasely “and” clauses. It’s gross. How sudden was this that ChatGPT is writing the apology note?

Three days later, Emursive has still not released any further explanation. Fan speculation is running rampant. It appears no tragedy occurred—inside sources say no death or injuries, and Saturday’s show seemed to proceed like any other Saturday night show. So what the hell??

Did they actually make a deal with the Devil, and it came due? (*Life and Trust*)

While we do not know why they closed so suddenly, and we may never know, no one can dispute that they did close suddenly.

And that is fair game for a rant.

What happened

Emails went out to ticket holders around 7 AM local time on Sunday, April 20, Easter morning, a major holiday when we’re more likely to be with families and away from our phones. The show scheduled for that evening was cancelled, as were all subsequent shows. Links to reserve tickets were no longer working.

Around 8 AM, they deleted all posts from Instagram, as if the show never existed. A few hours later, they posted this…

…which made no one happy. Their Instagram now consists of a couple of generic 2019 building photos, all the show’s lush photos and videos just GONE.

To deny fans and would-be-fans who said “I’ll get around to seeing it soon, it’s not like it’s going anywhere” a chance at a closing show is insane. It’s leaving money on the table. Remember, Emursive were the producers responsible for the seemingly infinite closing announcements of Sleep No More last year. If they could have milked this, they would have.

But for some reason, they didn’t.

But that’s not what has me in rant mode. What has me in rant mode is that an hour before emails went out the public (6 AM), they told cast, crew, and staff.

Via email or text message.

I have a personal source that confirms this, plus the Instagram stories of actors that popped up saying they were as blind-sided Sunday morning as we were. But for them, the memo was that they were suddenly, violently out of work.

That’s unconscionable.

Rant

I don’t care what happened. You don’t treat people this way. Even if there was no conceivable way to honor the Sunday show (which I still don’t understand), you should share the news in person, zoom, over the phone. Ticket holders could have waited a few more hours to get screwed via email (see Sleep No More‘s permitting scandal), so that cast could be informed in a respectful manner. Above all else, you offer an explanation. You apologize and own it. Right? RIGHT???

I haven’t worked at a big company before. Is this really what’s happening? People get fired via text message or email? No explanation? Have companies truly grown that spineless that they’re ghosting employees like after a bad date???

I think we need an immersive critiquing the grotesqueries of capitalism…

It’s possible (speculation warning!) Life and Trust was a failed business model. Conceived based on pre-pandemic expenses and pre-pandemic ticket sales, the model just couldn’t survive in the post-pandemic world. Costs are up, audiences are down; it’s not what it used to be. We’ve seen this story play out with Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City and Disney’s Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser. Epic (and expensive) immersives closing well before they could make their investment back, because the operating expenses alone had grown too great to bear.

But that doesn’t give you license to be a dick about it.

Other clues have been mounting that Emursive may be, quite frankly, dicks. We had not one, but two permit scandals around the closing months of Sleep No More, with audience notified about an hour before showtime that a predictably cancelled show was officially cancelled.

Then there’s discord rumors swirling of Life and Trust staff not getting paid on time. Plus the fact that half of the original cast chose not to renew their contracts.

Then there’s this performer’s recent post…

Is it possible Emursive couldn’t announce a closing period of shows because they lacked the good will of their cast? I’m just asking questions here.

But let me state this loud and clear…

In the business of the performing arts, your product is your people. You have to care about your supply side (aka YOUR PEOPLE), or you’ll have nothing to sell at all.

How to manage better

I can’t help but think Emursive could have done better. Maybe I’m naive. I run a minuscule business. I know the bigger things get, the harder it is to manage, and a large organization takes multiple angel-tier managers in order for the organization to care about its people. That’s…well…the capitalist grind, right?

But what if we realize the maxim above, that profitability is only maximized when we take care of our people. Maybe that’s the magic trick we need.

Another caveat: I bet there were great managers and directors and producers involved in Life and Trust who led with integrity and kindness. But the ultimate decision makers here, given the above set of facts, don’t qualify.

At Strange Bird Immersive, we have retained almost everyone we have hired. The only cast members who have left the company either moved cities or admitted they had grown so in-demand at other theaters that they could no longer honor our contract. We must be doing something right to keep cast trusting us year over year. So based on my experience, here are some things managers can do to get closer to integrity-filled leadership.

Communicate

The good, the bad, the ugly. Talk to your staff. Let them know, let them in. Ask for opinions when you can, take polls, do what you can to avoid making the company feel like a dictatorship. And when you can’t involve them in decision-making, let them know what’s being decided and why in advance of the decision.

In the arts, your employees see their work not as “just a paycheck,” but as a calling. It matters to them. They believe it is work worth doing. Their blood is invested in a way an accountant’s never could be. Reward that level of buy-in by letting them in. They deserve to be informed about more than next week’s schedule.

Communication also includes communicating clear expectations to your staff. You cannot hold someone accountable if you never told them what you were expecting of them. Contracts and employee manuals and initial day-one meetings are essential. Make sure everyone is on the same page.

An example: we expect staff to report maintenance issues they encounter in the discord (with emergencies warranting a phone call instead); however, they aren’t authorized to fix the thing that just broke unless they get the green light from us. Prop swaps with backups, though, are always authorized.

At Strange Bird, we like over-communication. Here’s a look inside our discord channels…

I have no idea how we could manage the company without the discord

We train staff about what to post where. “Definitely not a speakeasy” is for social announcements and memes, MFB-maintenance is for reporting any issues with The Man From Beyond, and character channels are for posting shift swaps and character-specific insights for everyone playing that character.

This system makes it easy for a company of 23 to stay together. And I love how Discord is low-stakes. Cast can communicate without stressing about bothering the bosses, and managers can communicate quickly and easily in turn, whether it’s the latest five star review on Google or a change to our audience age policy.

understand

I’ve had more than one cast member say to me, “You treat us like humans. That’s really special.”

That shouldn’t be special.

Treat your staff with the dignity that is their due as humans. Sometimes they get into a car accident, or an upcoming conflict slips their mind, they’re sick or having a bad mental health day, or a big casting offer has landed in their lap and they need their shift covered for the next two months because it’s one of those bastard theaters that don’t allow rehearsal conflicts.

Understand. They’re human.

Put yourself in their shoes, as the old saying goes; you may find you’d do no better.

When conflicts becomes chronic, yes, that warrants a meeting, but if they show good will towards the company, you can afford to return that good will. Your staff are not robots to program and control. They are humans who have chosen to give you their time, talent, and labor. Don’t ever lose sight of that.

Share success, own defeat

When the company succeeds, you have everyone to thank. When the company fails, missteps, or there’s a conflict, it’s your fault.

It’s such a simple hack, but ego gets in the way. The best leaders have a confident enough ego that they give credit where credit is due, and say a clear “I’m sorry, this is on me,” perhaps even when it’s not due. (Look, you’re the manager. It’s always your due in some way.)

One of our favorite discord channels is “Reviews and stories”—cast post funny team quotes or player responses that moved them. I also post reviews we receive in that channel. I’ll look up which actors hosted the reviewer and personally tag the actors with the full review quote to ensure they see this guest’s special appreciation for their work. It’s the show’s triumph, but it’s also very much that particular cast’s triumph.

We would be nowhere without the talent and dedication of our cast, and I see no reason why they shouldn’t know I know it at least once a month.

And when something goes wrong? I’m eager to claim it. I make mistakes. I’m human, too! Even if the actor could have made a different choice to avoid the conflict, I see no reason to assign the blame anywhere but me. There’s always something in the scenario I, as manager, could have gotten better (hint: it’s almost always clearer communication). I name where I failed and offer an apology. This technique allows us to move forward with good will.

Imagine if Emursive said where they went wrong and offered an apology. Maybe they wouldn’t be ABSOLUTELY FUCKING DONE in the industry.

I mean, they probably still would be. But people wouldn’t hate them half as much.

Pay your people on time

My last tip is arguably most important. Even if you have a staff who feels their work is a higher calling, you have ultimately promised them a paycheck.

You have to pay them on time, or mutiny is not far behind.

Every pay period. Not a day late. No excuses.

If you can’t make payroll, borrow. Make it happen. If you can’t borrow, inform—and be ready to lose your staff. These are people’s indelible lives you’re working with. They don’t have infinite time here. They deserve to know if they are working for an insolvent company.

Money isn’t something we, as artist-managers, can afford to neglect. I know, I know, artists are supposed to be starving, morally superior to the system, immune to the profit motive. BULL SHIT. Save the critique of the capitalist grind for the artwork, but not for your business. A quote that’s always stuck with me…

“If you care about your art, you have to care about the business of your art.” —Paul McGuinness, manager of U2, to Bono

If you care about the work, think it’s something worthy, could change the world, or just think it’ll entertain people when we desperately need joy right now, then you have to have a solid business model. Plan a comfortable on-ramp of operating expenses (I’d say at least a year). Be sure to control build costs, spending where it’ll make a meaningful impact, and reducing costs on the trivial things. Invest in marketing so it succeeds. And pay your people.

Otherwise, you end up with Life and No Trust.

That’s the great tragedy of Life and Trust‘s closing. I never got a chance to grow close to the piece, but I believe there was some really beautiful art in it, with devoted artists behind the helm. And it lives no more, most likely because the business people in some substantial way got it catastrophically wrong.*

*Speculation. But I think I’ve earned one piece of speculation.

Good art deserves good business models and good managers. Make sure your art has both.

November 9, 2023November 12, 2023

A Tribute to Sleep No More

Yesterday The New York Times announced that Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More will close on January 28, 2024.

A million masked faces cried out that day.

Dear Reader, you are reading this thanks to Sleep No More. I owe my professional life to Sleep No More. And why I love Sleep No More and always will above all other immersives is because I know I am not alone in saying that it changed my life.

Its legacy is an entire industry called immersive entertainment.

So many ambitions derived from seeing this one ambitious couple.

July 3, 2013

The date is seared in my memory.

No sooner was I off the elevator, but I got pulled into the narrow interrogation room with Malcolm and Macduff. The intimacy of an actor shutting me into the room. The violence of the swinging pendant. The interrogation. The tree! The alliance formed. As a Shakespeare super-nerd, I quickly recognized this was Act 4, Scene 3 of Macbeth, a rather knotty rhetoric scene, as post-modern dance: subwoofers blaring, my life slightly at risk.

Whoa.

I followed Malcolm all the way down to the first floor, and right before entering the ballroom for the banquet, he turned around, pulled me aside, and said “Shhhh…”

I was no audience member. I had an allegiance.

Later that night I saw the tragedy of youth in Macbeth’s ambition, in a way no spoken-word actor had ever conveyed, as he danced with the imaginary dagger through the cemetery. I tried to help Lady Macduff when she stumbled at the ball, and she held me close in her closet as she, in her drugged delusion, called me her lost child. She left me with an origami pocket filled with salt, the paper ripped from a Bible, to keep me safe. Reader, I have it to this day.

*I keep a collection of my Sleep No More souvenirs under my jewelry case*. *The mask collection goes elsewhere*. If this feels like bragging, rest assured it is. This is theatre you can brag about.

For the first time in my life, I left a play and refused to talk about it. How could I even begin to talk about it? Silence was the only conceivable answer.

True to the show’s name, I did not sleep that night.

The turn

Returning home, my theatrical endeavors now felt hollow. Actors sometimes sneak a sideways glance at the audience, live for the rare Friday night when there are laughs in the house, hoping against hope that someone out there “gets it.” We are so hungry for connection. But in truth, there is an impenetrable wall in the theatre.

No connection. No immediacy. No relationship.

I was dreaming of the McKittrick Hotel, still haunted by the people there I couldn’t help, the mazes within I hadn’t seen. I became that person (who first told me about the show), proselytizing for a solid half hour about the sheer wonder of the experience, only to forget and say “Oh yeah, and it’s all told through dance.”

But no one minded my proselytizing, and friends were booking tickets. They did not respond to this show like when I say I’m directing The Merchant of Venice or performing in yet another Blithe Spirit. They booked tickets willingly and often came back holding court about it just like I did.

Theatre has been trying to justify itself ever since film came out. The argument usually boils down to the fact that theatre is live and therefore supposedly more exciting. In Sleep No More, I saw what film could never do, leaning into live-ness so much that I had been to the McKittrick Hotel. The place was mine to explore, and the camera was my eye. The story I witnessed was no story, flattened out by a stage, screen, or page, but a memory in my body.

Whoa.

That Christmas, after my second visit, Cameron and I dared to ask, “Could we make something like Sleep No More?” It seemed impossible. No way could Houston support a year-round audience in the hundreds, nor could we handle the scale. But we enjoyed brainstorming a show anyway.

Along came Then She Fell: 8 actors, 15 audience, 3,000 sqft. A scale we could attain in Houston. Then we got serious. While developing show pitches, we played Trapped in a Room with a Zombie, something that Houstonians were buying tickets to. Then those pitches turned into escape room pitches. Escape rooms, to us at least, seemed to be begging for context, connection, immediacy. The rest is Strange Bird‘s history. I still don’t sleep well, because come morning, there is so much possibility.

Would we have gone to those two experiences and seen our vision without Sleep No More to frame them? I am not certain. The scale makes it impossible to ignore. Its confidence always gets me, 22 actors across six floors, perfectly synched. The massive statement that is Sleep No More makes a paradigm shift like we experienced seem almost inevitable. Assuming I would have bought tickets to these experiences at all (something of an assumption), I suspect I would have dismissed Then She Fell as a performance art dance project and escape rooms as cash-grabs aimed at nerds. Instead, I saw kin of the thing we loved the most.

Cameron described Sleep No More as “Mozart in the Stone Age.” When it opened in 2011, the United States had almost no exposure to immersive theatre.

Say what you want about “Tony and Tina’s Wedding”: it did not spark a sea change.

Here lands this insane production, so far advanced in its understanding of immersive craft that it is almost outside of history. It was shocking. I think it still is shocking.

Attention must be paid.

The legacy

I’ve told my story above as a synecdoche. Mine is but one testimony. There are countless more out there. 450 people a night chasing actors in and out of the Gallow Green shops, staying with Macduff as he cradles his dead wife, witnessing Macbeth consumed by the trees. For twelve years.

I have spoken of the epicness, but its stability is as much a source for its influence. I relished Sleep No More‘s stability, to have a work of genius to point people to at any time. “Go to that. Then you’ll understand.”

I’d wager something like 80% of immersive theatre creators in the United States would say Sleep No More was their first and primary influence. The percentage is fewer for escape room creators, but I’ve met several (and their work is excellent).

And how many audiences were created by Sleep No More? People with no interest in creation, but still dreaming of the show nonetheless, hungry for the chance to turn a story into a memory. They started putting “immersive theatre” into Google and took chances on smaller and local productions, helping the industry grow. They probably now play escape rooms, chasing after a taste of Sleep No More.

Neither immersive theatre nor escape rooms would be where we are without the colossus that is Sleep No More.

And that is the true source of my grief. I grieve for the creators and consumers of immersive entertainment who will never be born because they cannot stumble into Sleep No More anymore.

But hey! They can still go to The McKinnon Hotel in Shanghai!

In 2022, we hosted about 3,000 guests at The Man From Beyond. That’s one week at the McKittrick. Us small fry can’t begin to aspire to having the same cultural impact. (Or revenue, for that matter.)

These are giant shoes to fill.

What’s next?

Something new will move into those six floors in Chelsea. I’m hoping for theatre, not a night club. I’m hoping Punchdrunk still has a part in it. Maybe they will make something as insanely precise as The Burnt City, which blew me away with their use of modern lighting and controls. Maybe they will fulfill their promise-threat of a cutting-edge non-masked structure.

Whatever comes next, the closing of Sleep No More marks the end of the First Age of Immersive Entertainment. I do not think it is the Death Knell, but the death of a colossus shrinks us more than the closing of the small scurrying mammals.

It is right to mourn the loss even as we turn to the new.

Thank you Punchdrunk for Sleep No More and to co-producer Emursive for giving it the stability to influence so many of us. This show will be missed.

It’s not Too late…yet…

If you’re reading this blog and haven’t gone to Sleep No More, what are you doing? Book tickets before it’s too late! It is both past and future. It will ground you in the essential history of immersives and still offer you a glimpse of what this form can be.

Check out my First Timer’s Guide: some prep and framing will benefit you greatly going in. Also note that you’ll need to be aggressive with other audiences. They’ve been overfilling it for years, and the final shows are likely to be packed with die-hard fans (who are a bit obnoxious, honestly). Some people are very turned off by that aspect, to the point of not enjoying it at all, so consider yourself warned.

Me? I like the aggression part a touch too much. It is my hope against hope that another show will come along in which I can unleash my true self: the hyper-aggressive weasel.

See you on the stairs. I’ll be the Woman in the Red Dress, running the Malcolm marathon on my tenth and final visit.

April 26, 2017April 26, 2017

Odyssey Works: transformative experiences for an audience of one

I recently had the very good fortune to attend a two-hour workshop by Odyssey Works. And I fell in love. With their approach, with their work, with my partner who, 20 minutes prior to our interview, had been a total stranger.

About Odyssey Works

Odyssey Works started with the question “How could our art have the deepest possible impact on our audiences?” All artists want to move their audience, to have a lasting impact, but without knowing the audience—their struggles, their childhoods, their obsessions and bugbears—it is impossible to guarantee such an impact. Odyssey Works asks, “If our art could change just one life, wouldn’t it be worth it?” And from that resounding YES came a company devoted to designing immersive experiences for one person.

It starts with a long and detailed application—you know you’re signing up for the experience, and you know if you’re chosen. The survey digs into real personal meat: what’s your relationship with your mother? Where do you feel at home? What’s something you do every day that others don’t? What is your relationship with death? Once Odyssey Works chooses their participant, they interview you, family, friends, and enemies, read what you write, read your favorite books, listen to your favorite music, attend your houses of worship, doing everything they can to immerse themselves in your life. They call this “radical empathy.” Naturally, they fall a bit in love!

After studying the participant for months, Odyssey Works asks “What do I wish for this person?” They’re not talking wish-fulfillment, like a new job or a better house, but more along the lines of “I wish you felt a connection to your body” or “I wish you could experience beauty in new ways, seeing beauty even in your tiny apartment.” It’s usually a life-changing wish. With the wish the ultimate goal, they then map the emotional affects they want to achieve in the participant, and then design the experience to achieve those affects.

The Odyssey begins slowly, perhaps with a newly-discovered book by your favorite author that has an uncanny resemblance to some of your life experiences or with a dancer in red on your subway ride to work. Sometimes you’ll meet new people, and they will be part of the Odyssey you experience (note that they never play characters other than themselves; all of the actors stay true to who they really are, but they will tailor themselves to serve a purpose in the experience). The experience then culminates in a single weekend of events—often you’re kidnapped and whisked away someplace else. And you emerge on the other side deeply moved and fundamentally transformed. Guaranteed.

A scene from The Map Is Not the Territory where the participant was blindfolded and tied to a stake. (Odyssey Works)

Like so many worthwhile artistic projects, Odyssey Works relies on grants and commissions to keep going, and their many collaborators (from medievalists to chefs) work on a volunteer basis. Odyssey Works does not categorize themselves as “immersive theatre,” although they do use the entire world as their “set,” and an even more profound blurring between what is the real world and what is the artistic world occurs for the participant. So while we may not be completely overlapping in our projects, Odyssey Works has a lot to teach Strange Bird Immersive and other immersive theatre companies.

Six proposals

In their book, Odyssey Works outlines six proposals for artists looking to achieve a similar impact with their audiences…

Begin with Empathy
Involve Your Audience Completely
Stop Pretending
Design Experiences, Not Things
Experiment with Form
Produce, Don’t Reproduce

I highly recommend reading their book from cover to cover. While I must warn that it does sometimes stray from practical language into something more kin to academic art-lingo talk, it’ll undoubtedly inspire any experiential artist to re-examine their work. I sure did!

Take-Away: Personalize it

I was particularly struck with the call to radically personalize the experience. The lack of personalization is a big part of what makes traditional auditorium-stage theatre so static. Everyone is asked to receive the same story and to stay completely anonymous in the dark. In immersive theatre, you exist in the story, you matter to the characters, and you may even affect what happens. Eye contact alone is AMAZING. This is a great beginning. Can we go even deeper than that?

A little personalization goes a long way. In The Man From Beyond, we like to surprise guests with a personalized gift as well as with an intimate tarot reading. Madame Daphne also has the opportunity to learn her guests’ names without much trouble. Odyssey Works reminded me how powerful someone calling you by name can be, and now my character may call out to you for help by name. I’m already noticing that deeper relationships are now possible the moment you introduce a name.

I’m also imagining a show structured around a survey: your answers could set you on a particular story/character track in the show that either appeals to your personality or specifically challenges you to face what you’re uncomfortable with. The Hex Room, created by Cross Roads Escape Games in Anaheim, CA, makes guests take a brief survey to find out what stereotypical horror character they are, and then promptly locks you in a room themed to fit that character. (I am proud to report I’m the detective).

Haven’t played it yet, but when I do, that’ll be my coat. (The Hex Room)

Then She Fell achieves personalization by asking personal-history questions of the audience: “When did you first fall in love?” “Have you ever done something you weren’t supposed to?” Answering these questions unlocks new meaning for the audience.

Each person is an endlessly complex individual, and everyone fundamentally wants “to be seen.” Immersive theatre gives artists the opportunity to give that gift of “being seen” to their audience. There’s a lot of fertile ground to explore here.

Take Away: Design Experiences

I am also moved by the idea that we are designing experiences here, and we should approach our work in those terms. We’re turning flat stories into four-dimensional, fully lived experiences. The experience of the audience is primary.

Actors never want to think in terms of emotions and moods (MOOD is DOOM spelled backwards, as my Meisner acting coach says). But that’s not a rule designers should follow. The best immersive theatre experiences will be carefully crafted with the emotional impacts in mind. Next time I am working on a new immersive experience, I intend to begin with a concrete wish for the audience, and then map out the emotional journey we want the audience to undergo.

We should also be thinking about experiences in more sensory terms as well. In one show, Odyssey Works added mulch to the participant’s secret room, with the explicit goal of triggering the feelings aroused in that room in the participant for years to come whenever he smelled mulch again. YES. Immersive theatre introduces a new design category (and my favorite credit in my own show): scent design.

Life Take-Aways

In the workshop I attended, I asked a stranger five questions, but these questions weren’t about where she works or lives or her opinions of movies or politics. They were meaty questions that established intimacy in a flash. The question “What’s been on your mind lately?” unlocked a staggering amount of emotion and detail. I left wondering if I knew my closest friends in this way. I now want to go ask them all of these questions, and so personalize our relationship more.

Human beings are always designing experiences for each other, from hosting a friend’s birthday party to choosing how to split up the family into separate cars. Odyssey Works calls us to be conscious about these choices, and to design them with an eye to the participant. This is how we can transform experience into a gift.

So get out there, ask the real questions, and design experiences!

For more on Odyssey Works, visit their website.

And buy their book. Seriously, wow.