Getting its start as an online experience during the heart of lockdown, Don’t Follow the Lights first appeared in our mortal realm in 2023, with a run that translated what had been a video game like event into live performers and physical space.
Now Mystic Ventures Collective is bringing an expanded version of the show to the San Francisco International Arts Festival with two runs on May 9th.
We checked in with scriptwriter and co-director Shelli Frew about the new production.
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NO PROSCENIUM: Tell us a little bit about your experience! What’s it about? What makes it immersive?
Shelli Frew: Don’t Follow the Lights is a folktale adventure that sees audience members lost in the fairy realm. Participants will join up with a fairy group, perhaps fauns or changelings or the fae court, and meet folkloric beings such as Baba Yaga. There are several story elements that are changeable, depending on audience actions, including four different possible endings. There is also circus arts and live music woven into the show.
Don't Follow the Lights is delighted to be part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival as their first immersive theatre show. We’ve been able to expand the cast size from the original 2023 version. This time around the space we have will feature many individual rooms with more opportunities for one on one interactions.
NP: What was the inspiration for your upcoming experience?
SF: The original iteration of Don’t Follow the Lights was an online show that grew out of lockdown. Wanting to run away to a different realm seemed a good idea at the time. I also love the idea of audience members having a direct influence on the storyline. Folk and fairy tales seemed a perfect setting to entice folks off the beaten path.
In writing the script, I re-read dozens of stories to brush up on old familiar and unfamiliar creatures of legend. Our characters are not perfect replicas of the modern conception of fairies, which I think hews closer to how these stories existed hundreds of years ago. Oral tradition is much more malleable than the written word. There are many nods and easter eggs to old tales, for keen eyed audience members.
NP: What do you think fans of immersive will find most interesting about this latest experience?
SF: There are 20 versions of the show, when factoring in all the storyline elements that can be changed due to audience actions. It makes the show feel gamified. If you like TTRPG or LARPing, this is the show for you. Our cast features talented drag performers, amazing acrobats, and fantastic singers. Some of the circus acts include hambone, contortion, and trapeze, just to name a few. These various art forms are woven into the storyline.
NP: Once you started designing and testing what did you discover about this experience that was unexpected?
SF: Audience members have been incredibly clever and brave in ways we didn’t initially expect. In the first live run, we had to adapt storylines on the fly, to our great delight. Those tweaks to the storyline are now written into the branching narrative.
The original online version had two additional endings not in the live version, so this won’t be a spoiler: We discovered it doesn’t matter how many warnings audience members are given to not get too close to a mermaid, about 50% of the time they will get near and eaten by the sexy fish lady.
NP: What can fans who are coming to this, or thinking about coming to this, do to get into the mood of the experience?
SF: Read up on your fairytales and mythology to start. Really brush up on the rules of interacting with fairies. If you play D&D set a few sessions in the fae-wild to get in the headspace. Watch Labyrinth, Pan’s Labyrinth, or any movie that sees a human lost in another realm.
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