Birch House Immersive's annual Valentine's Day show Lonely Hearts returns to Chicago for its ninth year this week in the for of Lonely Hops, which moves the action to Forbidden Root brewery’s Cultivate Ravenswood brewpub, which becomes the Pfeltenhopps Brewery in the world of the show.

And if the name “Pfeltenhopps” is getting your puppet senses tingling, well congratulations because they’re not wrong. Lonely Hops not only continues the tradition of the Lonely Hearts series having puppet characters, but it ups the puppet stakes, if you will. But you’ll have to read on to see what that’s all about.

We checked in with co-writers and performers Dean Corrin and Christina Renee Jones about the latest edition of the series which runs Feb. 13th through the 22nd.

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NO PROSCENIUM: Tell us a little bit about your experience! What’s it about? What makes it immersive?

Dean Corrin and Christina Renee Jones: Lonely Hops is the ninth iteration of our annual Lonely Hearts experience. The series began with a simple question: “Who comes to a bar on Valentine’s Day?” Our audience had the opportunity to find out, meeting a kooky cast of regulars by moving from table to table, engaging in intimate conversations with a wide variety of patrons. It was during that inaugural experience that we introduced the three characters who operate the bar (Tavern keeper Mackenzie Rigby, Gin Savant Beatrix Von Hopper, and the Gentlewoman Giles Henry), and who have remained constants across all nine experiences, perpetually having to relocate after the loss of their lease. Each year has explored a different location and immersive format to provide new frames for audience interaction and engagement, and this year is no different. With Lonely Hops being hosted at a brewery, the audience will experience a brand new Lonely Hearts through the button eyes of our new host Stanley T. Puppet. 

NP: What was the inspiration for your upcoming experience? 


DC & CRJ: Our team is made up of diehard puppet fanatics, so we are constantly exploring ways to integrate puppets into an immersive experience and diving into what that entails for our audience. How do our guests react when they are asked by a puppet to open up emotionally? We’ve had a puppet character in five of our first eight events, and found that many audience members engaged more easily and openly in conversations with the puppet than they did with other humans (even going so far as one audience member per show marrying a puppet in Lonely Hearts: the Wedding!). We’ve wanted to explore that relationship further and this year we’ve found a home at Pfeltenhopps, a puppet owned and operated brewery, where audience members will be invited to immerse themselves in the experience as puppet-versions of themselves.

NP: What do you think fans of immersive will find most interesting about this latest experience?

DC & CRJ: We think fans will be interested in exploring a new kind of immersion and engaging with the story from a new perspective. One of our goals in immersion is to invite the audience into a state of play and we hope that talking through their hands will allow them to show sides of themselves they don’t often reveal.

NP: Once you started designing and testing what did you discover about this experience that was unexpected?


DC & CRJ: Even for actors accustomed to being flesh puppets, we’ve discovered that “felt is freedom.” When we put on our puppet drag, we’ve been surprised and delighted at the way the fabric masks open us up to deeper levels of both silliness and sincerity.

NP: What can fans who are coming to this, or thinking about coming to this, do to get into the mood of the experience? 


DC & CRJ: Revisit some of your favorite puppets - Lamb Chop, Howdy Doody, Daniel Tiger, Kukla and Ollie, Beanie and Cecil, and Pterri the Pterodactyl. Of course, any time is a good time to watch anything with the Muppets, but it’s even better when you’re getting ready for Lonely Hops. You can also play one of our warm-up exercises, “What story should be adapted by the Muppets and who would you cast as the one human actor?”

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