This weekend, two artists transform one of their living spaces into an immersive performance space for a work devised in just 48 hours based on the prompts submitted by the audience.
Inspired in part by this August’s New York Immersive Invitational, where six teams were challenged to devise original immersive work in just 48 hours, Grace Cooper and Margaret Mighty Oak Brackey are taking on a challenge of their own in the form of Pop Rocket, which takes place in an Upper Manhattan apartment.
We checked in with Brackey, co-creator and performer in Pop Rocket about the new show which runs on the 15th & 16th.
This is No Proscenium’s COMING SOON, a look at ongoing immersive experiences & events. To learn more about how your event could be considered for the feature check out How To Get Covered By NoPro.
NoPro is 100% reader & listener supported. Become a subscriber to secure & expand our coverage of Everything Immersive!
NO PROSCENIUM: Tell us a little bit about your experience! What’s it about? What makes it immersive?
Margaret Mighty Oak Brackey: Grace and I have been working together for about two years, primarily creating and performing our physical theater duet, I Can Almost Reach You. We initially created that piece for an audience in the round, but it expanded into multiple contexts, including outdoors on a farm with horses, and in an abandoned factory parking lot. However, the audience was always on the outside watching, and we didn’t have much control over the spaces we performed in. Pop Rocket comes from our desire to inhabit the same world alongside our audience, one that we have curated for their experience.
Pop Rocket takes place in a Home Economics class set in the 1960s. We’re drawing inspiration from the space race and a form of absurd femininity featured in many of the era’s rom coms. We’re also collecting suggestions from our audience to use in the creation of the show, which happens in the 48 hours before the first performance.
NP: What was the inspiration for your upcoming experience?
MMOB: Grace and I were enormously inspired by [the] Immersive Invitational in NYC this August, where immersive companies had 48 hours to build a piece.
We’ve long wanted to make an immersive piece, but were blocked by a lack of space that we could totally adapt for our vision. The space for Pop Rocket is actually my apartment, but very altered. Part of the attraction of the 48 hour show is the explosive “yes-and-ing” that we love to use in our process, but another part is logistical; trying to minimize the amount of time I live “on set”!
NP: What do you think fans of immersive will find most interesting about this latest experience?
MMOB: This show is built for three audience members at a time, making it quite intimate. Since it’s a real apartment with real appliances there’s a lack of artifice in the set, but allows our characters to be wildly artificial in contrast.
NP: Once you started designing and testing what did you discover about this experience that was unexpected?
MMOB: This project has highlighted the amount of trust required between us to make a show with the scope of Pop Rocket Creating an immersive piece is something we’ve both separately wanted to do, but it took us working together to pull it off. A key part of the show is our dynamic as performers and our ability to play with one another in a live setting, which, again, necessitates trust, especially in this small space where everything is visible.
NP: What can fans who are coming to this, or thinking about coming to this, do to get into the mood of the experience?
MMOB: Watch Down With Love with Renee Zellweger; listen to JFK’s “We Choose to go to the Moon” speech, the whole thing, not just the famous lines; and dance around to Herb Alpert’s album Whipped Cream and Other Delights. You’ll be so ready for the world of Pop Rocket.
Pop Rocket runs Nov. 15th & 16th, with audience input starting 48 hours before the first performance, at a private residence in Upper Manhattan. Tickets are $20-50.
Discussion