Desert ghost towns, Titanic: Adventure out of Time, and Lord Huron all factor into the DNA of The Continuing Story, a new solo immersive experience that’s coming to Chicago from First Person Immersive, the creative shingle of artists Natalie Senecal & Mike Vargovich.
The new show, which runs the weekend of Jan 23rd, offers up an audience of one a bespoke immersive experience.
We checked in with Senecal & Vargovich to see just what the duo have up their sleeves this month.
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No Proscenium: Tell us a little bit about your experience! What’s it about? What makes it immersive?
Natalie Senecal & Mike Vargovich: A one-on-one, micro-immersive theatrical experience that places a single audience member inside a living narrative. Guests are invited to explore the space, uncover fragments of memory, and interact directly with a character.
Upon entering, guests pass through a hallway of moving boxes as an eerie, unfamiliar song fills the air and the scent of aged wood lingers. The walls are covered in ephemera – notes, trinkets, and artifacts that invite quiet discovery.
Just as the guest begins to settle another figure enters unaware they are not alone. They pause, turn and smile, “You’re here” the character says, “ You must be the traveller I’m waiting for.”
NP: What was the inspiration for your upcoming experience?
NS & MV: When we were packing up our apartment to move from Las Vegas to Chicago, we looked around at all the boxes of our belongings and thought of all our memories…and that memories are really all we are in the end. We had hoped to do a farewell show in Las Vegas, however, as many know, a cross-country move keeps you very busy.
We’ve always loved antiques, desert ghost towns, and cemeteries. We would dream up the stories these people lived based on the object they owned or town they lived in or the dates they lived. Were they happy? Did they hate their job? Were they fighting with their family? We wanted to create a story that celebrated even the most mundane memories as they are how people can live on after death.
NP: What do you think fans of immersive will find most interesting about this latest experience?
NS & MV: Many immersive fans seek out one-on-one interactions in larger scale productions, like Sleep No More. In experiencing this ourselves, we always found battling the crowd off-putting at times. With our show, it’s a guaranteed one-on-one. You get to explore on your own and you get the actor all to yourself.
NP: Once you started designing and testing what did you discover about this experience that was unexpected?
NS & MV: We did a beta test in the summer with friends out of our 2-bedroom apartment in Chicago. It was interesting to discover so many people interact with this type of show like first person video games. They wanted to uncover clues and trigger moments. They knew they could affect the world and wanted to! The two of us are not big gamers unless you count the PC game, Titanic: Adventure out of Time, which we both played in the late 90’s. It made us want to explore that type of gameplay further.
NP: What can fans who are coming to this, or thinking about coming to this, do to get into the mood of the experience?
NS & MV: Check out Lord Huron’s Alive From Whispering Pines on YouTube. We love that Lord Huron built a world around their music and the characters that inhabit their songs. It feels old, a little grainy, and definitely weird. Their music is a big inspiration and we find there is an inherent sadness that feels far away and familiar.
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