We’ve been juuuuuuust a little busy over here, what with the reviews and the continuing buildout of the HERE lineup. Oh yeah, we’re not done yet. And now the badges are starting to fly off the virtual shelves.
This week Kathryn laid out a piece on Narrative Architectures for Immersive Storytelling, while Will Cherry and I explored the VR offerings at Sundance. We’ll have more on that next week.
Meanwhile, on the podcast, I finally got to sit down with The Industry’s Yuval Sharon, whose work is part of NoPro’s origin story.
But don’t just stick around for that stuff: we’ve got discussion threads from the Facebook group, LA Times articles about California’s AB5, and a WHOLE LOT of professional opportunities this time out!
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HERE SUMMIT & FESTIVAL
Pasadena — March 27–29, 2020
The next great gathering of the immersive creative community.
Pre-Registration Open; 3-Day Badges On Sale
ON THE PODCAST THIS WEEK
This week Yuval Sharon, Artistic Director of The Industry and co-director of that company’s upcoming opera Sweet Land, joins host Noah Nelson to talk about his approach to making opera. Yuval has created the seminal works Invisible Cities and Hopscotch here in Los Angeles, propelling the conversation about how audiences engage with opera forward and raising the bar for immersive creators of every stripe.
FROM THE WIRE: SHOWS, EVENTS, & EXPERIENCES
NYC: Theatre in the Dark: Senses of Love, Love and Diversity, The Silver Dream Factory Launch Party, Mother Leeds, A Sort of Clubhouse
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Submit your show to us here or at pitches@noproscenium.com.
REVIEWS
From No Proscenium:
Experience the End of Humanity in ‘Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds’ (Review)Dotdotdot partners with Jeff Wayne to bring the science fiction classic to life through theatre and technologynoproscenium.comGo to Hawkins, Indiana in ‘Secret Cinema Presents Stranger Things’ (Review)Travel back in time to the world of the hit television shownoproscenium.com‘The Fortune Teller’ Throws A Wild Card into the Escape Game Genre (Review)Kevin Gossett and Kathryn Yu discuss Level Games’ Tarot-themed escape room-theatre hybridnoproscenium.comMattia Casalegno’s ‘Aerobanquets RMX’ Serves Up Food for Thought (The NoPro Review)The VR-meets-dining experiences plays with our expectationsnoproscenium.comGuerilla Audio Experience Lets You ‘Assemble’ Your American Dream (Review)A walk through a retail store becomes a meditation on lifenoproscenium.com‘Pip’s Island’ Takes Children on the Adventure of a Lifetime (Review)An immersive experience in Manhattan lets kids harness their imaginationsnoproscenium.com
From David & Lisa Spira of Room Escape Artist:
In Boston, The Boobie Trap at Trapology was funny, a little sexy, and very racy — relative to most other escape rooms.
South of Boston, in Taunton, MA, we enjoyed The Arcade at Upside Down Escape Games, which packed a lot of great content into a small package.
STORIES
From NoProscenium.com and our Twitter feed:
Picks of the Week (1/30/20–2/5/20)Chicago, LA, and Sundance are all in the mix this weeknoproscenium.comEvocative, Enacted, Embedded & Emergent: Narrative Architectures for Immersive StorytellingAn expansion of Henry Jenkins’ framework as a toolkit for experience designnoproscenium.com
From David & Lisa Spira of Room Escape Artist:
Last Chance: Early Bird Tickets for Escape Immerse Explore: The Hayden Farm - Room Escape ArtistThis is your last week to buy Early Bird tickets to Escape Immerse Explore: The Hayden Farm. From now until midnight…roomescapeartist.comThe Hayden Farm 2020 - Room Escape ArtistFor our 5th escape room tour, we're doing something a little different - a small scale, 1-day event in our home market…roomescapeartist.com
Early Bird Pricing for REA’s next tour — Escape Immerse Explore: The Hayden Farm — ends Friday, January 31. This tour is a hidden gem of an escape room company in Wharton, NJ. If you order a ticket this weekend and mention that you found out about the tour through NoPro, we’ll give you early bird pricing through Monday, February 3. This deal is just for you, NoPro followers!
In this series, REA answers commons escape room questions. Next up: Are escape rooms scary?
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From Michael Andersen of ARGN:
Someone mailed veteran ARGer JC Hutchins a creepy doll wrapped in 80 year old newspapers, nobody knows what to do with it yet, and I am seriously wigging out about the whole thing.
THE DISCOURSE
Discussions and posts from Everything Immersive & Twitter:
If you’re a creator in California or making work in Cali and not following the AB5 story do so NOW. — Noah Nelson, Publisher, NoPro
Hot on the heels of Andrzej Lukowski saying in The Stage that immersive theatre is hard to get right (after the closings of Variant 31 and The Wolf of Wall Street) comes another immersive opinion column in the The Stage, this time from noted theatre critic Lyn Gardner discussing the safety failures at Variant 31 and how the production kept operating for two weeks despite failing inspections (registration required). — Kathryn Yu
And also this weekend we’ve got an article from The Guardian asking if immersive theatre has sold its soul, as the London scene seems to have become more commercialized in recent memory; it asks if the pendulum is going to remain on the “entertainment” end of the spectrum with the popularity of shows like Great Gatsby and the successes of Secret Cinema. — Kathryn Yu
E.I. Discussion Thread: Has anyone done an improvised immersive show?
Eye tracking is the next phase for VR, ready or notVirtual reality seems like it's undergone a dramatic refocusing over the past year: away from PCs, and toward do-it-all…www.cnet.comAs Theater Takes Place In Increasingly Adventurous Settings, Advocates Want Creators To…"We are all deviants," she continued. "And I don't necessarily mean legal behavior, but we all deviate from the norm…www.cpr.org
NOW FUNDING
Ironlights
A VR fighting game of skill, style, and strategy
Just 11 days and under $3.5k to go on the campaign.
From last week: E McNeil is one of the original indie developers in this wave of VR, and an incredibly nice guy to boot. E’s shipped seven games already, with many of them either starting off in VR (DarkNet) or getting an adaptation.
Now he’s developing the thing we all want: MULTIPLAYER SWORD FIGHTING. — Noah Nelson
PROFESSIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
Jobs, Grants, Gigs, and more
HOLLYWOOD FRINGE: REGISTRATION OPEN
FEE: $50–300, depending on type of event
The long Fringe winter is over. Fringe has begun! Participant Registration for The 11th Annual Hollywood Fringe Festival is now open.
NYC: RAVE THEATRE FESTIVAL: SUBMISSIONS OPEN
This year’s festival will run July 24-August 9.
DEADLINE: MARCH 1, 2020
FEE: $49
We believe the world is a better place if there’s more theater in it. So we created a platform for more theater productions to be produced.
We will be selecting roughly 25 plays, musicals, multimedia and cross-disciplinary projects, and family shows, which will each receive up to five performances at one of our partner theaters.
TROY, NY: TROY FOUNDRY THEATRENow Accepting Play Submissions for 2020 March Session of Dark Day Mondays Free Reading Series
Deadline:
Saturday, February 15, 2020
No Fee
The selected plays will be presented in staged reading format with the possibility of being considered for full staging. Please see below for details and submission directions.
Design Challenge: Las Vegas students & local designers — Projection Mapping@AREA15
Submissions are due by Sunday, March 1 at 11:59 p.m.
Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.
The challenge: Bring the walls of AREA15’s indoor event space to life. Based on the theme of “Technology” and the file parameters provided (see submission form), build a video animation design that will transport visitors to a reality that DOES NOT EXIST.
JOB: Play Lab Experience Designer @ IDEO
The legendary design firm is hiring.
Experience designers create memorable, engaging, multi-sensory events for a wide variety of audiences. Designing across physical spaces and digital technologies, experience designers at IDEO bring a human-centered lens to designing unforgettable moments.
INDIECADE 2020
Early Deadline: Feb 15
Regular Deadline: May 15
Fee: $75 for first event, $25 per additional event
SUBMISSIONS ARE OFFICIALLY OPEN at indiecade.com/submissions! It would be great if you could share this post so that we reach maximum eyeballs and can find as many game-makers as possible.
This year we have one application for opportunities to showcase at multiple events throughout 2020, including E3 in June and IndieCade Festival in October! We’ll also be adding additional opportunities in the coming months so stay tuned. Thank you! — IndieCade 🧡
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