Before we get started: yes, this is a whole new look for NoPro and for the Rundown in particular. We're no longer publishing on Medium – which reminds me that I need to tell the folks there that – and we are officially in soft launch of the new site as I figure out the quirks of the new platform and theme.
One of those quirks: the "On This Page" feature which you'll find either at the top (mobile) or on the right hand side (desktop). This acts as a table of contents for a page, when we choose to use it, and for the Rundown it's a way to click around and get to the reviews you're most interested. Although we really think reading it all is the way to go, but hey: we get it.
This change means some mild reformatting of the Rundown, you might not even notice, and slowly but surely we're retroactively bringing that format to the Rundown archive. We have to do this by hand, so it will take a while, and we didn't want to wait to make the switch until that was over.
I know that this new format is going to make the Rundown even MORE USEFUL, and there are changes under the hood as well that are going to make the site an even more powerful resource for the whole of the immersive & experiential arts community: fan & creator alike.
We'll have more to say once more of the infrastructure is in place. For now: enjoy the all new Review Rundown! –Noah Nelson, Publisher
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Arte Museum New York (NYC)
d’strict
Starting at $50; Chelsea Piers
Currently Booking Though January 31, 2026
Created by Korean design company, d’strict, as the newest installment in their ecosystem of immersive museums, Arte Museum New York is structured as a linear, multi-room, walk-through experience. Each room hosts a different installation, mostly projection displays with associated soundscapes featuring dwarfing depictions of the natural world.
There’s, of course, the ever-present irony of using technology to give people an immersive experience with nature; but that’s why the Arte Museum smartly adds a touch of magical realism to its pieces: A cosmic whale flying over a bioluminescent sea, a tidal wave in a glass box, a motion-activated sparkle in an infinite flower garden.
The experience is undeniably beautiful and impressive technologically. I must confess, however, I approached it with the assumption that it was a traditional, twenty-first-century selfie palace, designed in no small part for Zillenials and families to post in front of. Does it entirely beat those allegations? No.
But, despite that, on quite a few occasions throughout my time in the Chelsea Piers, the Arte Museum New York transcended mere photo opp and felt magical. There’s something undeniably cool about walking into a room with a tornado or seeing a drawing of yours animate to life on a wall-sized screen.
The scents, curated for each room, reminded me of DCA’s “Soarin’ Over California” — in a good way. The whole experience was soothing, but also invigorating.
I felt like a child running around the Kusama-esque “STAR ‘MILKY WAY,’” a mirrored room filled with multicolored, hanging paper lanterns that pulsed and flickered to sound. It made me wish that more of Kusama’s infinity rooms were set to music.
Overall, the Arte Museum is a solid collection of visually intriguing pieces. And while I as a viewer yearned for a bit more narrative or an exploration of deeper themes than this format might readily allow (there’s no controlling audience pace), the beauty, scope, and technical magic is nothing short of a mighty job well done.
--Alec Zbornak, NYC Critic
The Good Neighbor Game (Work in Progress) (Orlando)
Hawkmoon Immersive
Part of Halcy-con 2025, Run complete
While at Halcy-Con (the Galactic Starcruiser fan convention in Orlando), I caught a work-in-progress by Hawkmoon Immersive, a new team run by Starcruiser alumni Kierna Conner and Sage Starkey. The Good Neighbor Game is still developing, but it’s a piece that shows potential by a group to definitely watch.
At the start of the Good Neighbor Game, the players are told they are members of a small town looking to protect themselves from outsiders who mean to destroy their paradise. The show takes the form of a Werewolf variant in which players vote to eliminate the potential traitors in their number and the traitors try to survive until the end of the game. Along the way, the host slowly reveals the mythology that governs the community and the presence of a greater force secretly watching the game’s proceedings.Players voted out of the community become outsiders who can explore the space to solve puzzles and get back into the game, and the game winners must make a decision about their interest in the community in the finale.
The game itself here is still being developed and in the current form feels a bit derivative and disconnected from the story. But the show remains interesting for two reasons. First, the staging is terrific. A Werewolf game can go a long way with showmanship and Hawkmoon delivers that. A live pianist accompanies all the action with appropriate music, a huge model city in front of the players is a great framing prop, and the hosting by Conner, with whom I played in Starcruiser, was terrific, elegantly unfolding the story’s conspiracy in cryptic one-sided phone calls and emotional and disturbing appeals to the importance of the community. All of this allowed the show to transcend the gameplay into a meditation on conformity, safety, and utopia. The story arc was poignant and I can see the potential for it to land in a really profound space when the gameplay marries that theme.
We often overlook Orlando as an immersive center and unfairly fail to consider how much skill, emphasis, and care talent there has for building compelling and accessible interactive performances. The Good Neighbor Game is still developing, but even in this early stage it’s an intriguing piece that shows potential to be great. And it’s wonderful to see the exceptional talent of Starcruiser branching out into new immersive work of their own.
— Nicholas Fortugno, New York Correspondent
Hallowspire (Southampton, NJ)
$30; through Nov. 8
There's a feeling of spectacle and whimsy that separates Hallowspire from other similarly sized regional competitors. In their first year of making the jump from a home haunt to a larger ticketed event, Hallowspire has made full use of their new-found land (with plenty of room for expansion). Scenes include an elaborate alien crash site, multiple different maze-like structures, a large scale corn-maze, and the piece-de-resistance, a hall of looping doorways that engineer a Keystone Kops meets Scooby Doo chase scene of guests and monsters popping in and out of doors.
Particularly notable is the quality of the actors as well. Where prior houses that have attempted bawdy humor have resulted in unintentional (or intentional) offense, the more comically inclined actors walked a delicate tightrope that pushed boundaries without veering into tastelessness. On the note of fun, Hallowspire presented the only legitimately fun "Funland" amusement park set I've ever seen in a haunt. The clowns were riotous in addition to startling, a wonderful gag involved a talented juggler, and the calliope music was upbeat and energizing in addition to ominous. All my childhood fantasies of terror and adventure at the abandoned amusement park, spun up by Hardy Boys and the aforementioned Scooby-Doo, felt fully realized.
There is so much space for expansion on the voluminous lot that Hallowspire occupies that I'm thrilled for the expansions management says they're already planning. What I would now call a regional must-see might one day soon become a destination haunt from states away.
–Blake Weil, East Coast Editor-at-Large
Richard III (A One Person Show) (London)
Emily Carding
£20, part of VPN, Colab Tower, Southwark
Oct. 20th
Upon entering the CoLab tunnels Emily Carding, aka Richard (Duke of Gloucester), greets you. An imposing figure in a dark suit, loose red tie and their left hand hidden away in their pocket. Every audience member is welcomed by the name of the role they will take in the drama, as indicated by boards we hang around our necks declaring ‘HELLO, MY NAME IS…’. Parts range from Murderer 1 to Lady Anne to King Edward IV (the role I play). You cannot help noticing the large collection of stickers with ‘DEAD’ written on in red pen. But I am sure it will all be fine.
‘Richard III’ is the first part of the trilogy of shows performed by Carding in Voidspace Participatory Network alongside ‘Hamlet (an experience)’ and ‘Timon(opoly)’. This performance condenses a full five act Shakespearean play into an hour.
Carding is a strong Shakespearean actor, as well as a mainstay at Bridge Command. They are able to wheel around and work their charms on the audience, be it as the wooer of Lady Anne or the loving uncle to their tiny tot nephews (evidently much safer in the Tower of London). The use of audience members as the other characters works well, allowing everyone at least a moment of being in the shared spotlight. When Richard speaks of the haunting by all those who have died from their schemes, Carding has only to look around the space - since nearly every audience member has, by now, been given the ‘DEAD’ sticker, while we all sit and observe them observing us.
This is more of an immersive experience than an interactive one. You are being talked to, rather than being invited to contribute.
A few times my pulse and temperature are checked as I foil my dear brother’s plans - by not dropping dead. Before long though that accursed red sticker has to be attached to my shirt and my paper crown removed from my most royal brow. My sticker stayed on for the rest of the festival and people just called me ‘DEAD’. This way of continuing post-show made my visit an even more interesting experience to live through.
— Thomas Jancis, London Correspondent
Timon(opoly) (London)
Emily Carding
£20, part of VPN, Colab Tower, Southwark
Oct. 20th
Have you seen or read ‘Timon of Athens’? Unlikely as the possibility of you having done so is, this shouldn’t ruin your experience of ‘Timon(opoly) - “the game, the show, the gameshow”.
‘Timon(opoly)’is the final part of Emily Carding’s trilogy, performed at Voidspace Participatory Network, after ‘Richard III (a one person show)’ and ‘Hamlet (an experience)’. This time there are hats and gold. Audience members take on different roles in the game by wearing signifying hats. Will you play as the painter blindfolded and trying to assemble a portrait? Are you the poet playing Madlibs to fill in the missing words to complete their verse? Or will you be the titular Timon (pronounced Ty-men - who is not a meerkat) with a full bag of gold/boiled sweets, supporting the arts and hosting wild parties? I am given this role and the top hat, taken from atop Carding’s head and placed on mine.
Time to roll the giant dice. Moving through the narrative Carding places down large Monopoly style cards showing Shakespearean locations, until we land on an event space. This usually means it is time for a party and a game.
The fact Carding has already done two rather intense shows that day gives the whole event a manic air. We bark like dogs and make whatever we think is the noise made by a red panda. The games are fun and allow those who wish to participate to become involved.
Lady Fortune twists and turns on us. People lose their jobs, and their hats, as well as their bags of sweet gold. More explanation of my relationship with other characters would be helpful. My feelings towards the rest of the audience/players verging more on the wrath of a spurned Coriolanus than the jovial Timon.
When it comes to, you know, actually “speak the speech, trippingly on the tongue” the hat is taken from my head so Timon’s voice can be heard. This did result in me having to wander off the performance area a few times in order to clear the space.
There is also an extra level to the work discussing the homelessness epidemic and how, unlike unloved Timon’s situation, the kindness of friends saved both the show’s creators.
This show is more chaotic than the others in the trilogy but is also well performed by its creator.
— Thomas Jancis, London Correspondent
Waiting for Lefty (Philadelphia)
EgoPo Classic Theater
$85, Popi’s Italian Restaurant, South Philly
Oct. 23-25
There's a worry whenever an immersive production offers dinner that you're really walking into dinner theater, with all the baggage that entails. Soggy chicken, disengaged actors, the works. So while I went in hoping for the best, I was somewhat apprehensive stepping into Popi's Italian Restaurant.
To my pleasant surprise, Waiting for Lefty is a spectacular use of dinner to an immersive end. The play is a series of vignettes surrounding a cab driver's strike, told through the frame story of a union meeting where workers are challenging their corrupt bosses. Casting the audience as said corrupt bosses (my name even being called out in the role call), while the actors/workers serve and bus tables, lended the whole evening a queasy sense of unease, as lives collapse, resentments build, and yet you're left eating your second plate of pasta. While the play has some of the hokey rhetoric of early leftist works, it's elevated by the sense of presence and urgency the direction and performance lends to it.
On the note of the food, it was tasty and plentiful. While not necessarily a bargain ticket, it felt like more than a fair price for dinner and a show if they would have been purchased separately.
If I had one complaint, it would be staging. The cavernous banquet room in which the show was performed could have accommodated far more small sites for performance, but by focusing all attention to the front and center, some seats ended up "bad" seats. The performers gamely played against this restriction, though, and I could hear them perfectly in the corner (albeit with a more limited sight line).
EgoPo has flirted with immersive staging for a long time, but this is their first show I've seen that I feel nails the "why" of immersive. More than a gimmick or a plate of tiramisu designed to lure audiences back to live theatre, Waiting for Lefty elevates its text brilliantly, while also attracting audiences to an unfamiliar and less performed text. I look forward to future immersive stagings from EgoPo that lend new light to forgotten classics.
–Blake Weil, East Coast Editor-at-Large
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