This one, our last Review Rundown of 2025 is brought you by the letters K.A.T.H.R.Y.N. and the letters Y.U.

That's right, a special all Executive Editor Emeritus edition of the Rundown.

In this one you'll find reviews of some of the most talked about works on the scene and the latest releases from accomplished creators.

Honestly, a great collection of reviews from one of the best in the game, including looks at Meow Wolf's live entertainment experiment for 2025 and the much talked about The Man in the Tuskhut in Los Angeles which has stirred a mix of wonder and controversy.

NoPro is 100% reader & listener supported. Join our Patreon campaign to secure & expand our coverage of Everything Immersive! Get the NoPro Newsletter and access to our Discord when you do. You can also GIFT memberships.

Want more? Check out our most recent edition and our REVIEWS section.

Check out our How To Get Covered By NoPro guide to submit your events & experiences for review.

Want to get listed in our newsletter?
Submit a listing to Everything Immersive.

The Man in the Tuskhut (Los Angeles, CA)

Jason Woliner and Eric Notarnicola as Incident
$45; The Velaslavasay Panorama
through December 20 with 2026 dates to be announced

It’s extremely difficult to talk about The Man in the Tuskhut without spoilers. However, it’s important to note that the experience may be very upsetting to potential attendees in two ways, first, around a specific plot point, and, second, around the general process in which the piece was made. So hover (desktop) or click (mobile) to unspoil the following passage only if you would like a bit of foreknowledge: The Man in the Tuskhut contains both a narrative shift which might upset participants, as well as the use of generative AI (artificial intelligence).

Now, what I will talk freely about in this review is my immediate reaction, because the first words out of my mouth were “What the fuck?” And as I was leaving, I ran into a friend who was on his way in and asked him to send over his thoughts later. The next day I awoke to a single message containing only the phrase: “Jesus Christ lol.”

And if you asked me straight up, I would have a hard time telling you if I specifically enjoyed the show. Tuskhut disturbed me, surprised me, scared me a little (less in the “jump scare” way and more in the “sinking sense that something is extremely wrong” way), and stirred up very mixed feelings about the ethical application of certain kinds of technology. I can appreciate the depths to which the team leans into the affordances of aforementioned technology to create a bizarre and eerie encounter, even leaning a bit on its inherent unreliability. I also expect a lot of polarized opinions on the project from immersive fans and creators. 

Even after attending hundreds of immersive shows, I’ve never done quite anything like The Man in the Tuskhut. Jason Woliner and Eric Notarnicola have storied careers across film and TV with credits on projects like The Rehearsal and Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. And yet their new immersive company, Incident, has made a huge entrance to the scene with only their second public experience, forging something equal parts distressing and thought-provoking. (You might surmise that questioning the very nature of reality itself is baked into their DNA as storytellers.) There’s layers upon layers to unpack here. 

The creative team for Tuskhut have jumped off a cliff and invite participants to fall down with them, tumbling deeper and deeper into the uncanny valley.  Looking down, it’s not clear there’s a bottom to this pit. I guess we’ll find out the hard way.  

— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Executive Editor Emeritus

Phenomenomaly — Houston and Grapevine, TX

Meow Wolf
$34 and up; Radio Tave (Houston), The Real Unreal (Grapevine)
included with general admission; select weekend dates through January 4

This limited time family-friendly live show finds Radio Tave in Houston (and its sister venue The Real Unreal in Grapevine) being populated with a host of interactive characters and silent dancers all with the goal of initiating the “flickerwerm” migration. What exactly are flickerwerms? Just some interdimensional elusive creatures who can hop through portals, perhaps a little like salmon or fireflies, according to the booklet I received. And it’s up to us, the visitors to Radio Tave, to kickstart the migration by finding the Keepers, getting groovy with it, making sure the Keepers also get groovy with it, and only then the Big Bloom can happen! 

Some attendees will naturally gravitate to the talking characters like Wavelynn, Lintley Foldsworth, or George who ask us for help in acquiring certain items. What are they looking for? The item descriptions are presented only as riddles that need solving, naturally. Others may stumble upon the Keepers, roving performers who move quietly and deliberately through the space, often engaging with visitors who are otherwise engrossed in an interactive console or other part of the installation art. And once all the necessary steps are achieved, the grand finale to Phenomenaly also features a slate of rotating local artists each week. (An infectiously joyous brass band was on offer when I attended.) 

As someone who first cut my immersive teeth on Sleep No More years ago, the dancers were the most interesting aspect of the experience as they relied entirely upon gestures and body language to communicate with guests. One of these costumed dancers caught my attention and mirrored my actions for a short while and then extended a hand. We did a short partner dance in the middle of The Bailiwick floor, just going in circles for a minute, which I found to be simply lovely and charming. This two minute interaction demonstrates that the most impactful moments in an immersive experience do not necessarily have to involve a lot of technology or design elements and are centered around meeting a guest where they are at and observing what they want to bring to the table. 

Additionally, this style of slow, abstracted, interactive modern dance is a really good fit for Meow Wolf’s maximalist exhibits, given how heavily the installations rely upon layered soundscapes and noisy sound effects. Slow graceful movements work well and really complement the existing sensory stimuli; there’s an art to balancing all the “stuff” going on at once in a busy space and Phenomenomaly nails it. I was especially heartened to see that the Keepers wandered out into the gift shop and the speaking characters engaged the queue queue as part of their performance so that those just entering the exhibit got a tearer of what was to come. 

This iteration of Phenomenomaly appears to be only around for the festive season. It currently lasts less than one hour and repeats after a short break for the cast. (Do note that this isn’t a Sleep No More style of performance where you might want to stay for the whole day. My traveling companion and I stayed for two loops and felt satisfied that we had seen most of the performance content.) 

But if you’re already planning a visit to Radio Tave in Houston (or The Real Unreal in Grapevine, TX), I would say try to slip Phenomenomaly into your schedule if you can, but, even if you can’t, either Meow Wolf location is well worth a visit on its own. 

— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Executive Editor Emeritus

Pop Air (Houston, TX)

$49.99 and up; The Balloon Museum; through April 19

The Balloon Museum feels like it’s literally everywhere these days, as their multiple sets of touring exhibits blazing a trail in and around the United States (and beyond). Pop Air is currently in Houston (previously in Singapore and Berlin). Let’s Fly has landed in Dallas (after being displayed in Los Angeles and Austin). And Emotion Air is continuing its stint in Chicago (previously showing in San Francisco and London).

Pop Air is a walkthrough experience where visitors view and interact with a series of massive art installations. It attempts to create some sort of thematic cohesion as the visitor takes a linear path through the various exhibits, all created by different artists, but it doesn't entirely succeed in this endeavor. Some pieces, even when taken on their own, recede into the background and don’t quite capture the audience’s attention, perhaps because they lacked detail or interactivity. I witnessed other visitors simply look at an artwork and continue walking by, giving it no more than a glance or two, and failing to even experiment with what potential causes and effects guest interaction might create. 

The exhibit claims that it “celebrates the power of human interaction offering a new form of sociality through art.” But, while visually impressive, not all of the pieces had “socializing” at their cores. For example, the requisite ballpit was large enough that people mainly stayed in their own groups of twos and fours, though I appreciated the light show that had been added on. However, viewing a short film about the power of different colors in 360 VR, at the end just before the gift shop, felt somewhat isolating and tacked on. Overall, user engagement during Pop Air was often more about observation or changing one’s perspective here and there or taking a neat selfie and then moving on to the next room. That said, the pieces that were the most interesting either used interactive mechanics in a new and novel way, like relying on swings or bicycles as a user input device, or leveraged space and scale to their advantage. 

My favorite artwork at Pop Air was Karina Smigla-Bobinski’s ADA, which was inspired by Ada Lovelace. This project consisted of a large floating sphere with black charcoal “pencils” on its entire surface, which drew on the floor, ceiling, and walls as it bounced around a chamber. The direction it floated could be changed by the audience which resulted in unpredictability. I might go to the far side of a room and wait for a child to attempt to bounce the ball towards me; then after it arrives, I might make eye contact with one of their parents and smile as they attempt to respond to my actions.

For me, the magic of Pop Air – while short and fleeting – was felt most strongly in these back and forth exchanges between strangers, adults and kids alike.  

— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Executive Editor Emeritus

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
(Los Angeles and Dallas)

Warner Bros. Pictures, Cosm, Little Cinema, MakeMake
$40 and up; Cosm ; select dates through Jan 30

Cosm’s collaboration with Warner Bros. Pictures, Little Cinema, and MakeMake for this immersive version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a little bit of a mixed bag. Part of the challenge in this type of enhanced cinema is working with the source material: to build off it and complement it, without overshadowing the original. Unfortunately, younger attendees may find themselves fidgeting during the first 40 minutes of the film, regardless of viewing format, as the narrative winds its way through beats explaining Charlie’s poverty and the search for the golden ticket. To contemporary audiences, the pacing can feel sluggish and some of the earlier musical numbers fall flat. 

Luckily, Gene Wilder and the scenes inside of the factory – complete with more visually interesting and wider shots – make the wait somewhat worth it. However, the quality of the source material here (from 1971) makes the contrast between the pristine, newly generated CGI visuals and the original film quite evident at moments, which I found to be distracting while viewing. Much of the film lacks the kind of expansive shots that let the Shared Reality extend the environment in a novel way like they did in their previous project, though they do their best with a digital version of Charlie’s village and a gorgeous sky which transitions from day to night effortlessly. 

So while not quite as successful as their version of The Matrix, this version of the film does have its moments, such as when the children and their parents first enter the factory and are presented with a very unusual version of a coat check or when we get our first glimpses of the chocolate river. That said, when each of the terribly naughty children get their inevitable comeuppance, it remains a delight to see it on the big screen.  

— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Executive Editor Emeritus

Discover the latest immersive events, festivals, workshops, and more at our new site EVERYTHING IMMERSIVE, home of NoPro’s show listings.

NoPro is a labor of love made possible by our generous Patreon backers. Join them today and get access to our Newsletter and Discord! You can also GIFT memberships.

In addition to the No Proscenium website and our podcast, and you can find NoPro on Bluesky, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and in the Facebook community also named Everything Immersive.