Safehouse ’77 was a sleeper hit last year that brought audience members into a 1970’s-themed spy story. Now one of the creative producers of that show — Lyndsie Scoggin — has brought on Safehouse’s writer Nick Rheinwald-Jones and actor Katelyn Schiller for a new show set in the 1930s.
The Sideshow will team Schiller with Dakota Loesch (Agnosia, They Who Saw The Deep) in a limited run. To get there, CoAct Productions is running a Kickstarter campaign to the tune of $5,000. Launched today, they’re almost a fifth of the way to their goal as of this writing.
The romantic drama-dy aims to be around an hour in length for an audience of ten at a time, with a planned two-weekend run after an eight month development period.
Through the magick of email we spoke with Scoggin, Rheinwald-Jones, and co-producer Danielle Levesque about the show and the Kickstarter campaign.
No Proscenium: Just what is The Sideshow?
Lyndsie Scoggin (Producer & Director): The Sideshow is an immersive theatre experience where audiences are mysteriously transported to a 1930s circus. This production is uniquely themed, stepping away from what you would typically find in a ‘circus’ or ‘speakeasy era’ piece to offer a fresh perspective. Participants will encounter historical influences of the era as they inhabit a multi-sensory environment and interact with characters. The experience is coupled with a dessert and wine pairing that will have audiences indulging themselves!
Nick Rheinwald-Jones (Writer): Our narrative revolves around two circus performers, and over the course of the show the audience will be experiencing their stories through a mixture of more conventional theatrical scenes, and more intimate conversational encounters. There will be different tracks through the show, and each of those will reveal different secrets along the way. A scene between the two characters might read very differently to each person depending on which track they are on.
NP: What inspired this piece?
Danielle Levesque (Producer & Artistic Director): The Sideshow is basically a mashup of two of my favorite curiosities: the early 20th century and the circus. Circus culture carries such mystique and wonderment, while at the same time is considered a down and out way of life. The unique characters and rich backdrop provide endless opportunity. Similarly, the 1920s and 30s is a time in our history that people today romanticize. There is a countless amount of material glorifying the exciting time of jazz and speakeasies. We thought there was an interesting intersect between carny life and The Great Depression and wanted to explore that perspective, focusing more on the people who performed and worked in the circus. What are the stories that they have to tell?
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NP: What did you learn on Safehouse ’77 that you’re bringing here? Anything that you didn’t get to do on that show that you’re excited to try out?
LS: Through producing Safehouse, we found that immersive theatre offers an opportunity to present a story from multiple perspectives. While this usually means that audiences won’t see everything, it also means that you will gain a unique understanding of the story based off your own experience. We found that this also made after-show talk quite interesting for audience members, where they had an opportunity to compare their experience and gain an even deeper understanding of what was going on. Something that is totally different from Safehouse, which unfolded in real-time, is that The Sideshow is a much more abstract piece. This allows us to suspend reality for some time to enter a dream-like realm in which something a bit more magical can happen.
NR-J: Yeah, one of the biggest challenges of Safehouse was constructing a spy-thriller story that was believable over the course of a single evening. It was a fun challenge, and I think those creative limitations made for a really compelling experience, but I’m still excited for the chance to be able to do things a bit differently in Sideshow. I’m looking forward to playing around with time more, giving characters the chance to break the fourth wall to an even greater degree than they do in most immersive shows (Safehouse included), and just generally creating the kinds of pure and beautiful moments that sometimes require stepping away from reality.
NP: How are you approaching designing around audience agency? What should the audience be expecting in that regard?
NR-J: I think one of the essential elements in writing any immersive show is figuring out how the audience fits in to the dynamic of the characters and story, because to me, the definition of immersive is that the audience members are not just passive observers; they’re helping to drive the story, and in The Sideshow we’re really intending for the audience to play a huge part in not just the telling of the story, but also the resolution. We truly want you to leave this show with the knowledge that this would not have happened the way it did without you.
NP: You’re Kickstarting the show, what led you to that and what do you hope for out of the campaign?
LS: When Danielle and I first began developing The Sideshow, it started out as something much less involved. It was a piece meant to experiment with some ideas we were having, and with a miniscule start-up budget, we were only going to run for a couple of nights- short and sweet! As we continued to mature the piece, the concept kept expanding and eventually turned into an experience that was deserving of so much more. We didn’t want to limit ourselves or the show itself from being what it was wanting to be, especially with the right team in place! This also meant we were dealing with a much more intricate and expensive production.
However, everyone we had discussed the project with was intensely excited for us to get it up and going. We figured with such a supportive community, we could turn to the audience to help us make The Sideshow a reality. By supporting our campaign through either donation or pre-purchasing their ticket via Kickstarter, audiences are providing our team with the necessary production resources that The Sideshow truly deserves!
The Kickstarter campaign for The Sideshow closes on June 28th.
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