Los Angeles immersive theatre-goers might recognize Julia Henning from her acting roles in The Lust Experience and The Speakeasy Society’s The Johnny Cycle and Wild Party. Now Henning is expanding into new territory as an artistic director and founder of her own theatre company, The Halogen Company. Their first production is a re-imagined version of John Cariani’s Almost, Maine that runs this weekend. We spoke with Henning about her influences, her choice to support a charity with this production, and what “immersive” and “interactive” mean to her work.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
No Proscenium: Can you give us a quick breakdown of what The Halogen Company is all about?
Julia Henning: The Halogen Company is a Los Angeles-based theatre production company committed to an intimate and interactive theatre experience. The company is essentially the culmination of my experiences as an artist and a person. We thrive on creating theatre, bringing artists together, interacting with a multitude of inventive outlets, and offering resources and tools for artists who crave the creative hustle.
I revel in stories that celebrate philosophical and existential undertones. As a result, The Halogen Company focuses on productions that dissect the human condition to shed new light on the primitive concepts of being alive. In addition to our theatrical productions, we also offer “The Halogen Hard-Drive” which is a career coaching service that teaches creatives to awaken their left brains to the business side of the artist’s world. As a Los Angeles transplant from the Midwest, I wanted artists to feel the camaraderie and community of the theater world as it was unfolded to me. Too often, especially in LA, artists can lose sight of their passions and collaborative spirits. The Halogen Company exists to restore that motivation.
NP: Do you consider your work to be immersive? Why or why not? What does “immersive” mean to you?
JH: I consider The Halogen Company to be more interactive than it is immersive. We acknowledge our audience and at times we interact with them, but we are taking our time incorporating various storytelling devices before we will call our shows fully “immersive.” We are still working with a fourth wall and offering audience members moments to step into our world, but there is still a separation.
To me, immersive theatre has little to no separation and the audience is in the imagined world, existing as a bystander to the theatrical experience. In immersive theatre, there is also usually no intermission or break between scenes. The show runs in real time and the audience quite literally buckles in for the ride as they move through space with the actors. The Halogen Company is taking small steps towards immersion, but at the moment we are playing with the interactive side of the classic theater experience.
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NP: How did your roles in immersive projects like The Lust Experience and The Speakeasy Society’s productions influence your work here?
JH: In every immersive show I’ve had the privilege to be a part of, I was placed in unusual one-off situations. In these scenarios, I (the character) was alone with one or two audience members, as opposed to a group or in a shared scene. Being alone with an audience member and seeing the effect you have on a person by simply staring into their eyes and talking to them is profound. Often in group scenes, there is a lively energy that excites the crowd. But in those one-off situations, there is an unspoken bond that is formed between actor and audience member. It is this bond that influenced me as a creator, as I’ve learned that when we strip down stories and characters, when we give life to them as honestly and earnestly as possible, that is when the audience walks away with that simple yet powerful reminder of what it means to be human. I aim to infuse that truth and that enlightenment in all the work I create.
NP: The Halogen Company is supporting a charitable organization with its inaugural project. Can you talk a bit about this organization and how you chose it?
JH: As a theater company dedicated to artists, I wanted to incorporate a charitable cause to support every show we create. For our inaugural project of Almost, Maine, I chose the Nate Duran Memorial Scholarship. Nate Duran was a comedy writer, a performer, a survivor of a debilitating physical injury, and a dear friend. The last show Nate and I saw together was Almost, Maine.
Nate passed away in the fall of 2016 and since then, almost every piece of work I have created is in some way dedicated to him. He was the type of person that made you believe your dreams were not only possible, but exhilarating. The Duran Family has established and funded The Nate Duran Memorial Scholarship at the University of Colorado. The Scholarship is perpetual and available to students in the Journalism Department (College of Media, Communication and Information) who suffer from arachnoiditis (spine damages) or other medical disabilities. All contributions are tax deductible.
NP: What can we expect to see from The Halogen Company in the future?
JH: You can expect to see classic pieces reimagined as well as new work that focuses on the philosophical understanding of what it means to be human. The Halogen Company is hard at work producing a series of original and interactive performances for an intimate audience that is designed to serve as a workshop for a larger immersive production set to launch in late 2018. Our first preview will premiere at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. The show’s content and details are under wraps at the moment, but anyone with a love of existential conversation will likely enjoy this piece. More details to come in March!
Almost, Maine runs at 8:00pm on March 2nd and 3rd, and 2:00pm on March 4th at the McCadden Place Theatre in Los Angeles. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online.
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