Back in my slightly younger days, I was a Hollywood “club kid.” You could find me on any given Friday or Saturday evening trolling any number of the side streets between Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards, searching for one of the numerous clubs or bars that lurk behind unmarked marquees and hidden alleyways like portholes to another world guarded by black clad doormen, armed with a stony gaze and velvet rope.

In those days, walking down Hollywood Boulevard, there seemed to be less tourists and more members of the “freak show” as some of us called it: the ubiquitous herds of club-goers, leather clad and ripped jean punks; ravers and true Club Kids in their bright day-glow colors and two-foot tall platform boots; all manner of Darkwave and Goth kids, dressed to the nines in five shades of black and beautiful blood red accents. Then there were those that would dress up in wings and fuzzy boots, zoot suits and 70's style fur coats to just stir up the scene.

Hollywood has seen it all. It didn’t blink when the club kids took to the side streets and Hollywood Boulevard was taken over by buskers, dancers and a new series of characters in costumes, like Batman, Jack Sparrow, The Joker, Michael Jackson, and Elmo.

So of course I didn’t blink when my contact for a very important spy mission turned up wearing an ill fitting trench coat, a shocking blonde wig, sunglasses (at night) and carrying a net.

Enter “Connie,” a fast talking, off kilter, spy hunter. Connie, who was on the “hardest case of his career,” needed help in finding an infiltrator from The Land of Dreams — an alternate dimension where all the fictional characters from stories, films and books live and breathe. It would seem, that they have been coming through a mysterious porthole, building cells, and hiding agents throughout our world.

The biggest recruiter, and most connected agent is nearby, and Connie needs me and my fellow agents to go undercover, make contact, earn his trust and get as much information as we can. After giving us the code phrase, he shows us a crudely drawn picture of a guy in a striped shirt, a ski cap with a poof on top and glasses. “Keep your eyes peeled,” Connie tells us, “He’s hard to find. He blends in real well with the crowd.” We can’t help but laugh.

And then he points to a familiar red, white and yellow sign. “He’s in there. Good luck.”

I found myself feeling like an idiot at first — standing outside of one of the busiest In-N-Out franchises in Los Angeles. The place is packed, and after a moment of nervous chatter and playing Where’s Waldo, we spot…a guy wearing a red and white sweater, glasses and a ski cap with a red poof on the end. Someone audibly says “Is that…him?” “Really? No way?” “He’s wearing a sweater and a ski cap and it’s like 78 degrees. He’s got to be part of this!” We hesitate, noting that it’s not quite the iconic look — his sweater isn’t stripes, but two tone with some bit of random art on the chest — but inside we go.

We used to have an unwritten rule in the group of LARPers I ran with: “Don’t freak the Mundanes.” In the moment that we crossed the threshold into the restaurant, I felt like we were breaking that rule on every front.

Me and my two compatriots push our way through the crowd and towards the guy sitting eating his burger, a seat saved next to him. I glance at the security guard by the door, suddenly feeling nervous: We’re not just infiltrating the Dream World, we’re infiltrating the Real World of the restaurant — we’re harassing the mundane! My internal warning klaxons are screaming No! No! No!

One of the other guys dropped the code phrase and despite all the clues being there: we harassed the mundane. This person wasn’t our guy. He was just dressed like that character, eating a hamburger in Hollywood. As you do.

But this is the play that is Bar of Dreams Adventure Series: Red. The show walks — and sometimes absolutely blurs — the fine line between guerrilla theater and an intimate immersive experience in a public setting. Rather than ignoring those that might stumble upon its innate oddness, it embraces it, and incorporates it into the show — and it does so with humor and a simple and calculated gambit: Hollywood Boulevard has seen it all — and it is now filled with characters from film, TV and books that busk and bombard the myriad of mundane tourists, workers and club-goers that line the streets of Hollywood.

Characters like our contact.

We walk with our actual contact, who confides in us that he’d been everywhere, but couldn’t find himself, until he came through the porthole and has found purpose in helping new dreams come to our world.

To repeated shouts of “I found you!” and “There he is!” from passers by, we walk and talk as our group of agents probe for information. “Agent Red” was a lot more forthcoming; he began to rattle off a litany of imaginary characters that have come into our world, and eventually, how they got set up with jobs, homes and funding — before introducing us to…the Joker and Jack Sparrow…

I was mad at this show at first, until I realized they were taking a huge (and calculated) risk that no one would truly notice them. And lo, they were correct. This show — this particular show — would only work, can only work in Hollywood on a Saturday night. Here, characters from everywhere mill about, clogging the street and no one questions it. It’s one of the few places in the world where there is a fluid mixing of freaks and mundane to the point that no one notices Waldo leading a small group of tourists down the street. Or blinks more than an eye when he turns to Darth Vader to introduce fans from the old country.

While I don’t necessarily endorse drawing in non-participants into an immersive experience without consent, there is a brazen, Monty Pythonesque brilliance to using the already existing (literal) cast of characters to fill and inhabit the world of the story, by just doing what you’d normally do with them: Say Hi.

After a few minutes, something spooks our guy as he’s leading us to The Bar of Dreams — he catches Connie in the crowd, and suddenly, loses faith that we’re on his side. All three of us are giggling like mad at how silly, how fun, this all is.

Some tourist snaps a picture, as suddenly, our guide ditches us, vanishing into the mad freak show, into the swarming crowd, like the hero of a familiar kid’s puzzle book.

Bar of Dreams: Red was $20, and took place late last fall in Hollywood, CA. The dreams return to the City of Angels with a new show, Bar of Dreams: Los Angeles on February 15, 16, 22 and 23. You can purchase tickets, here.

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