WITNESS first exploded onto our radar during the 2017 Spooky Season with an open world-style show, The Visitation, where audiences roamed the grounds of the historic Wyckoff House deep in Brooklyn and tried to discover the secrets of a strange, seemingly possessed young girl and her family. Their newest large scale show NOIRTOWN takes us into a totally different genre, as participants play in an immersive theatre sandbox and encounter three intertwined mysteries being investigated by three different private eyes. NOIRTOWN premieres August 2019 as part of the inaugural Rave Theater Festival; to make this a reality, the team is currently holding a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter.

We spoke to WITNESS Artistic Director Michael Bontatibus, Director Charlotte Murray, and Stage Manager Cati Pishal to learn more about NOIRTOWN.

No Proscenium (NP): Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background in the immersive arts?

Michael Bontatibus (MB): I’ve been the Artistic Director of WITNESS since we debuted with The Visitation, a fully immersive promenade-style play, in November 2017. Since then, with a rotating team of directors, performers, and designers, we remounted The Visitation for a three-week run in March 2018, and put up Found Footage, an immersive installation, on Governors Island this past Halloween.

Charlotte Murray (CM): I am New York based director and devisor mostly focused on new work. Immersive projects I’ve worked on include Pipeline Theatre Company’s Playing Hot and A$AP Rocky’s Testing.

Cati Pishal (CP): I was a stage manager on Sleep No More for over 4 years and left to spend a year working with Broadway Asia on immersive workshop on The Golden Lotus and Peter Pan’s Adventure Island which I premiered in Beijing in 2016. I was the PSM on the original workshop of Kerrigan & Lowdermilk’s immersive house party musical The Bad Years, The Viewpoints Collective’s My Life Among the Serial Killers, WITNESS’s The Visitation, and Linked Dance Theatre’s Beloved/Departed. I’m currently working on a script for an immersive piece about Mary Shelley.

NP: What, in a nutshell, is the NOIRTOWN project about?

MB: NOIRTOWN is the story of three private detectives and the three separate mysteries that they’re following, all of which are linked by the same femme fatale. As they each try to get to the bottom of their own case, more questions than answers arise. Audiences are invited to dive into the mystery along with the PIs and try to untangle the intertwining threads.

CM: To me, NOIRTOWN, is a love letter to the genre. But I don’t think it just ends there. Although we love film noir, the show is also about subverting it. At the heart of all of those movies is a mystery that leads the character to questions about fear, agency, and betrayal. Michael has done a really exciting job of crafting a world that tackles those themes from a different angle.

NP: Why did you create the NOIRTOWN experience? What inspired you?

MB: This may be coming out of left field, but I really like classic noir films. One thing I think about when approaching a new immersive project is what kind of world I’d like to be “immersed” in for an evening. That universe of film noir, which is dually glamorous and dangerous, has a unique seductive appeal that I think a lot of people would like to dive into if they could. Moreover, it was just an excuse to play around with a genre I’m a fan of, and have some fun imitating my favorite movies.

CM: What really inspired me about NOIRTOWN is the depth of the world and complexity of the story. It is a blast to play with the stylistic and visual vocabulary of noir film. The imagery is so robust and emotional that it’s a great container for storytelling. Watching these characters interact with the world and each other is such a delight and the added challenge of simultaneity is pushing all of us towards our best work.

NP: How is the audience incorporated into the work? What kinds of choices can the participants make in NOIRTOWN?

MB: For the entirety of the evening, audiences have full autonomy to follow whichever characters around the space they want. They can track one character for the entirety of the night, switch between storylines, leave or enter scenes in the middle if they want. It’s entirely up to them how they want to experience the story.

CM: Echoing what Michael said, the audience gets to choose what threads they follow, who interests them, and what mystery most compels them. Much like the detectives in the show it is up to them to piece together what’s really happening.

NP: You’re Kickstarting the show, what challenges are you expecting to face with the campaign?

MB: The main crowdfunding obstacle I often see theatrical shows run into is, funnily enough, being literally site-specific — Kickstarter gives you worldwide reach, but only people who live in New York (or whatever city the show is in) can see your play, and most people who back a project would like to also experience it. To address that, one of the rewards levels offers a letter sent by one of the characters to the backer, wherever they may live. I won’t say too much at this point, but it’ll have its own narrative and mystery to follow, and act as a standalone experience for those who didn’t get a chance to see NOIRTOWN and an extension of the story for those who did.

NP: How are you designing around audience agency, consent, and safety?

CP: As we’re putting the piece on its feet, I think everyone will be conscious of the audience as a seventh character and how our actions, emotions, and movement will affect them. On every immersive piece I’m involved with,I work with the performers and staff on how to physically interact with the audience to ensure that they are safely positioned within the space and do not ever feel uncomfortable. Production staff is also constantly communicating throughout each show and available as a resource to audience members.

CM: Pretty much all of our conversations always circle back to the audience. They are actively building their own experience so we are always tweaking what tools we can give them to give them the best, safest chance of seeing the show they want to see. We are going to offer a bunch of explicit and implicit rules for guests to follow. Luckily, audiences in New York and especially immersive audiences are great listeners.

NP: Who is the ideal audience member for this show?

CP: Someone who’s curious. This is an active piece and I hope the audience isn’t afraid to follow who intrigues them, hop around tracks, and come to their own conclusions.

CM: People who are ready to get up, move around and follow their hunches.

MB: This particular model of immersive theatre — where you get to walk around and follow characters and explore — is pretty popular with immersive fans but not actually done that often, so I think they’ll have a lot of fun with it. But I also think people who haven’t seen immersive theater before will find the smaller scale and genre-based narrative very accessible. So you see the genius of the business model, in that everyone will enjoy it.

NP: What do you hope participants take away from the experience?

CP: I hope they find moments of discovery. If they’re new to immersive theatre, I hope this piece intrigues them enough to seek out more. Also join the WITNESS mailing list, like, and subscribe on social media.

MB: I hope people will leave with the sense that they’ve dipped into another world for a brief period of time, and had a chance to play detective in some ways themselves — or, at the very least, they’ll walk out with a newfound urge to go watch The Big Sleep.

CM: I hope audiences walk away trying to square what they saw with what their friends saw. I hope they pick the whole show apart and make discoveries even hours after they have left. And I hope they leave with a love of noir.

NOIRTOWN runs select dates August 9–24. Tickets are $35.

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