It was a mild October night when I found myself at the edge of town, chasing rumors that a band of strangers had set up colorful tents. They were luring in the curious and other unsuspecting types. Searching for people who were unsatisfied with their lot in life, and who were ready to not be in Kansas anymore.
Or so the story goes.
In truth it was the evening before Indiecade’s Night Games, and while there was a colorful tent set up at the edge of town — where Atwater Village slips into the Glendale Narrows — the people were far from strangers to me. I was there to be one of the first guinea pigs for what would become The Key, the first part of what is now a series of immersive episodes called The Kansas Collection.
The not-strangers in question are The Speakeasy Society, one of Los Angeles’ premier immersive theatre troupes. The company specializes in adapting works out of the American canon — previous shows have called upon writers Washington Irving and Dalton Trumbo, for instance — creating immersive experiences that range from the crowd pleasing to existential meditations on war and death.
The Kansas Collection fits squarely in the former category, because this time out we’re headed to Oz. Or more accurately, L. Frank Baum’s Oz universe is headed to us. Trouble is afoot in the Emerald City, long after Dorthy Gale clicked her heels and headed home, and the daring are being recruited into a conflict where various factions seek to control the EC.
That’s what The Kansas Collection has become, but on the eve of Night Games it was still an untested experiment in episodic storytelling.
“We definitely went into Indiecade with the idea of exploring a ‘choose your own adventure’ game structure, similar to the Telltale [games],” said Matthew Bamberg-Johnson, one of the core members of The Speakeasy Society who also plays the part of Phil Daring in the series. “We learned quickly that based on our scale, medium (live theater) and resources that the choices the audience make can impact their direct experience in the moment but not some of the larger story narrative points in the series — if we want to guarantee a certain quality of story telling. Yes, everything you do could have a consequence, but not everything you do will change the outcome of the story. In that sense, we aren’t improvising, but we are responding.”
The tent, set up in the middle of Night Games, was an instant hit — with a line that ate up the entire night worth of slots materializing within minutes of the event beginning. The Key didn’t stop there, with attendees given an opportunity to follow a thread off-site, continuing the story. This was the Society’s first foray into the mechanics of Alternate Reality Games. Consciously extending story beyond the boundaries of the theatre’s “magic circle.” And then feeding that world back into the ticketed experiences.
“We have definitely been pleasantly surprised by how deeply invested people have become in the ARG elements of the experience,” said Bamberg-Johnson. “There is a strong participatory community in the greater LA area, and they are hungry to glean as much information as they can from us.
Get Noah J Nelson’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
SubscribeSubscribe
“It also makes it a very rewarding experience for the actors, who really have to be on their feet with these participants- fortunately everyone has been very generous in their inquiry- nobody is trying to break the game, just finding how deep it goes.”
The curiosity is, in part, fueled by our collective memories of Oz. Few escape childhood in America without being terrified of flying monkeys or learning the identities of Dorthy’s companions on the Yellow Brick Road.
“I felt like that was a large part of deciding to do Oz and one of the strengths of picking it as an [intellectual property] — audiences do have a relationship to it,” said Julianne Just, co-artistic director of the Society. “We are hoping to subvert their relationship, but we let them bring some existing knowledge into the piece.”
That existing knowledge doesn’t exactly act as a spoiler, however.
“Sometimes,” said Bamberg-Johnson, “we’ll reverse engineer things — making the story you know the mythologic or hyperbolic version of what really happened. Other times, we’ll find a throwaway detail or line and expand that into a more human-driven motivation or narrative. And we’ll usually pull from other parts of the Oz series to fill in the empty spaces (using details from a later book and folding it into a backstory from earlier in the series). Our aim is to re-invent and expand the lore while honoring the love the audience holds for these characters. Our story is ultimately original — but the DNA of the books is always present.”
As fun as the adaptation of a classic can be, what’s truly interesting here — and what acts as the primary design challenge — is the format that The Kansas Collection takes.
“We also wanted to play with the idea of chapters, or ‘episodes,’ said Bamberg-Johnson. “So much of our entertainment is consumed in an episodic format, and we thought it would be fun to experiment with the idea of appropriating this trend into live performance.”
In this The Speakeasy Society is not alone. Out here in Los Angeles the ongoing alternate reality experiments which fuel the narrative world of The Tension Experience and its sequel The Lust Experience have changed audience expectations. The Have You Seen Jake? married some of those alternate reality techniques into the framework of a trilogy cycle. Nor is this merely a West Coast phenomenon. In New York City veteran Sleep No More performer Kelly Bartnik, who originated the role of the Bald Witch, has started her own episodic work Here.
The challenge for all, of course, is that these are uncharted waters. Immersive remains something like the Indie music scene in the 90’s. The work is made possible through the support of die-hard enthusiasts and their curious friends. The rush of discovering something new still looms large in the joy of the scene, with the willingness of the audience to try something new allowing for bold experiments.
The interest in The Kansas Collection has been strong enough that The Speakeasy Society will remount the first two chapters, which introduce the audience to the major players in the story, in March. (The Key, The Axe.)
The third, still untitled chapter, makes its debut in April.
Remount of The Key: March 24th, 25th.
Remount of The Axe: March 31st, April 1st.
Both experiences can be found in the northeast Los Angeles area.
Discussion