An LA house party in the 70’s with a spy vibe? Groovy.

The place: Los Feliz. The time: 1977.

The mission? Ah… there’s the catch, man.

Safehouse ’77 is an upcoming immersive theatre show whose development we’ve been tracking at No Proscenium for some time now. Creator Nick Rheinwald-Jones recently answered some questions we posed him about how he pulled this new piece — whose tickets went on sale over the weekend and debuts in November — out of the ether.

(Full disclosure: you should know that Rheinwald-Jones got some help from the some of the backchannels that NoPro helps facilitate amongst producers in Los Angeles, but we have had no say in content, casting, or other production decisions.)

No Proscenium: We’ll start with the softball, and the necessary: just what is Safehouse’77?

Nick Rheinwald-Jones: Safehouse ’77 is a fully interactive show set inside a 1977 Los Angeles house party. As you might infer from the title, there might be some spy-thriller influences in the mix, but that’s for guests to discover — if they so choose. You can get fully wrapped up in the mystery, or you can just hang out and enjoy the party in blissful ignorance. We’ll have six cast members and ten participants in a small house, so it’s going to be a pretty intimate experience, and yet at the same time, our hope is that the scope of the story and the depth of the characters will make it feel enormous in its own way. The goal is a fun, sexy, intriguing show that keeps you guessing right up to the end — and maybe even after that.

NP: We happen to know you’ve been dreaming up this project for a while, what got you started out on this path?

NR-J: My journey from “immersive fan” to “immersive creator” was quite a short one. I’m the kind of creative person who can only stay in audience mode for so long before I start getting the urge to craft my own thing, so as soon as I saw my first immersive show (Then She Fell) last September, the fuse was already lit and every show I saw after that just made me more sure that I needed to get into this medium. My go-to genre in other forms of writing is the spy thriller, so I started thinking about what that might look like in an immersive setting, and eventually those thoughts turned into something concrete.

NP: You’ve pulled in some veteran actors on the immersive scene in LA, what can you tell us about this cast?

NR-J: First off, I can tell you that they’re all incredible and I’m beyond lucky to be working with every single one of them. We have a great mix of immersive veterans and newcomers, but the newcomers are still huge immersive fans, so everyone showed up ready to play from the very first workshop. I’d seen Katelyn Schiller and Terence Leclere in Annie Lesser’s C(ovell), a show I absolutely loved — and which, I should say, was a huge influence on Safehouse. Jennifer Blanco, Katie Rediger, and Karlie Blair really stood out in the audition process, even against people who had acted in a number of immersive shows. Oh, and there’s one more immersive newcomer in the cast: me.

NR-J: The house we’re using is only about 1000 square feet, so we’re definitely going to be occupying all of it. Like any party, a lot of the action will take place in the living room, but people will drift into other rooms as well… and it’d sure be a shame to put that king-sized bed to waste.

NP: What’s your own creative background, is this your first crack at making immersive? What about your team?

NR-J: Unlike most of the creators I know, I have absolutely zero experience in traditional theater, dance, or anything else stage-based. My background is in film and TV, so I’ve tried to bring elements of those storytelling styles to immersive, while still being conscious of the fact that this is an entirely different medium with different advantages and restrictions.

Luckily, I’m surrounded by people who know this world much better than I do. Niyia Mack, my line producer, has been co-producing Delusion for the past two years, so everything I’m throwing at her she’s pretty much seen before except with more blood. My creative producer Lyndsie Scoggin hails from the escape room world, which means that she has a great understanding of player experience and how to maximize the use of a show’s environment. And the cast, as mentioned, has been absolutely amazing in lending their experience and perspective.

NP: What else should be know about the show?

NR-J: I’d just like to mention that I owe an unimaginable debt to the rest of the immersive community here in LA, which has offered me so much assistance and mentorship over the past several months. Having the chance to pick other creators’ brains over drinks and sit in on some of their rehearsals was absolutely crucial in building the knowledge and confidence I needed to get my own show off the ground. And, of course, none of that would have happened if I hadn’t discovered No Proscenium.

Also, because Safehouse ’77 launches right after Halloween, and because I am one of the world’s foremost scaredy-cats, I feel the need to point out that this show is not scary (unless you have a particular fear of prog-rock or feathered hair.)

Safehouse ’77 will run Thursdays-Sundays November 2nd — 12th, 2017 at a private residence in Los Feliz. Tickets are $95.