90.5 WESA: Next for Bricolage is what, on several levels, is its most ambitious immersive yet. “Project Amelia,” which opens Friday, tackles our culture of digital living not only with participatory theater, but a high-tech approach that incorporates original artificial-intelligence products created just for the show.
3 comments:
Immersive theatre fascinates me. As someone who is not a fan of surprises or unexpected audience interaction, I have a feeling that I, personally, would not enjoy such a production as this as an audience member. However, I would absolutely love to be on the production or creative team for a similar immersive theatrical experience. For centuries, audiences have been on the other side of a fourth wall, but shows such as this completely tear down all walls between the performers and the audience, and it seems like even the boundaries between performer and audience member are blurred, as audience members have interactions with the performers, some scripted, some not. The artistic director says that “actors are, after all, in the business of connecting people.” Using a (relatively) new theatrical medium to open up discussions of the role of technology and AI in our lives currently and in the future seems like the perfect pairing.
The term 'immersive theatre' is often used as a buzzword in the entertainment industry, and as such, describes a wide variety of experiences from participatory theatre to experiences that lack words to describe and classify them. "Project Amelia" seems more like the latter, which is really exciting to me! The description of the show reminds me a lot of a playground piece from my freshman year that I assisted, which was part escape room and part guided storytelling. Experiences like these are really exciting to me for the same reason playing tabletop RPGs like Dungeons and Dragons is: The story does not belong to any one individual within the group. Rather, it gives a collective ownership to everyone who interacts with it. I believe that collective or guided storytelling experiences like these are an incredible method for imparting a lesson or encouraging reflection on a given subject. Done successfully, these experiences can really affect the way people think and feel about the subjects examined therein.
I think immersive theatre is very interesting, and a complicated form of art. Where I live, there's a company that one of my friends started that does immersive theatre experiences like a "Sock hop on Saturn", where all the characters were dressing in 1950's garb and alien makeup. It was a really cool and interesting thing to experiences, because they all had their character tracks and storylines, but they were able ti interact with the audience as well. This creates such a new challenge for designers and actors, as they are so close up, and have to think on the fly. This experience in particular seems so cool, and I love the vision of the artistic director that shows how technology is guiding our lives. I think it is so cool that they are able to almost make the audience itself a character, much like a murder mystery party. This show has the ability to transport a group of people, which makes it so unique, and I am so excited that I got to hear about it!
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