It was during the days when “Star Trek: The Experience” offered fans of the now-iconic science fiction franchise the most intriguing entertainment offering this side of the Neutral Zone.
Friday, November 08, 2019
‘Star Trek: The Experience’ brought otherworldly fun to Las Vegas
It was during the days when “Star Trek: The Experience” offered fans of the now-iconic science fiction franchise the most intriguing entertainment offering this side of the Neutral Zone.
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6 comments:
It absolutely baffles me how much is put into theme parks and "experiences" relating to single fandom cultures like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Star Trek. Being a 70 million dollar attraction for fans across the world, Las Vegas (unknown to me) was this Star Trek fanbase. This attraction opened in 1998 and closed 11 years later in 2008. Being so far away from when it was opened I am very confused why this is an article this week. It must have been really fun to visit and especially to work there if you were a fan. All the photos on this article seem very exciting and inspiring to other fans of the series. I wonder how this Star Trek experience compared to new experiences such as the wizarding world theme park and Star Wars land. These are all fun attractions that bring in tons of money for these corporations.
-Pablo Anton
The phrase that caught my eye in this article was “environmental acting”. April Hebert describes the work she did acting as characters in this sci-fi attraction and museum and interacting with the audience members as environmental acting, and I think this is an important distinction from interactive theatre. She also refers to her job as interactive theatre, but environmental acting is a term I have not heard before, and I think it is an important distinction to make. Interactive theatre implies that there is a back and forth between the performance and the audience members. Environmental acting is a much more open description, and feels much less like there is a planned back and forth exchange and is more about adaptation to however the audience feels like interacting. This reminds me of an article I read on this blog weeks ago on No Proscenium that talked about how so much interactive theatre does not account for “Those Who Reject Play”, and to me, this environmental acting is much more accepting of that category of audience member. I think that switching people from using the phrase interactive theatre to using environmental acting will loosen directors’ and creative teams’ expectations of how an audience will react to their piece.
As a fan of sci-fi movies, I enjoy this kind of scene reproduction very much. Especially when both design teams and fans get the chance to take another look into the story, it is certainly that the scene will get more details in width and depth. For example, in this event they had a sign of the dining bar in Startrek world. I just can not think about how would the interior of the bar would look like outside of the camera angle. All the props and set would be matching the background of the story, that is a huge task for designers to sort out. At this point I would often jump back to myself as a new member in this industry. All these need people to work on. Figuring out all this would definitely be my dream job, so I am hoping this kind of event grow in sizes and numbers.
Star Trek is such a fun show and movie series. I would love to go to an interactive theatre experience that was centered around Star Trek. The Las Vegas attraction was part museum, part motion stimulator and part dinner theater. I can’t believe it cost $70 million to put up this interactive experience and it ran for 11 years!! A live theater experience seems like it would be an interesting place to perform. April Herbert was an actor at Star Trek: The Experience and said that it was mostly interactive theater and environment acting. Apparently once someone pulled off the fake ear of an actor. April still keeps in touch with the people she knew from Star Trek: The Experience. They even have little reunions around the holiday. That’s what I love about theater, because when you work with a group you really bond with them and then they become a family.
I really enjoy these sci-fi shows coming to life. As someone who grew up in a household with Sci-Fi nerds and always creating and imagining my own set up for a Sci-fi world with “make-beleive” and using things I found in the house reimagined I really love it that all of these movie’s that I grew up watching are being turned into interactions for real people and events around the country. Having these sort of events with actors and a performance to pull two worlds together is really interesting. I wonder really just how different these kinds of actors have to be compared to actors on stage. I mean they can not simply just act like typical actors and they can’t just act like mascots silently making fun of people for their interaction. They have to find a middle ground and they have to stay in character the whole time.
These kinds of interactive engagements are what I love about fan culture. Seeing that yearning to be part of a world you spend so much time getting to know turn into realistic engagements is truly exciting. As a fan of Star Trek myself, I have to admit it looks like something I'd enjoy. In theatre we're often trying to sell an experience but in interactive things like this that combine Comic-Con, Disney Land, TV, and theatre it becomes more complicated in its operational facets. Not only are you putting on a scripted show, but you're also creating an overall atmosphere which is provided by constantly being in character and with Star Trek makeup being what it is for some of the species that can be challenging. If I'm going, to be honest, it surprises me that something so, pardon my stereotyping but, nerdy had such a long run in Las Vegas. I can't say I know the late 90s early 2000s from personal experience but it's fascinating to see the things that have gone in and out of popularity over the years.
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