People move through the set just as the actors do, spurred on by the thrill of discovery. He founded Punchdrunk in 2000 to goose the whole notion of theater. An oily-voiced man in a tux appeared and led our group into an elevator, where he admonished us not to speak to one another throughout our stay. Cool, right? As long as I didn’t get lost. This place promised to be like an enormous, haunted Dunsinane - a stylized, Britishy “Macbeth” theme park. With the crowd an anonymous, expressionless blur, you focus more on the performers and on your experience.Īt the moment, mine was one of guarded anticipation. With this production, slated through June 25, Punchdrunk is making its long-awaited New York debut.Īs we filed through the passageways, we were told to keep our masks on at all times to intensify the event. Chances are, you’ll walk away from “Sleep No More” obsessing over its myriad details, chewing over your peculiarly intoxicating trip in a way no traditional theatergoing can match.Ī hit in London, “Sleep No More” enjoyed a sold-out run in an old Boston school in 2009. It’s a fully functional feedback loop, customized by you, perfect for Twitter-age attention spans. Occasionally performers will burst into a room to enact a scene you can follow them or poke about in the vast labyrinth at your own pace. The London-based company has taken over three adjacent warehouses in Chelsea and decorated more than 100 antique-cluttered, dimly lit rooms inside for its production called “Sleep No More,” an Alfred Hitchcock-inspired adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.” The idea is, the audience wanders at will through the rooms and corridors, piecing together a narrative from the scattered personal effects and hints of lives lived there. Ghosts, darkness, shades of anxiety - welcome to the immersive experience of Punchdrunk Theatre. White and hollow-eyed, they made us look like ghost birds. So would I, I thought, glad we were trailing about a dozen others, all of us a bit disoriented in our masquerade masks with protruding beaks. Sleep No More is produced by Emursive (Jonathan Hochwald, Arthur Karpati, and Randy Weiner) in association with rebecca gold productions.NEW YORK - Geez, I would hate to go through this alone,” said my friend John as we made our way in the dark down a winding corridor. Reopening plans will be done in compliance with state and local government, COVID-19 protocols, and are subject to the approval of the NY State Department of Health and the Governor. Design associates are Beatrice Minns and Livi Vaughan. Expect a blend of acrobatic choreography, film noir soundtrack, and 100 rooms of detailed atmosphere sprawling over 100,000 square feet.įelix Barrett directs and designed the production, with choreography by co-director Maxine Doyle and sound design by Stephen Dobbie. In Sleep No More, audiences move freely through the story at their own pace, choosing where to go and what to see. The sensory theatre spectacle, which debuted Off-Broadway in April 2011, will be presented Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at 7 PM, Fridays at 7:30 PM, and Saturdays at 3 PM and 8 PM. It was previously scheduled to reopen at The McKittrick Hotel October 4. Sleep No More, the Macbeth-inspired immersive theatre experience from the British theatre company Punchdrunk, will now begin its return engagement on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2022.
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