Making Immersive Theatre

By Savithaa Markandu

‘Creating worlds: How to make immersive theatre’ by Jason Warren.

You are an adventurous person who loves taking artistic risks, and lately, you have had a keen eye for making Immersive Theatre. It is unique, experimental and nothing like you have ever tried before. You wonder to yourself-how can I share my story, without simply telling it, but inviting other people to be a part of it? How can I produce something intriguing and puzzling, that pushes people to look for the answers?

You sink back into your seat, scratching your head and wondering where to start. I don’t blame you. When you have an idea that you want to try, it’s difficult to know which step to take first.

Well, if you are enthusiastic about making Immersive Theatre, Jason Warren is your first step.

Jason Warren categorises Immersive Theatre into four worlds: Exploration Theatre, Guided Experiences, Interactive Worlds and Game Theatre. Exploration Theatre and Guided Experiences are on the opposite ends of the spectrum as they operate very differently to produce immersive theatre.

Why is it important to know the four worlds?

Before you tell everyone that you are going to design a piece of Immersive Theatre, you need to understand which world suits your story best. If you can understand each of the immersive worlds listed below, and decide which best suits your narrative, then you are on a safe path towards making Immersive Theatre.

Exploration Theatre

This is the fusing of traditional theatre with a mobile and free-roaming audience. There is precise consideration of the setting that they roam in, and the piece is set up and rehearsed. The performance takes place in numerous spaces all at once, and does not rely on participants to drive it forward. A popular example of a company that does Exploration Theatre is Punchdrunk Theatre.

Guided Experience

OneOhOne Theatre Company

A Guided Experience depends entirely on the audience. The audience is guided through the story and offered countless opportunities to interact with one another and the performance, as well as make purposeful decisions. In other words, the audience is fundamental. Without them the piece cannot function, as the journey they experience is designed such that the space and the narrative are structured in a fixed order or sequence. The decisions made by the audience each time, heavily influences the following sequence, meaning that the audience stimulates the story line. Check out performances like ‘You Me Bum Bum Train’ or ‘OneOhOne’.

In Exploration Theatre, the performance occurs simultaneously in different spaces, whereas in Guided Experiences, the main story is performed in one way, but is planned in its various sequences. This means that while the audience can find different activities to engage with in Exploration Theatre, they only have one story to follow in a Guided Experience. It is essential that the story consistently holds the audience’s interest, because this drives them to participate in the performance.

Theatre Bizarre’s ‘The Great Deception’

Interactive World

Similarly to Exploration Theatre, an Interactive World invites audiences to roam freely around the space. The narrative arc spurs the performance, but there are no scripted options for the audience to pick from and performance is not rehearsed. This allows an infinite possibilities of choices and hence, influences to be made by the audience. This leads to two important considerations: firstly, the performance has to be open and adaptable to change and the cast needs to be comfortable improvising while having thorough knowledge of the plot of the play. Secondly, there needs to be a sufficient number of interesting elements in the space to grant the audience a fruitful exploration, by allowing them to interact with a range of elements rather than purely interacting with the cast.

Game Theatre

Game theatre generally indicates the rules and mechanics of the performance instead of disguising them behind the narrative. Unlike the other forms of theatre, the audience is clear of the role they play, and what end goals to fulfill in order to complete the game. The intention is to prompt the audience to “critically engage with the world around them by drawing attention to its unnoticed structures”. Game Theatre challenges them to take initiative and make crucial choices. Audience members may choose to adopt characters as part of the game world so as to empathise more easily with the situation, and understand better what actions they should take and what consequences may follow. In game theatre, the mechanics are the experience. A major example is Hobo Theatre’s ‘The Lowland Clearances’.

Jason Warren’s top tips for first-timers making immersive theatre

Simplicity

Narrow your focus to specific areas and don’t complicate your ideas. This will help your performance to avoid being unfocused and under-rehearsed. When you are making Immersive Theatre, ask yourself the following questions: What is the most important aspect of my work? How significant is the audience’s role? In what ways will they influence the piece?

Elegance

Take note to build a strong facade over the planning of your piece. The performance should be “mechanically invisible”, and the audience should never be completely aware of the structuring and timetabling of the performance. The more invisible the behind-the-scenes, the more real the world feels for the audience.

Rewards

Rewarding your audience trains them to interact whole-heartedly with your performance. Only reward the type of behaviour or response that helps your play to flow, and this will facilitate the audience’s understanding of what role they play in this experience. Anticipate how the audience might interact either physically or verbally with the space around them, by placing interesting elements such as a scene or an object which could provoke the audience to explore further. Set up a pattern from the beginning and reward the audience each time they propel the story forward, so that they realise the pattern early on and learn the rules of the piece. By the time, the audience arrives at an important part of the piece, they will know the first steps they have to take to assist in the operation of the play.

Flavour

An immersive experience is not all about interaction and making choices. A fundamental part of making Immersive Theatre is weaving in elements that add richness and colour to the world. This sparks more interesting discoveries for the audience, regardless of whether they participate in the operation of the play. It may sound unnecessary but the little details are valuable as they keep the audience curious and engrossed in the performance.

There are a myriad of ways of making Immersive Theatre. The most important thing to keep in mind is how you immerse your audience into the world that you design.

‘Render Ghost’ VR Immersive Theatre

Engage them in an intimate performance that makes them feel like they are immediately being transported elsewhere. Stimulate all of their senses to open their intellect, their imagination and their emotions. Instead of first intellectually making sense of the performance, the idea is to let the body ‘sense make’ and let that lead to an intellectual understanding. Create a transcending experience that makes the audience exclaim-”Wow! I have never experienced this before!” The audience should no longer feel like an audience, they should feel as though they are becoming somewhere else, becoming something else, becoming someone else.

By Savithaa Markandu