Bill Raden
Ever since Britain's Punchdrunk turned its sprawling dance-theater production Sleep No More into a permanent Manhattan box-office bonanza, “immersive” has become the elastic watchword for the next big thing in live drama. And no company is more engaging — or smarter — when it comes to delivering on the interactive, in-your-lap intimacy of the immersive experience than Los Angeles' Speakeasy Society. The company specializes in adaptations staged in unusual places that remain true to the original's spirit even as they make us think about how narratives work. Ebenezer: An Immersive Christmas Carol, the group's food-and-drink take on the Dickens classic, was staged in a secret Atwater speakeasy, and The Quick and the Dead, part one of its trilogy based on Dalton Trumbo's anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun, was mounted in a Pasadena American Legion Post. For Halloween, the company will be rolling out The Hollow, its thinking man's version of Washington Irving's “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”
Various locations. speakeasysociety.com.
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