The original plan for this week was for us to have no episode while The Next Stage Immersive Summit was on.

Because of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in LA brought about by the wildfires The Next Stage is postponed.

We'll have more on the plans for that at a later date. In the meantime check the show notes for how to help those in LA.

• LA Fires: How You Can Help (compiled by Kathryn Yu)
• GoFundMe for immersive actor Brandon Bales’ family to find a new place to live
• GoFundMe for 2023 Next Stage Immersive Summit speaker Wendy McClellan Anderson
• GoFundMe for 2025 Next Stage Immersive Summit speaker Suzanne Down of Cirque Berzerk
• LA Immersive Industry Mixer at Squirrelor's Tavern

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A quick check in from LA as the fire situation evolves, including updates on The Next Stage Immersive Summit, which at present is still on at the Pasadena Playhouse Jan 17-19.

We will check in next week.

• GoFundMe for Suzanne Down to recover from the Eaton Fire

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This week on the show, Parker Sela takes up the host duties to interview Nicole Orabona and Nathan Leigh of CirqueSaw about their remote repertory season consisting of Void Main, a revival of POV: You Are an AI Achieving Consciousness and workshop dates for labRats and just why an online theatre company is going to all the trouble of coding its own platform. 

SHOW NOTES

• CirqueSaw @ WellAttended (ticketing site)
• CirqueSaw Instagram
• Next Stage Immersive Summit: Program Guide

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This week we wrap our End of the Year podcasts with our annual gathering of the NoPro Crew to look back at the year that was in immersive and look forward to what might be.

Joining us for the chat are NoPro Toronto Curator Katrina Lat, New York Correspondent Nicholas Fortugno, correspondent-at-large Martin Gimenez, and Senior LA Reviewer Kathryn Yu.

• In the Matter of the Death of ‘Tamara’: A Post-Mortem – LA Times, 1993
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit

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At the end of every year we pull together a roundtable of journalists covering immersive to look back on what was and this year we’re talking with our colleagues in London, starting with NoPro curator Shelley Snyder, the Voidspace’s Katy Naylor, Immersive Rumors' Graham Fitzgerald, and Franco Milazzo stage critic for Broadway World UK.

• Voidspace
• Immersive Rumors
• Franco Milazzo, Broadway World
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit
• NoPro's Best of 2024: Immersive Moments

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This week Ilana Gilovich, Chief Storyteller for Emursive Productions, joins me for our first-ever conversation and yes, we get into just what the Chief Storyteller for the production company behind Life And Trust and the McKittrick Hotel – home of Sleep No More in NYC — does and nerd out as only two theatre kids meeting for the first time can do.

Happy Holidays: it’s one of THOSE No Pro episodes and a good one at that.

Plus: the latest updates on The Next Stage Immersive Summit including HASBRO & DISNEY LIVE ENTERTAINMENT. –Noah

• Life And Trust
• Sleep No More
• Speakeasy Magick
• Emursive
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit
• Contact Noah about that thing he mentioned.

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This week Shawn Kittelsen SVP Creative at Skydance Interactive, the creators of the just released Skydance’s Behemoth (available now on PSVR2, Steam VR, and Meta Quest) joins us to talk about the game which puts players into the role of Wren, a lone hunter who sets off for the Forsaken Lands to lift a terrible curse. The only way to do so is by saying the towering gods known as Behemoths.

In this talk we get into storytelling in VR, the way dynamic, spatial games systems lead players to embody characters, and a whole lot more. It’s another very fun conversation about VR at the precise moment when the medium is hitting a stride on narrative focused experiences that rival the best traditional video games can offer.

• Skydance’s Behemoth
• Ann Morrow Johnson, of Gensler, Joins Board of The Immersive Experience Institute
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit: Speakers & Guests
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit: Badges
• No Proscenium Gift Subscriptions

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This week we have a delightful doubleheader. 

First up we have Ryan Payton, director of Batman: Arkham Shadow. I’ve been following Ryan’s career since he founded his studio Camouflaj back in 2011 back when I was doing stories about the rise of crowdfunding and here we are on the cusp of 2025 talking about the greatest game to be released on the Meta Quest platform so far.

In this conversation we get deep into the storytelling that drives the action of Batman: Arkham Shadow, which is some of the best I’ve encountered in any video game in years. With that in mind, we avoid spoilers for almost half the conversation. Spoilers start at 19:23 of the pod and end at 37:20. We get into some of the big character beats. So consider yourself forewarned.

Then we settle in for a long chat about the state of XR with friend of the show Alex Coulombe — chatting it up about everything from the Unreal Engine classes he’s teaching to folks who are working with the Apple Vision Pro to the recreation of the Halcyon — aka the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser — an open source project in Unreal that he’s been helping to lead pretty much since he got back from visiting the ship.

• Batman: Arkham Shadow
• Camouflaj
• République
• Get Cast In A Dream Role In ‘Batman: Arkham Shadow’ (The NoPro Review)
• A Christmas Carol VR
• GitHub - AgileLens/HalcyonVR
• Alex Coulombe (@ibrews.bsky.social) — Bluesky
• Alex Coulombe Presents Unreal Engine Training
• The (Unofficial) Unreal Engine Podcast - YouTube
• The Weeknd’s ‘Open Hearts’ Drops On Apple Vision Pro
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit

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This week we have a doubleheader as first we are joined by Third Rail Project’s Co-Artistic Director Jennine Willlet and musician Coyle Girelli to talk about their new collaboration True Love Forever, which has just opened in NYC.

Then Immersive Experience Institute co-founder Kathryn Yu joins me as we break down just how next year’s Next Stage Immersive Summit — coming up Jan 17-19 in Pasadena, CA — is going to work as the event evolves some new forms and formats.

• True Love Forever
• Third Rail Projects
• Coyle Girelli
• Love Kills
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit F.A.Q.

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On this episode: a preview of our 2024 Holiday Gift Guide with Kathryn Yu, Kevin Gossett, Patrick McLean, and Noah Nelson. Find the perfect gift for the immersive fan in yourself (even if that's just you).

• Box TWO by Neil Patrick Harris and Theory11
• Clue: Treachery at Tudor Mansion
• The Morrison Game Factory
• Star Trek: Resurgence
• Alan Wake 2
• Star Wars: Outlaws
• Life & Trust Gift Experience
• McKittrick Snow Globe
• Star Wars Etsy Universe
• Meow Wolf Vista Boss
• 2120

• Denver Immersive Invitational Accolades (Facebook Post)
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit

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