The No Proscenium Podcast

Kathryn Yu and Anthony Robinson -- the keystones of our editorial board -- join Noah Nelson for a talk about the state of immersive as we see it now.

So grab your beverage of choice and pull up a chair, it's NoPro After Dark.

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The 49 Boxes is a singular puzzle based storytelling event, the latest incarnation of which focuses on the life of Floyd G. Thayer-- one of the most famed illusion creators of all time.

Host Noah Nelson sits down with Michael Borys, the information and story architect of The 49 Boxes to talk about the origins of the show and his career as an untraditional storyteller.

Look for announcements about the next set of experiences from The 49 Boxes this week.

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Sara Beil and KJ Knies are one of LA's most interesting behind the scenes pairs in immersive.

By day Sara works for ThinkWell, the major themed entertainment design firm, as a multimedia writer and producer. KJ, meanwhile, works for Giant Spoon, the company that has been behind some of the splashiest immersive activations (SXSWestworld, The InkHole) this year.

By night the two work on indie projects, like the Hollywood Fringe sleeper hit What Went Wrong, and the immersive enhanced production of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest that got LA audiences talking.

Disclosure: KJ writes for us from time to time, but we're the one's who are lucky to have him.

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Jeff Wirth has been a lot of things in his life: university professor, computer programmer, ballroom dancer, and clown. These days he's the wandering sage of interactive performance, leading the Interactive PlayLab which is best known for the Deep Dive think tank that created work that was both intimate and large scale at the same time.

Wirth has been crisscrossing America leading workshops in interactive acting techniques and design, and after a recent stop in Los Angeles he sat down with our own Noah Nelson for a philosophical deep dive of their own.

Also this week: we kick things off with an impromptu field report from The InkHole, the latest promotional pop-up from the Giant Spoon/Mycotoo team, which brings the curious into the fabulously felt world of The Happytime Murders.

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Our friend Mikhael Tara Garver dropped by this morning for a chat about how she integrates social impact into her work -- for entertainment, causes, and brands -- and how immersive and experiential work are uniquely suited for creating long term social change.

Here's one we wish could be longer, and it pairs well with the conversation we just had on EXP*DSN.

Mikhael Tara Garver has been directing and creating immersive work for 18 years. She is an experiential architect integrating live and technology for brands, social impact, and storytelling. 

Catch up with MTG on Instagram.

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We sit down with the founder of Presence, which aims to be a kind of Patreon for experiential artists, Damian Madray to talk about his own life as an experience designer and why he decided to built a platform for other makers.

Damian is also the co-host of the upcoming EXP*DSN, aka Experiential By Design, a live web show that features conversations between pioneers in experience design. The show kicks off on August 2nd, and will feature director Lynsey Peisinger who produces participatory work with The Abramovic Method. It will also have some weirdo named No Ha Nel son. 

Oh, wait. That's me.

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Think Tank Gallery impresario Jacob Patterson invites Noah over to the studio to share the scoops on Think Tank's latest projects in LA. They've got three big shows opening in the next few weeks, including the Sea-Saw residency on the Santa Monica Pier which will feature local favorites like The Guest & The Host, #Metaforyou, and Lola Kelly.

Plus it's Jacob and Noah, so you know the convo gets off the rails and into some ish.

Brought to you by Meow Wolf and our generous Patreon backers.

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Once upon a time Sean Stewart was a science fiction novelist. Then, one day, he got a call asking if he wanted to take part in a little world-building project. One based around a Steven Spielberg movie. 

That movie was A.I. and that project would become known as "The Beast," the first Alternate Reality Game. Now Sean works for Magic Leap, the secretive company in Florida that is working on augmented reality. But we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about making participatory stories.

Sean plays Jedi Master to Noah's padawan learner. This is a very, very good episode.

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Last week your host, Noah Nelson, was in Qingdao, China for the Sandbox Immersive Festival. This week he's back, solo, to talk about some of what he observed there and about the emerging thinking around XR -- the term being given to all of immersive technology -- and how that relates to live immersive.

This being Noah talking into a microphone, you know that we get into a few tangents, including thoughts about what it means to become a bit jaded as a reviewer, and what incoming designers need to be thinking about when they approach immersive work for the first time.

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At the heart of many an immersonaut's journey is #SOMEDND, the "DND" being Dungeons & Dragons, and as it just so happens that hashtag stood for a recent livestream extravaganza called the Stream of Many Eyes. 

Now, why is NoPro talking about live-streaming D&D?

Well for one, the lead up to the stream was a multiverse hopping alternate reality game (#NoStoneUnturned) that called upon the powers of transmedia producer Emmett Furey and puzzle designer Elisa Teague, who join us on this week's episode to talk about the ARG, mixing tabletop gaming with escape room like puzzles, and the renaissance in roleplaying games.

Look: we always knew it was going to come down to Dungeons & Dragons. It's almost a surprise it took this long to get here. 

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