Immersive Review Rundown for 10.14.2025

Spooky Season is most definitely upon us, and this week’s Rundown makes the point clear: this Season is going to be one to remember. From LA to London, we have scares, laughs, and the mix of the twain.

The range goes from some of the BEST of the year to some work with real potential, and it’s coming from three of the most active regions for immersive on the global map: London, LA, and the Denver area.

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HAG — The Queen’s Fools
$37; North Hollywood; through Oct. 29th

The good news: HAG is the best thing I’ve seen all year and the kind of piece that reminds me of WHY I started NoPro in the first place.

The bad news: it’s SOLD OUT for Spooky Season, so the best this review can do is maybe drum up demand for an extension, even if the math doesn’t make all that much sense for running this show ad infinitum.

We start, just four of us, in the alley behind the landmark Circus Liquors, waiting to meet a dude named Dylan (Mason Conrad) who has hired us off Craigslist to help evict three weird women from his attic. He’s got big plans for the space, and needs the squatters gone. He’d do it himself, but his arm is injured and he’s recently had a real run of bad luck that means he has a few other things to work on.

We pass through a darkened former theatre space (in real life the active theatre space of After Hours Theatre Company) and up some uneven stairs (the disadvantage of small scale immersive: damn near no space anyone can afford to rent is ADA compliant) to the attic where the cackling sounds of the people above have set a warning:

These aren’t just weird women, they’re Weird Sisters.

What unspools in that attic between the three sisters and the four guests is alternatively hilarious, spooky, kinda freaky, sometimes sexy in an unsettling way, and nothing short of joyous.

There’s beats to play off the sisters (Morgan Taylor, Aly Trasher, Anja Racić) who separate the audience into one- and two-on-ones. Beats where the sisters play off each other, giving us a swift peak into their interpersonal dynamic. Chances for audience members to shine without derailing the whole story with grandstanding. Shakespearean references that add texture for normies and form easter eggs for us sickos. Some unexpected tech driven pops that heighten the whole affair. All of which happens in just thirty-ish minutes yet feels like a whole meal.

If the world was just and good there would be the kind of universal basic income for artists they just made law in Ireland everywhere and we could have work like HAG everywhere we could get folks trained up. As it stands the world is not just and good so instead we have to rely upon the passion of makers and the generosity of patrons to have work like this.

So: if The Queen’s Fools deign to set up some more dates so that more folks — younger creators & audiences especially would benefit from getting to see this one — let’s all do what we can to make it worth their while.

HAG is perfect. There’s your pull-quote, Fools.

— Noah J. Nelson, Publisher

People In the Dark: An Immersive Ghost Story—
DrownedOut Productions
$66.60, DTLA, through Oct. 31

The sophomore production from DrownedOut Productions is a bit of an uneven offering, with the back half of the show rescuing the night by showcasing the company’s strengths in spades.

The premise itself is rock solid: guests show up to a “Lost Legends Ghost Tours” pop-up with the promise that maybe, just maybe they’ll get to encounter something truly spooky.

The experience itself has three acts: an initial history lesson/group chat about ghost stories conducted inside the tour’s pop-up tent; a walking tour of the DTLA area around the venue, which features a few possibly real ghosts stories at least one of which was transposed from where it actually happened; and the heart of the matter itself: an encounter with the spirit of a lost star of Hollywood.

The first two acts hinge on the tour guide, and for our run we had an enthusiastic young woman who was struggling a bit with the material and managing the four of us on the tour. I don’t want to knock her too much, as there’s a fair amount for an actor to juggle in the first two sequences and the design of the scenario literally asks a lot from the guests — the sharing of ghost stories, which may or may not hit even from person to person in your group — to trying to evoke the right tone as you navigate the blocks around the venue.

One thing that doesn’t help is the transposition of a certain famous car crash from outside the city limits to being told it happened in DTLA. If you know the story, it throws you out of the reality of the show. I can see an argument that ghost tours maybe do this kind of thing in real life, but when constructing a fiction on the back of the real this kind of thing a discordant note that starts to shred suspension of disbelief.

A somewhat clunky transition into the final act continued to undermine the premise, but all was not lost. Once we were past the point where things didn’t make sense — like why a door was just sitting there unlocked so that we could get into the venue — DrownedOut’s team got into their comfort zone.

One could make the argument, as I’m about to, that the real show is what happens as you wind your way through the abandoned studio space of a forgotten Hollywood star. The encounters here are taking place at an entirely different level of craft and polish, one that nails the feeling of having stepped into a ghostly dreamscape as if we were walking through the hazy memories of a soul that can’t let go of what might have been.

Some of the issues I had with the first half may have just been luck of the draw and opening night jitters for our guide. Because I don’t think the conceit of the tour should be abandoned, it just needs some work so that the leap into pure fantasy is better supported. Still: the closing act is a solid melding of theme park haunted house logic and immersive theatre, and that’s something we love to see.

— Noah J. Nelson, publisher

Poe-Etique: An Immersive Experience — Vincenzo Carubia
$145–225; Los Angeles — Elysian Heights; through Nov. 22

There’s an admirable ambition to what creator Vincenzo Carubia and the creative team behind Poe-Etique have stood up in LA’s Elysian Heights: an evening length dance driven immersive theatre piece which mashes up a few of Edgar Allen Poe’s greatest hits into a narrative rooted in the Masque of the Red Death and clearly still processing pandemic era trauma.

The first topic of conversation whenever Poe-Etique, which is fairly heavily advertised if you’re in the “immersive” algorithm, comes up is how much of a dance theatre piece this is. After all, LA doesn’t tend to get dance-driven pieces as much as New York City does, and the LA immersive scene seems to be hungry for something that serves up what Sleep No More had. One friend, before I took in Poe-Etique, even said they had a better time at this show than Life And Trust, which chased immersive dance theatre immortality and fell short.

While I never did get a chance to catch Life And Trust, the scales here are very different.

Poe-Etique takes place inside a Quonset hut warehouse that’s been turned into a performance space subdivided into a few spaces — some with hard walls and staircases and some just through pipe and drape. The evening kicks off with an optional VIP experience where guests are given some light snacks, free flowing wine, and an introduction to the premise that we’re all part of a secret society looking to escape the ravages of the plague that roars outside the manor walls. Later guests will be prospective members of the society — I think, it’s not entirely clear if there are actual distinctions between the tiers beyond the extra time and the mark of the raven the VIPs are “branded” (read: stamped) with at the start of the show.

There’s a fair amount of time to explore the space during the VIP segment, but unfortunately there’s not much context to be derived from that exploration. I ran into a few old hands at immersive, folks I’ve been seeing shows with since the halcyon days of 2016 and we were all left deflated by the prologue. There wasn’t really much for us to do and poking around the set only coughed up so much about the world. The music at points is also cranked up so loud its impossible to hold a conversation with others around the table, which undermines an opportunity to get social, a strength when the wine is flowing. I did see a fair amount of wonder on the faces of a few folks who I clocked as newbies to the form. If you’ve never seen an immersive theatre show this one has enough techniques from the grab bag to surprise one.

Once the rest of the audience is in the show starts in earnest, alternating between large dialogue driven scenes staged around the “dining table” at the heart of the space, and dance driven sequences that sometimes involve the whole company and at others are duets and trios staged throughout the various playing spaces. As characters are bumped off one by one, through various means, a large scrim staged just outside the hut is where the scenes of ultraviolence play out in shadow play form. It’s rather satisfying to watch those sequences, but the staging has some bad sight lines in the mix and despite the company reserving the right to herd the audience where they want us they don’t use that to get everyone in the best spot to see the action.

The choreography is high energy with sequences that draw on rock & roll and music video moves, which honestly befits something out of the LA scene. If NYC is ballet and modern then LA is definitely rock. Kinetic for certain, the choreography feels best suited to the violent and occult-tinged sections of the story. Perhaps the most impressive thing about the show is the fact that in certain sequences multiple dance duets and trios fire off in separate playing spaces all set to the same music while advancing particular storylines. It’s a feat to have made that choice and land it, one that at least in terms of the emotional journey keep the audience all on the same track even if they are on different narrative tracks. Sadly it’s not really possible to see that, unless one is standing in just the right spot to catch two dances happening across the primary space.

Poe-Etique is also fairly long, especially with the VIP segment added in. In terms of bang for buck I think the show could be trimmed down to make for something that hits harder in terms of its energy, because there’s a lot of good ingredients here. Interactive sequences at certain points are fun changes of pace, and the melodramatic delivery in the big dialogue sequences which feel a bit like cut-scenes in a video game (non-derogatory) are spot on for the materiall; it is Poe, after all. There’s just so much, including an intermission, that the overall effect gets diluted.

From what I can tell this is a first — at least major — immersive effort from Vincenzo Carubia and his collaborators, and what they have on offer shows promise for developing a signature style. I’d even say that Poe-Etique itself could evolve into quite the ride if they leaned into the ensemble’s strengths, and boiling off some of the show’s length to get us to what could be a real potent brew.

— Noah J. Nelson, Publisher

The Shop for Mortals and All Fools— COLAB Theatre
from £30.00; through October 25, 2025

Is it too early to begin holiday shopping? Perhaps, perhaps not, but at The Shop for Mortals and All Fools, it’s less a question of timing (what is time, really, anyway?) and more a question of if you have the strength of will. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

This was not my first visit to COLAB Tower in London’s South Bank, but I was still unsure what to expect, waiting outside a discretely marked door as our discretely-attired shopkeeper called in audience members one by one. Inside were some clues as to what we were in for (art suggesting a passionate gay relationship, mysterious mood lighting, and faintly spooky vintage objects), and we had been given a catalogue to peruse, with instructions to choose an item that we thought held a secret. Even so, what happened when the shopkeeper herself entered the room and shut the door was not what I expected.

The Shop for Mortals and All Fools draws inspiration from The Bacchae, and it certainly shows, but what impressed me the most was the one-actor performance by Kate Webster, our Shopkeeper for the evening. Bringing in the audience (sometimes physically), Webster is fearless, using her entire body to unnerve, cultivate sympathy, and intrigue, one after the other.

That said, the show is not perfect. For anyone expecting the actual concept of shopping to feature much, you may be disappointed. And while it may have been a deliberate choice, the script left me with questions I’d have liked the opportunity to ask. I would also have appreciated an advance warning about the content, as some of it, both violent and sexual, gets fairly graphic, and could be especially disturbing given the intimate nature of the set.

That said, I left the theatre dumbstruck. And isn’t that the mark of something that has taken a risk worth applauding?

— Ellery Weil, London correspondent

Terror in the Corn — Anderson Farms
$43.00 — $200; Erie, CO; through November 2nd

Rated Colorado’s #1 haunted house (2021–2024) and #2 in the nation (2023) by haunt review group The Scare Factor, Terror in the Corn at Anderson Farms is the first commercial haunted house in Colorado I’ve left with my mind truly blown. And with more than 12 of them under my belt (plus a few more that aren’t even around anymore) that’s really saying something.

The experience started long before we set foot inside the attraction. It’s not uncommon to meet monsters while waiting in line for a haunted house, but what made it so much more interesting at Terror in the Corn was that the characters roaming in front of us were also in newspaper clippings that were plastered to walls and columns of the queue line. It was a chance to learn more about your adversaries, should you care to read the fine print presented to you.

Looking around the room, instead of haunt staff posted up in black logoed hoodies and beanies, everyone who wasn’t a customer was dressed like a train conductor. And when I stopped to look at the far wall of the room, I realized it wasn’t a wall at all, but instead a train… with a stage built into it. Next thing I knew, a character was on that stage providing in-world context for the scenes to come. I didn’t catch everything he had to say on his muffled microphone, but we got the high points, and it was enough for some fun recall later on that made the narrative more engaging.

Once we were inside, it quickly became apparent that Terror in the Corn has it all: jaw-dropping sets, well-trained actors, and enough variety to always keep you guessing. Early portions took us through the corn, which was dotted with inhabited shacks and lined with endless scarecrows that kept us jumping the whole way through.

Eventually we landed in the ghost town of Ravens Gulch where we explored every corner of town and recalled some of those details from earlier to make sense of what we were seeing. In certain scenes (like the killer two-story facade of the brothel) mic’d characters would spew dialog and interact with us directly, providing a distraction for well-placed jump scares from the other direction. All throughout the walk, actors and animatronics assaulted from all sides and overhead, keeping things lively and engaging, but never too scary or intense, even for the faint of heart.

It took my group nearly an hour to get through the whole thing (at an admittedly slow to moderate pace) which is unheard of. Paired with competitive pricing and access to all of Anderson Farm’s day time activities, there’s not a better place to spend your entertainment dollars this fall on the front range.

— Danielle Riha, Denver Correspondent

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