a52hertzsong asked: What do you know about the MIT collaboration? From what I understand there's somebody else online who can control certain things in your mask or around you, or even communicate with you. This sounds cool, but I also feel like if the person online isn't taking it seriously it could totally ruin the SNM experience. I'm not sure how much information has been released, but how much control do these online people have? Who are they and how are they selected?
Check out my recap from when I was a participant for some insight into how it works on the live end. Unfortunately the tech mostly didn’t work so it was hard to get a sense of how the interaction with the online participant would work. My sense, though, was that if anything, the live participant has more control because where they go steers what is fed to the online person. That said, there were clearly points where input was needed from the online side to continue (for example, the combination for a locked briefcase).
I don’t know how the online participants were selected, or, for that matter, how the live testers were, either - the night I was there other than Felix Barrett and Stephen Dobbie, the other participants were a man who’d seen the show twice, and one who’d never seen it before at all.
Also worth noting that the experiment has concluded for the time being, I know they’ll reconvene later in the summer to plan out any next stages or further testing. I hope the tech side can be straightened out, I think it would be very cool to give it another try.
Anonymous asked: Do you prefer a character done by the first actor whose take on it you see, or has it happened that a new cast member completely transformed a character for the better? I find firsts are usually the ones that stick with us and are difficult to overshadow.
It’s difficult to talk about preferences since in most cases I really appreciate multiple performers’ takes on the characters. My first six shows had the same cast so in my mind I know I associate the characters with the people who played them then - but in quite a few cases the new cast have taken over those associations by now. That has more to do with how often / how recently I’ve seen them than it does with any assessment of interpretation or quality, though. Firsts sure do stick with you though - hence why the avatar for this Tumblr is Gabriel Forestieri, in some ways he’ll always be Banquo, even though I haven’t seen him perform the role since October.
Anonymous asked: Do you have a favorite song played in the McKittrick?
The Vertigo theme is still my favorite part of the soundtrack; as for the songs, I am more than just a little partial to “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.”
Here’s an academic review of ‘Sleep No More’ in the current issue Johns Hopkins ‘Theatre Journal’ (Volume 64, Number 2, May 2012). Note that this is only an excerpt from the article’s beginning, to access the full text you will need either a password from your academic institution or an actual copy of the journal itself.
Anonymous asked: Suggestion: could you tag spoiler-y posts with "Sleep No More spoilers" so the more unfamiliar of us could Tumblr Savior (ie avoid) them? :)
Good idea! Will start doing that from here on out. Thanks.
Pete Higgin (Enrichment Director, Punchdrunk) and Dan Dixon (Senior Lecturer, University of the West of England) provide us with an overview of Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More/MIT Media Labs collaboration, touching briefly on the role of technology in traditional media.
(Source: pornographicbreakfastcereal)
franceskoncan asked: Ask Box drama forwarded your way: "I have attended numerous performances where the same people (recognizable from tumblr and twitter) are 'spontaneously' chosen for one on one moments. How 'spontaneous' ARE these moments? Do you pre-book them with performers in advance? Do performers see familiar 'faces' and chose them on purpose or is it just luck? If people are 'reserving' these moments with performers it doesn't seem very fair to everyone else."
Well this is an interesting question. By my count, and this is based on some guesswork, between 50 and 60 one-on-ones happen in a given performance. I am reasonably sure that the active Twitterer/Tumblrer fan base do not get the lion’s share of those. I’ve had 5 in one night before and I’ve heard of someone having six. Most of them go to the new, the unexpecting, and the downright terrified, and that is the way it should be.
There’s certainly no “pre-booking,” I am certain that the performers do not work that way. Sometimes I mention to friends in the cast that I’ll be at the show on a certain date, but it has NEVER happened that anything is arranged as a result of that. When I mention I’m coming, it’s intended as ‘hey let’s get a drink at the bar when you’re off work’. I know for my part I don’t make any decisions about who I’m following until I get inside anyway and they have no idea.
Some of the cast can recognize me when I’m there, regardless of the mask. I know I’ve got some distinctive body language and some of these folks have seen me at show consistently for more than 15 months now so of course I’m familiar. It’s like when I go to the show with my brothers: I can spot them a mile away. But most of the cast have no clue who is who. Even when I feel sure someone knows they’re walking me out at the end of the show, they end up completely surprised when they take my mask off.
Now, all this said, it’s possible to be ‘good’ at getting one-on-ones. There’s not some singular secret, there’s not some foolproof way, but it doesn’t take a ton of effort to figure out effective ways of communicating with a character. And I think that’s key: as an audience member you are a character interacting with characters; you are not yourself interacting with actors. Get properly immersed in the world and it rewards you.
EDIT because I was thinking about this my whole subway ride home. Looking at that last bit about ‘reward’ I’m of course concerned about the 1:1 fetishism in whose cultivation I and this blog have surely participated; 1:1s are not this prize you get for winning at Sleep No More. They’re not the sine qua non of a night at the show, actually. They’re cool, but so are the duets, which I’m currently preoccupied with. What I mean to say is that the point is to be “into” the show and “into” the setting and characters and the story, not walking around checking objectives off in your head. The best nights I have there are the ones when things happen by accident.
Anonymous asked: BUT WHAT WILL WE DO WITHOUT YOU???
Like Conrad Birdie says: SUFFER.
