"The SF Neo-Futurists invite you to a brand-new, full-length show HOLE in which we will dig a big hole in the ground"

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"HOLE is an experimental theater piece by Amy Langer and Bahaar Taj in collaboration with the SF Neo-Futurists. Set outdoors at the beach, HOLE is a site-specific play that revolves around the act of literally digging a large hole in the ground, moving through themes of obsession, identity, community, kindness, and the strange persistence of compulsive digging in pop culture. A play without a fourth wall (or, in fact, any walls), HOLE asks the audience: What needs to be done for you to take up the shovel?"

Positive review of new immersive theater experience The Death of Rasputin

"even on a limited budget, it glimmers like a Fabergé egg."

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Teaser for an immersive Arcane experience by Punchdrunk (Sleep No More)

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Exceptionally well-written review of the immersive theater experience "The Manikins"

You can check out photos or watch a trailer, but I think this review does an outstanding job of describing the disturbing experience. Here's how it starts:

On arrival, the creator and lead performer Jack Aldisert asked if there was anything I'd like to know in advance. Nothing came to mind, so he noted that if I wanted the show to end for any reason, I could say "I want to stop," at any moment. This was sufficiently important that he asked me to repeat it out loud. He also explained that there'd be a short intermission where he'd come out of character to see how I was feeling.

The show took place in a small room made even smaller by a thick curtain dividing it in half. I sat down on one side and instructed to walk through the curtain to the other side when the music stopped. Someone slid an envelope through the bottom of the curtain; it contained a single page formatted like a script. Almost all of the lines were squiggles except for an exchange in which a nurse got a patient's name wrong.

When I walked through, a nurse greeted me with the wrong name, just as the script indicated. I knew I wasn't meant to be roleplaying as anyone but myself, but it still felt odd wanting to perform as a good patient. She took down various personal details, a perfectly familiar scenario made gradually more eerie by:

    1. The script

    2. The nurse's questions about a clock I couldn't see

    3. Her gradually increasing distress that I couldn't recall my nightmares in detail

Before guiding me through the curtain once more, she urged me not to tell Dr. Ligotti I couldn't remember my nightmares, The doctor (played by Jack, now wearing a lab coat) asked me about my nightmares. After some back and forth about the non-existent clock and the nature of knowing whether we're dreaming or not (inability to read writing, clocks, etc.), I agreed to his experimental treatment, which required putting on a sleep mask and wireless headphones.

His review goes into detail as to the rest of the experience, which only gets stranger and stranger.  The second half of the post also reviews a Star Trek-themed experience, and his older reviews describe several other immersive experiences.

(The description of The Manikins actually reminds me of the STTNG episode Frame of Mind, when Riker can't tell if he's acting in a play, or having a psychotic episode.)

"The Willows" is an interactive psycho-drama that casts visitors as dinner guests at a sinister Los Angeles mansion

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Tickets once again available for shows in Los Angeles. From the start of the LA Times' review last year: 

Just as a recent production of “The Willows” was starting to reveal its intentions around a dinner table, the immersive theater endeavor ripped me away from the action. I was being scolded by the matriarch of the house, and the butler was quick to order me out of my seat. My offense? Resting my elbows on a dinner table. I didn’t even have time to nod a goodbye to my partner as I was instructed to stand, leave the dining room and sit alone in a cramped, red-lit closet.

The first thing that caught my eye was a crumpled paper, which read, “I’m bad because I put elbows on the table.” While I wasn’t asked to write a confession, such a clever detail made it clear that I was now part of a lineage of poorly mannered guests at this haunted house.

As lights and audio flickered, the setting was eerie — bordering on sinister. I was told I had two minutes to sit and contemplate my actions

Hollywood Reporter from 2017:

[Producer Justin] Fix himself drives the blindfolded audience (in a creepy white van) to the location of the show from a meeting place on a street corner.

Two very detailed discussions of Disney's Galactic Starcruiser

First, an extremely lengthy episode of the No Proscenium podcast where the typical hosts, who are devoted immersive theater enthusiasts and did their best to role-play during the experience, are interviewed about their experience at the hotel by the "Head of Culture House Immersive and Director of Immersive Experience for the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser". (I might have imagined it, but I think she says early in the interview she was not much of a Star Wars fan before taking on the job.)

And second, an extremely lengthy write up by the creator of the iOS exercise game/audio adventure Zombies, Run!, who went alone and did not have much prior experience role-playing.

Good podcast episode: No Proscenium's Best Immersive Experiences of 2022

"We ask the members of our Review Crew to list their picks — up to three each — of their top shows and experiences of the year. You’ll find live theatre, puzzle boxes, installation art, and even video games in the collection"

"The Showroom" is an upcoming immersive experience in Los Angeles about being trapped in an infinite Ikea with a murderer

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You can buy tickets for shows starting in February or support the crowd funding campaign:

From the creators of Abandoned and Signals comes a new interactive experience set in the SCP Universe!

You have become trapped in the infinite IKEA, aka SCP 3008, and unfortunately a murderer lurks among us. They look like us and appear to think like us, but they are not like us. They are the first observed instance of SCP-3008-3, and the humans do not know who is the imposter.  

Enter The Showroom and help Foundation members and other trapped civilians solve a murder mystery before the murderer claims their next victim. Who is human and who is an SCP in disguise? Moreover, how do we define humanity?

Find out in The Showroom, Feb. 9th-Mar. 5th, 2023.

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*Previously: Three good short science fiction posts from the SCP Foundation; Police called to Scottish IKEA after thousands sign up for hide and seek