Spooky Action Theater and machina eX present
Happy Hour
a live video game performance
May 12 - June 5, 2016
Spooky Action Theater and the Goethe-Institut Washington bring the interactive performance event Happy Hour by the emerging German theater company machina eX to Washington May 14 - June 12, 2016. Blending video games, live theater, and interactive installation, this English-language premiere of Happy Hour brings machina eX’s signature high-quality technology to Spooky Action Theater’s versatile and imaginative playing space. Designed for no more than 20 audience members at a time, this immersive experience creates an active exchange among the players (audience), and between the audience and the actors - the human avatars - in the other room.
Happy Hour, a hilarious and thought-provoking immersive theater performance, pits two small teams of audience members against one another in a race to solve a series of puzzles. Drinks in hand, the teams must help their human avatars escape the clutches of the evil mastermind holding them captive. A diabolical bartender gives each team the tools they need to communicate in this theatrical twist on the familiar Room Escape video game. As the avatars’ puzzles become increasingly complex, will either team find the keys, unlock the doors, and beat the clock to save the stranger they have been guiding on the other side of the screen?
Co-Directors: Yves Regenass (machina eX) and Gillian Drake (Spooky Action Theater)
US Scenic Design: Kim Sammis
US Technology Direction and Lighting Design: Gordon Nimmo-Smith
Additional US Production team: TBA
US Adaptation, Game and Interaction Design: Jan Philip Steimel & Lasse Marburg (machina eX)
Original Production, Artistic Direction and Game Design: machina eX and Gessnerallee Zurich, at which Happy Hour premiered.
Spooky Action Theater and the Goethe-Institut Washington bring the interactive performance event Happy Hour by the emerging German theater company machina eX to Washington May 14 - June 12, 2016. Blending video games, live theater, and interactive installation, this English-language premiere of Happy Hour brings machina eX’s signature high-quality technology to Spooky Action Theater’s versatile and imaginative playing space. Designed for no more than 20 audience members at a time, this immersive experience creates an active exchange among the players (audience), and between the audience and the actors - the human avatars - in the other room.
Happy Hour, a hilarious and thought-provoking immersive theater performance, pits two small teams of audience members against one another in a race to solve a series of puzzles. Drinks in hand, the teams must help their human avatars escape the clutches of the evil mastermind holding them captive. A diabolical bartender gives each team the tools they need to communicate in this theatrical twist on the familiar Room Escape video game. As the avatars’ puzzles become increasingly complex, will either team find the keys, unlock the doors, and beat the clock to save the stranger they have been guiding on the other side of the screen?
Co-Directors: Yves Regenass (machina eX) and Gillian Drake (Spooky Action Theater)
US Scenic Design: Kim Sammis
US Technology Direction and Lighting Design: Gordon Nimmo-Smith
Additional US Production team: TBA
US Adaptation, Game and Interaction Design: Jan Philip Steimel & Lasse Marburg (machina eX)
Original Production, Artistic Direction and Game Design: machina eX and Gessnerallee Zurich, at which Happy Hour premiered.
Collaborators
by John Hodge
February 11 - March 6, 2016
directed by Richard Henrich
"A truly tremendous double act which thrills, chills and makes you laugh out loud - even though
you know you shouldn't." - Daily Telegraph
"Collaborators is fresh and energetic, with a thick, throbbing vein of grotesque humour." - Evening Standard
"Rare and special… An absurdly fantastic view of Stalin, and it’s seriously funny." - The Times
Featuring Paul Reisman, Joe Duquette, Michael Harris, MacKenzie Lynn Beyer, Kim Curtis, Mindy Shaw, Ryan Dalusung, Steve Beall, Sha Golanski, Robert Bowen Smith, Amal Saade, Liz Dutton, Willem Krumich and Matthew Marcus
Recognized as a valued contributor to the DC performing arts community for bringing new and sharp scripts to the area, like The Wedding Dress, Kwaidan and Can't Complain, Spooky Action Theater presents Collaborators, another Washington Area Premiere. Recipient of the 2012 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play, Collaborators was written by British playwright John Hodge, also known for his Academy Award nominated screenplay for the film Trainspotting, based on the novel by Irvine Welsh.
Collaborators takes place in Moscow in 1938. Russian writer and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov has just finished his play Molière, or The Cabal of Hypocrites, which his friends acclaim a masterpiece. The day after the premiere, he is visited by two secret policemen from the NKVD. He learns his play is banned and will never be shown again unless he writes a new play glorifying the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, in honor of the dictator’s 60th birthday. Bulgakov must accept the commission - his hands are tied. But he is thoroughly blocked and baffled, until he gets help from an unexpected source. The deal that he cuts leads to unexpected and darkly comic consequences, both for himself and for his country.
directed by Richard Henrich
"A truly tremendous double act which thrills, chills and makes you laugh out loud - even though
you know you shouldn't." - Daily Telegraph
"Collaborators is fresh and energetic, with a thick, throbbing vein of grotesque humour." - Evening Standard
"Rare and special… An absurdly fantastic view of Stalin, and it’s seriously funny." - The Times
Featuring Paul Reisman, Joe Duquette, Michael Harris, MacKenzie Lynn Beyer, Kim Curtis, Mindy Shaw, Ryan Dalusung, Steve Beall, Sha Golanski, Robert Bowen Smith, Amal Saade, Liz Dutton, Willem Krumich and Matthew Marcus
Recognized as a valued contributor to the DC performing arts community for bringing new and sharp scripts to the area, like The Wedding Dress, Kwaidan and Can't Complain, Spooky Action Theater presents Collaborators, another Washington Area Premiere. Recipient of the 2012 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play, Collaborators was written by British playwright John Hodge, also known for his Academy Award nominated screenplay for the film Trainspotting, based on the novel by Irvine Welsh.
Collaborators takes place in Moscow in 1938. Russian writer and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov has just finished his play Molière, or The Cabal of Hypocrites, which his friends acclaim a masterpiece. The day after the premiere, he is visited by two secret policemen from the NKVD. He learns his play is banned and will never be shown again unless he writes a new play glorifying the leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, in honor of the dictator’s 60th birthday. Bulgakov must accept the commission - his hands are tied. But he is thoroughly blocked and baffled, until he gets help from an unexpected source. The deal that he cuts leads to unexpected and darkly comic consequences, both for himself and for his country.
Can't Complain
by Christine Evans
A soaring, poetic Irish ghost story for the Women's Voices Theater Festival
directed by Michael Bloom
October 1-25, 2015
For Can't Complain, three generations of women come together in a rich and complicated personal tapestry. In Christine Evans' script, Rita (Cornelia Hart) finds herself restlessly confined in a hospital for "a few tests," which her daughter Maureen (Tonya Beckman) has arranged. Rita begins to plot her escape with the help of her boisterous elderly roommate Iris (Wendy Wilmer), her granddaughter Jansis (Nicole Ruthmarie), and her cat's new best friend, the Devil. Rita battles her present situation – until a riotous party night with Iris and the Devil collapses her escape plan and brings her face to face with her past.
"I love Can't Complain: It has soaring, poetic language, great heart and lots of humor. And it has a wonderfully theatrical imagination. It’s a play about coming to terms with loss, and we can all relate to that. Rita is a fighter and a survivor, which makes her an appealing character," says director Michael Bloom, who is working with both Spooky Action and Christine Evans for the first time. "I love working for theatres that take chances and produce plays that stretch the boundaries of theatre. Christine is an incredibly smart writer who knows how to turn feedback into great ideas."
directed by Michael Bloom
October 1-25, 2015
For Can't Complain, three generations of women come together in a rich and complicated personal tapestry. In Christine Evans' script, Rita (Cornelia Hart) finds herself restlessly confined in a hospital for "a few tests," which her daughter Maureen (Tonya Beckman) has arranged. Rita begins to plot her escape with the help of her boisterous elderly roommate Iris (Wendy Wilmer), her granddaughter Jansis (Nicole Ruthmarie), and her cat's new best friend, the Devil. Rita battles her present situation – until a riotous party night with Iris and the Devil collapses her escape plan and brings her face to face with her past.
"I love Can't Complain: It has soaring, poetic language, great heart and lots of humor. And it has a wonderfully theatrical imagination. It’s a play about coming to terms with loss, and we can all relate to that. Rita is a fighter and a survivor, which makes her an appealing character," says director Michael Bloom, who is working with both Spooky Action and Christine Evans for the first time. "I love working for theatres that take chances and produce plays that stretch the boundaries of theatre. Christine is an incredibly smart writer who knows how to turn feedback into great ideas."
