I don't want to spoil this for anyone living in Boston, so in the old parlance of England's BBC1 news..."If you don't want to know the score, look away now."
Gone--Good--
Brand books, marketing bibles, hyperbole & blogs [this one not included of course] tell marketers to create consumer experiences. I'm not sure that any brand experience can ever beat the age-old, time-honored, exquisitely created, theatre production. So when a good friend of mine told me with wild, wild-eyed wonder, to go to a play called SLEEP NO MORE. I could hardly turn down the recommendation.
But seriously, if you ever want to have one of the best theatrical experiences of your lives, go & see it, even those of you in NYC! This play contains everything brand-builders crave. You, as the 'audience' are an interactive element of a play that goes on around you--in the rooms, corridors & other nooks & crannies of an old 4 floored school.
From the time you enter the building, you're enticed into the plot. You're given a white mask by actors in 1930's costume, with instructions not to talk whilst your in the building. You're then taken into a lift & [in my experience anyway] get dropped of...alone in a darkened, black corridor, illuminated by a few spot lights, not knowing what the hell to do. What you end up discovering are rooms decked out as film sets & actors appearing randomly throughout the building.
As an member of the audience, you intuitively realise that it's not a house-of-horror, but you're supposed to follow the characters through labyrinth of a school. As you follow them, scenes unfold from room-to-room, corridor-to-corridor, as they interact with other characters. You, the voyeur, have to work out the plot, as you decide which of the cast to follow...do you stay in the room with the character you just tracked in there, of chase after the one who just left, running down the dark corridor, pursued by other audience members also in white masks??? the beauty of this experience is it's sensory, it's emotional, it's tense... but better that anything else--the choice is yours.
So please please please...if you can. go & see this play...oh yeah & for you brand guys...you really can learn something from this.
