When we last spoke to the Washington, DC-based TBD (Tradition Be Damned) Immersive over a year ago, they were in the midst of their dystopian futuristic Cabaret Trilogy. In Cabaret We Trust, Cabaret Rising, and Ouroboros: Dawn of the Cabaret were open-world shows filled with drag, politics, glitter, improv, sideshow, and game-like elements. This time around , they’re taking a new approach in their new show Under(world), which will be a “dark ride” exploration of mortality where audiences of ten a time will either journey from life to death or from death to life.
We spoke to Producing Artistic Director Strother Gaines and Devising Playwright/Story Director Jenny Splitter to learn more.
No Proscenium (NP): Can you tell us a little about yourself and your background in the immersive arts?
Strother Gaines (SG): Sure thing! I’m Strother Gaines and I’m the producing artistic director for TBD Immersive here in DC. I’m also a facilitator and business coach, so I think I bring a weird cross section of director, facilitator, type-A producer, and lover of immersive art to the mix. TBD has been producing work since 2016 and we got our start building an after party event for TEDx MidAtlantic where everyone kept saying “Whoa, this is so cool, are you guys a company?” to which we said “No, but if we were…would you pay to come see it?”
Three years later and seems like their answer is “yes.”
Jenny Splitter (JS): I’m Jenny Splitter, the devising playwright and story director for TBD, which means I’m responsible for guiding the narrative of our shows. That usually means everything from writing the script to fleshing out the story arc for the characters to building the world in which the story makes place.
Plus the part that really inspires me: taking tickets and telling audience members not to touch the actors without permission because we all do a little bit of everything at TBD.
SG: LOL — I know more about Google Docs and Excel spreadsheets than I ever planned to now, that’s for sure.
NP: What, in a nutshell, is this project about?
SG: Under(world) is about the passage between this world and the next. Audience members will take on the roles of souls being prepped to be reborn from the collective unconsciousness or souls who have just recently left our world and need to go through the prep process to be consecrated into the collective. On those paths we’re exploring the creation or loss of individuality as well as all the pros and cons associated with both of those processes.
As a big former “gaymer” (former, only because when would I have time now?) I’m drawing a lot of inspiration from classic side scrolling video games and puzzlers to influence the audience’s track and experiences. By combining narrative, agency, and some form of tactile “puzzle” in each space for the audience to engage with I hope we’re building something that a wide range of audience members can enjoy. From the deep classical theatre patron of the arts style audience member, all the way to the “I saw Bandersnatch once and thought it was cool” audience member.
NP: Why did you create the Under(world) experience? What inspired the team?
JS: I started out wanting to explore beauty in death, which led me to think about communal rituals around mourning, like sitting shiva or sharing memories on Facebook about someone we’ve lost, and the way these rituals can be beautiful or healing even though they’re connected to something sad. I wanted to recreate that communal experience in the form of a collective unconscious that we all join when we die. For the life path, I wanted to explore the path to rebirth as something uncontrollable and difficult, since bringing anything to life is always an arduous experience, but also worth the struggle if you care about it enough.
SG: We’ve already been in the Dupont Underground for the finale of our Cabaret Trilogy — Cabaret Rising: One Nation. Underground — and with that show we went in the direction of “let’s get a ton of people, a ton of actors, and tons of stuff and fill up the tunnel. We’ll transform this entire tunnel space as part of the wow factor.”
For this one I wanted to go in the other direction. Standing in an abandoned tunnel makes you feel super small and vulnerable and I got to thinking about how we could play with those feelings instead of the massive sandbox style work we’ve been doing up until this point. We cut down on the cast, cut way back on the audience, and changed the experience to something more small and intimate. One of the original concepts was an audience of one but when we ran the numbers we realized we’d have to charge about $800/ticket for that show so we started thinking about what would work for us both artistically and fiscally. (Always the “fun” part…)
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NP: How is the venue incorporated into the experience? Can you talk a little about how each “track” works?
JS: Setting a show about eternity in a tunnel meant, naturally, the show would conceptualize life and death as a journey. One track is the path to death and the other is the path back up to life again. The two tracks meet in the middle where we explore the intersection of characters and these big sweeping themes.
SG: The venue is one of the most exciting (and challenging) spots in DC to produce work. The Dupont Underground has had a ton of different lives. It was a trolley car station that ran underneath Dupont Circle but the technology became obsolete so the city tried to figure out something new to do with it. They tried out offices, they tried out a trolley themed food court, and then (for a long time) they just closed it up and had nothing in it. Now it’s being reborn as an arts venue but woofta does it present some mega challenges. There are no bathrooms, the electric grid is super limiting, there can be random flooding, it’s an underground tunnel so it stays a liiiitle dirty all the time. We’ve already worked in the space before with Cabaret Rising: One Nation. Underground, so we’re familiar with the ins and outs of the space so we’re hoping to really make use of the amazing things and minimize the challenges with our second go round here.
One of those techniques is building these contained rooms for each stop along the journey. These rooms will be much smaller (think storage container size-ish) and really decked out. The smaller space makes it easier for us to control that experience a bit but then once we get out into the liminal space we’re right back in tunnel mode and you’re reminded it’s all a temporary facade. You never lose that feeling of being somewhere special in the Dupont Underground. (Even when you’ve been trapped down there for days without much sunlight. Bring coffee and SAD lamps please.)
NP: How is the audience incorporated into Under(world)? What kinds of choices can the participants make?
SG: This is a new style for TBD Immersive when it comes to choice and agency. Our normal style is very sandbox where we build the world then you have all the agency to explore however you see fit. For this option you’ll be going through in a specific order but you’ll have the opportunity to influence the choices made in the rooms, what is generated or destroyed, and then creating those moments that are special and unique just to you. Because we’re dealing with huge themes (legit life or death) we are trying to guide audience members to use their own lives and experiences to fill in moments of meaning that are important to them rather than us tell them “this is how you should feel about life!”
We want audience members to feel supported and also like they are the ones in the driver’s seat for what they take away.
NP: How are you designing around audience agency, consent, and safety?
SG: A lot of our performers are heavily involved in the live-action roleplaing community and I think there are some really excellent tricks we can take from their bag. In this specific show, we’re going to give audience members a hand signal they can flash if they are “into it but don’t want to speak” as well as one that they can end their experience with. Obviously with some mega-heavy topics like life and death, we may hit along some type of emotional trigger for audience members and we want to be sure people feel safe to explore and be impacted by the environment and the performers but still fully in control of the rules of engagement.
Agency has always been such a huge part of our work and honestly, this one is a very new track for us. As I mentioned, we traditionally produce very sandbox-style immersives and give people more agency than really any other show I’ve ever seen. Our performers are all trained improvisers (under the direction of our producing improvisation director, Dana Malone Heiser) and can riff on their character and the lore of the world like no other. This gives a hugely rich experience for the audience members who want to engage that way. The downside to that though is some audience members can feel a bit adrift when given so much choice. With Under(world), we’re hoping to find a nice middle ground where, yes, you are on a track and you can’t deviate from that and you still get to impact what comes out of your guide in some ways as well as influence what you take away from the experience.
This show is much more poetic than anything from the Cabaret Trilogy and I think there’s a lot of agency in leaving many questions intentionally unanswered and allowing the audience to fill in the gaps.
NP: Who is the ideal audience member for Under(world)?
SG: I think audience goers who are looking for a blend of experiential gaming, immersive theatre with a poetic twist, and people who love exploring the unknown both metaphorically (death/life/the underworld) and literally (legit an abandoned tunnel, y’all, the space is awesome) would be excellent audience goers. Our work is never passive and audience members who are willing to participate will make or break the experience. We’ve designed the journey so that you can engage in whatever level you’re comfortable with, but lovers of platform games, Joseph Campbell, and Jungian exploration should find a home here. (That Venn diagram is shockingly dense.) Also I’d say about 90% of DC says, “Oh, I’ve been meaning to check that out” whenever I mention the Dupont Underground. For them, this is your perfect time.
NP: What do you hope participants take away from the Under(world) experience?
SG: I really hope regardless of the track the audience is on they leave with an appreciation of the duality of the human experience. There’s power in the individual and power in the collective and being able to hold both of those are true can be difficult. Do I want to be a fierce individual or should I focus on creating my community? There is an inherent push and pull between those two ideas but they don’t have to invalidate one another. While we all hope for more black and white answers to the big questions, it’s the grey parts of our life are the ones where all the exciting stuff happens. Embrace the duality and accept the tension.
JS: My hope is that participants leave with a rediscovery of wonder about their lives and a sense of locating peace and beauty in death. Life and death are obviously these massive, almost infinite themes, which means there’s so much you could say about them and still only just scratch the surface of the human experience. But our feelings about life and death are also incredibly personal and specific. Even when I look at my own life, my feelings have really changed depending on the moment I’m in. Ultimately, I hope our participants find their own moments within this experience and I hope those moments spark something new for them too.
Under(world) plays April 19 — May 12 at The Dupont Underground in Washington, DC. Tickets are $25–45.
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