‘Save the Munbax’ By Entering a Wizarding World With Magical Creatures (Q&A)
Co-creators Kellian Adams Pletcher and Lizzie Stark talk about their new interactive, Harry Potter-inspired experience
What do you get when you combine live action role-playing, immersive theatre, puzzle design, wizards and magic, endangered birds, and a historic estate from 1878 just outside of Boston, Massachusetts?
Well, it might look a little something like Save The Munbax!! (Hatherly-Phipps Society for the Protection of Magical Creatures), the first collaboration between Kellian Adams Pletcher (Green Door Labs, Club Drosselmeyer) and Lizzie Stark (author of Leaving Mundania).
These two creators are mashing up their love of immersive theatre, gaming, and LARP to create a brand new interactive experience where the audience plays a major role. We spoke to Pletcher and Stark over email as they prepare for the show’s opening.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity; Kellian Adams Pletcher is an occasional contributor to No Proscenium.
No Proscenium (NP): For those who aren’t familiar with your companies and work, can you tell us a little about both Green Door Labs and Stark Participation Design?
Lizzie Stark & Kellian Adams Pletcher (LS/KAP): Kellian runs Green Door Labs, an indie game company in Boston. She likes to work on games that have both a physical and digital element, which often leads to working with museums and libraries. You might have seen a Green Door Labs game at a museum you’ve visited: Murder at the Met at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Mystery of the Megatherium Club with the Smithsonian Castle.
Recently Green Door Labs has been doing more with immersive, interactive theatre: Club Drosselmeyer, an interactive 1940’s Nutcracker in swingtime, is now on year three!
Lizzie fell into participation design after writing the nonfiction book Leaving Mundania, about the subculture of live action role-playing (LARP). While reporting for that book, she developed deep love for the Nordic LARP scene. Since then, she’s run LARP conferences; launched international collaborations — most recently the #Feminism anthology of nearly three dozen feminist nano games; written LARPs about everything from cancer to artist’s colonies, including a collaboration with the Kennedy Center; and non-threateningly introduced maybe a thousand people — including students, docents, and video game designers — to LARP through workshops, conferences, and teaching gigs. She’s been a play consultant to museums, theater troupes, and even run LARP for TV execs. This year, she figured she better stop fighting fate and hang out an official shingle. Save the Munbax is her first production under Stark Participation Design moniker.
NP: Can you explain what Save The Munbax!! (Hatherly-Phipps Society for the Protection of Magical Creatures) is?
LS/KAP: Save the Munbax is an immersive, interactive theatre installation that brings players into a world of “fantastic beasts” in Boston, 1898, where a group of society wizards meet at an estate to discuss the issues of the day, namely: the serious plight of magical creatures such as mugwumps, Yankee swamp goblins, and, most essentially, the northern crested Dimmoth Munbax.
Participants will examine and identify magical creatures, cast spells, solve puzzles, mix potions, use divination tools, discover back stories with our cast or just explore the lovely mansion. Most importantly, you can use your powers of magic and deduction to help us discover why our dear Munbax has fallen ill!
Unscrupulous furriers have targeted the Munbax because its crest is both beautiful and fashionable. Munbax, along with many other magical creatures, are being slaughtered wholesale for the sake of capes, hats, and wands. Mrs. Hatherly and Mrs. Phipps have stood up to say, “NO MORE.”
In addition to lobbying for the conservation of magical creatures, these two Boston ladies have created the Eustis Magical Creatures Preserve, home to many species of magical creatures, including, of course, a Munbax. For some reason, though, the Munbax isn’t doing so well. And that’s where you come in!
NP: How did your partnership and project come about?
LS/KAP: When game designer and professor Celia Pearce introduced the two of us as part of her Playable Theater project, we hit it off right away. After a few coffees, it became clear that we had compatible design skills and interests. Kellian’s background is in puzzles, world-building, and the vintage and museum communities. Lizzie’s background is in social engineering, storytelling, and LARP design.
We both want to push these art forms in a direction that makes them accessible to wider audiences. Kellian has already been doing that with Club Drosselmeyer. When we visited Eustis Estate, the space just felt magical, and the show practically wrote itself.
NP: How are you incorporating aspects of game design and live action role playing (LARP) into this experience?
LS/KAP: We’ve thought a lot about the social design of the world, and offering plenty of hand-holding for different types of audience members. This includes puzzles, the haunting cryptozoological sculpture of artist Hilary Scott, the exploratory possibilities of a mansion, and also “opt-in” roleplaying. We encourage our audience to come dressed in their wizarding best, if they wish!
Since we come to immersive theatre from the lens of game design, our work is often a lot more interactive than something like Sleep No More or Then She Fell. Participants can choose to solve puzzles, complete tasks, choose pathways, and ultimately affect the story.
We took a few things from the LARP world. One thing we’re borrowing is the alibi of character. We get participants into the event via a short experience during which they can choose an 1898 wizarding name. If they want to use that suggestion to roleplay more with each other and with the actors, they are welcome (but not obligated) to do so. We’re also using some old LARP tricks to sort participants into the parts of the mansion we think they’d most enjoy. Finally, LARP uses game design to incentivize collaboration. Sure, you can solve the puzzles on your own — but it will go much faster and you’ll see more of the show if you collaborate with other participants.
NP: Could you tell us about the venue and how you are integrating the work into it?
LS/KAP: Eustis Estate is a gorgeous historic home, built in the 1870s for a gentleman farmer. It’s also a museum. On our first visit, we visited an exhibit inside the home about Mass Audubon society and its connection to the house. When we looked into the history of Mass Audubon, we learned that it had been founded by two Boston ladies, Harriet Hemenway and Minna Hall.
Hemenway and Hall were appalled by the wholesale slaughter of birds to decorate ladies’ hats, and started a conservation movement. They are the inspiration for Mrs. Hatherly and Mrs. Phipps, and the whole event, really.
NP: How are you approaching designing around audience agency? What should the audience be expecting in that regard?
LS/KAP: Participants will have the freedom to vote with their feet and make their own choices in the mansion. At the start of the event, we’ll sort folks into one of five short, guided magical classes: potions, magic-herbology, care of magical creatures, spells, or divination. But aside from this, participants are free to explore the different zones of the house on their own, completing puzzles and quests that will lead up to the solution of how to save the Munbax… or not.
One thing’s for sure — we don’t know how the event will end!
NP: What do you hope participants take away from the experience?
LS/KAP: We think the world is in serious need of some magic right now—and possibly even some joy and hope (if we can get there). We want participants to leave feeling energized and empowered that together, we can have fun, create beautiful spaces and intriguing stories, and do something good. Maybe… just maybe… we could even all vote in November and help save some muggle animal species of our own?
After all, this story is an homage to two well-meaning Bostonians who wanted to change the world to help preserve the beauty and magic of birds. And they succeeded!
Save the Munbax runs October 6–8 at the Eustis Estate in Milton, Massachusetts. Tickets are $30–75.
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