The No Proscenium Podcast

For the past ten years NoPro has been your guide to Everything Immersive… and this is the first part of the multi-part celebration - slash - victory lap that is EPISODE 500. Over the course of this weekend, for about TWELVE HOURS, give or take, okay maybe closer to THIRTEEN HOURS we will be checking in with over two dozen of our favorite people to chat about this thing of ours — this immersiv...

This week writer and director Eliza McNitt joins us to talk about Venice Immersive , the annual XR extravaganza inside the Venice International Film Festival, where at this year’s event she is the President of Venice Immersive's International Jury, which will judge the 30 pieces in competition. SHOW NOTES Venice Immersive Venice Immersive 2025: XR Experiences To Stoke Your FOMO (A NoPro Guide) Anc...

This week we’re joined by Gillian Leitten , CEO of The Lumen Prize because today is that day that the 99 finalists for the Prize are announced (check the Show Notes) and Leitten is here to talk with us about the prize which celebrates artists forging new systems of meaning through technology’s evolving creative frontier. We give a special focus on the Hybrid and Experiential categories, the later...

This week on the show Franki Chan , founder and chief creative officer of IHEARTCOMIX , the award-winning creative marketing agency who joined us last weekend at The Next Stage Immersive Summit along with the team from #METAFORYOU of Terence Leclere, Dasha Kittredge, and Annie McGrath, to talk about the 2-night overnight horror horror experience at the legendary Stanley Hotel dubbed The Overnightm...

Zach Morris of Third Rail Projects and Charlie Miller of The Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ Off-Cente r join host Noah Nelson to talk about the upcoming Sweet & Lucky: Echo — a companion story of the 2016 hit  Sweet & Lucky –– which helped put Denver ’s immersive scene on the map. SHOW NOTES Sweet & Lucky: Echo Third Rail Projects The Denver Center for the Performing Arts’...

This week Parker Sela takes over the show to talk about Pompeii , no not the ancient Roman city that was destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD, but the Fosse-tacular immersive by Detour Productions that is coming to San Francisco at the end of this month. Billed as “part Fosse fantasy, part queer cabaret, part end-of-the-world dance party,”  Parker checks in with returning guest, Detour co-found...

This summer a spectacle has bloomed at Meow Wolf’s Convergence Station in Denver and Omega Mart in Las Vegas, bringing a new interactive performance layer that unfolds on a continuous loop and new characters from uncharted corners of the multiverse in the form of dancers, puppets, and shimmering creatures called Flickerwermz. It’s called Phenomenomaly and it’s running now through August 9th, and t...

This week on the show it’s a hangout show as members of the NoPro Review Crew — namely Toronto curator Katrina Lat , New York correspondent  Nicholas Fortugno , our associate producer Parker Sela , and catching up part way through NYC curator Allie Marotta as we chat about a whole lot of things including the brisk sales on Masquerade — that’s the immersive Phantom of the Opera that goes into...

This week on the show we’re joined by long time friend of the show Brent Bushnell — co-founder of Two Bit Circus , scion of the famed Bushnell family, and one of the earliest subscribers to the No Proscenium newsletter — who is here to talk about a new venture he is a co-founder of along with Aidan Wolf  and Kevin Habich — DeamPark which turns mixed reality headsets into a configurable v...

This week on the show we’ve got another double header. First up,  Jake Pinholster the Dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Creative Producer & Director Scarlett Kim — the producers of Worlds in Play , join us to talk about the upcoming gathering of play practitioners—game and theatre artists alike— which is coming to Monticel...

This week on the show we’ve got an extra-long double header with some real clarity of purpose as we take a look at IMMERSIVE inside Theme Parks. First up, Mike Ostrom , Manager of Entertainment and Events for Six Flags Magic Mountain and WOW! Entertainment Inc’s Mark Brymer join me to spill the details on DC Heroes & Villains Festival - an immersive theatrical takeover of   and Six Flags...

Today on the show we’re talking about this year’s Tribeca Immersive offering at the Tribeca Festival which is currently running in New York City. This year the lineup has come together thanks to a unique partnership between Tribeca, Onassis ONX , and Agog: The Immersive Media Institute. To tell us how that all came together we’ll be joined this week by Casey Baltes , VP Tribeca Games & Immersi...

This week on the show we go into the field for a visit to Sypher Arts Studio where Labyrinth Masquerade founder Shawn Strider and producer Jacquie Adorni give us a tour of the treasure trove of costumes that make up the living tapestry that is the Labyrinth Masquerade — the Twenty Seventh edition of which will take place this coming August 15th & 16th at the Historic Biltmore in Downtown Los A...

Little Cinema's Jay Rinsky joins us to talk about his most ambitious project yet:  bringing The Matrix — the 1999 blockbuster that defined action movies for a generation — to Cosm’s titanic video domes. In classic Little CInema style they’re using theatrical techniques to bring the world of The Matrix outside the film frame and onto the wrap around canvas of Cosm’s big screens. SHOW NOTES The...

This week on the show we are joined by Katy Naylor of Voidspace to talk about Voidspace Live, the interactive arts festival which is coming up in London June 7th & 8th and which is featuring a wonderful cross section of London’s always bubbling immersive & experiential scene. SHOW NOTES Voidspace Live The Next Stage Immersive Summit NoPro Backer Focus Group (Round One - Pillar of the Commu...

We wrap up our Detor into Andor: A Star Wars Story's second series with one more trip along the Rimma Trade Route to talk with Jay Bushman about the final arc – ever – of the series which pushed Star Wars storytelling in bold new directions. Spoilers Abound. SHOW NOTES Night Drive - Synthwave Cyberpunk by Elysium Sound Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on the show we are joined by Donna Personna & Mark Nassar two of the three writers — along with Collette LeGrande — of The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot which has returned to San Francisco’s Tenderloin after a successful run in 2018. The immersive, interactive play brings to life the 1966 uprising in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district that was one of the first acts of organized LGBT...

Another Detour into the world of Star Wars as storyteller extraordinaire Jay Bushman joins NoPro host Noah Nelson to dive into the incredible third arc of Andor's second season. SHOW NOTES Detour: Jay & Noah Talk Andor Season One Who's The Bossk: Episode 224: Lonni, You're Out of Your Element with Noah J. Nelson Pros & Cons Season 2 Aaron Burr's Farewell Address Night Drive - Synthwave Cyb...

Jon Pedigo is known to the NoPro universe as one of the creators of Bar of Dreams , which has charmed audiences on both the East and West Coast and to attendees of the 2022 Los Angeles Immersive Invitational as part of the team that created the brilliant Well, Well, Well that year. Well, Jon will be back this weekend at the LA Immersive Invitational, teaming up with Karlie LeClare and Keight Leigh...

This week on the show we’re marking the imminent Halfway to Halloween point of the year with two interviews. First up: Jason Egan of Egan Productions - whose Saw , It , and Blair Witch escape games are perreniall favorites in Las Vegas , joins us to talk about his origins in haunts, and his latest endeavor: The John Wick Experience at AREA15 .  Then David Markland , co-founder and executive d...

As we near Episode 500 I want to start experimenting, exploring other ways to connect with members of the immersive creative community. One idea I've been toying with is a side-project where we talk with creators about works they love and that inspire them, and so that's what we do this week with long time backer, storyteller extraordinaire Jay Bushman. Jay and I have known each other for nearly 1...

Another double header this week as first we're joined by Winston Fisher , Chief Executive officer of Las Vegas' AREA15 to talk about their 20-acre expansion this year which will see attractions like Felix & Paul Studios’ Interstellar Arc , The Museum of Ice Cream , and the highly anticipated Universal Horror Unleashed .  Then Graham Wetterhahn of After Hours Theatre Company and Nick Rhein...

This week we’re joined by Margaret Chandra Kerrison, who is here to talk about her latest book The Art of Immersive Storytelling: Strategies from the Gaming World.  Many of you know Margaret from her time with Walt Disney Imagineering where she worked on some projects dear to our hearts like Galaxy’s Edge. These days she is Senior Creative Director for TAIT. Before we get into the episode — i...

This week we’re joined by Alexander Patterson, founder of Beat The Bomb and we go on the origin story journey of the New York based company which traces its roots to Alex’s time with Tough Mudder all the way to its post-pandemic expansion, including the opening THIS WEEKEND of Beat The bomb Denver — the SEVENTH overall. SHOW NOTES Beat The Bomb Beat The Bomb Denver The 2025 Los Angeles Immers...

This week on the show: another double header. FIrst up: Mikhael Tara Garver and Jenny Koons of Culture House Immersive are with us to talk a bit about the work going on over there, including a fair amount about working with creatives from outside the realm of immersive to bring their worlds to life. Then we check in with friend of the show Yannick Trapman-O’Brien, who is celebrating an anniversary...