The No Proscenium Podcast

This week the team gets together for the first time in a long while, and then we add beer and whiskey to the mix and… Anyway, join Noah, Anthony, Kathryn, and Kevin for the first of four parts. Then Blake gets added to the mix.  We’ll be dropping parts III & IV next week on the main feed, and a special Rise of Skywalker bonus episode with Zay and Noah into the Patreon feed (but open to all) over t...

This week we've got a special episode as Michaela Holland (NoPro NYC social correspondent) guest hosts a conversation with Abraham Burickson of Odyssey Works . Michaela has attended the company's Master Classes in the past, and she and Abraham talk about that and dive into the ideas that drive the company, which has been making cutting edge work since 2001. Speaking of: the deadline for the call p...

Get ready to get weird as we touch base with the team behind ' The Under Presents ,' the groundbreaking virtual reality experience that takes immersive theatre techniques and applies them to VR storytelling... and then layers in an experience with live actors dropping into the virtual world on top of that. Samantha Gorman and Tanya Leal Soto of Tender Claws join us, along with actor James Cowan, o...

This month I had the pleasure of checking out American Contemporary Ballet's take on The Nutcracker Suite -- the perennial holiday favorite -- which they frame with an immersive twist. Interested in what I saw, and in the company's approach to using immersive techniques for a more traditionally tuned audience, I caught up with ACB's Artistic Director and Choreographer Lincoln Jones. Plus: word on...

Director Lola Kelly joins us to talk about her new work with The Unmarked Door -- ' Crimson Cabaret ' -- which invites guests into a den of spies at the height of the cold war. With original songs by The Unmarked Door founder Rolfe Kent, and puzzles woven into the show by MOON/SHINE Experiential , the cabaret is an unexpected holiday treat for Los Angeles. Join us for a talk about the show and the...

We've wanted to get Curtis Hickman, co-founder and chief creative officer of The VOID, on the podcast forever. This time out we finally get him, and we get Jake Zim -- Senior Vice President, Virtual Reality at Sony Pictures -- as part of a twofer. We talk about Sony and The Void's longstanding collaboration, the latest example of which is ' Jumanji: Reverse The Curse ,' which is the most fun I've...

How did we get so lucky? Last week we sat down with Ben Snow (director of 'Vader Immortal'), Alyssa Finley (producer Ep. II and III), and John Nguyen (design director, Ep. III) of the ILMxLAB and Colum Slevin head of media in the AR/VR experiences team at Oculus to talk about Vader Immortal Episode III , the final chapter of the series. We dig into what the team has learned across the arc of three...

This week on the show we travel up to CalArts and talk with Sam Dubois, the creator of Albany CA's The Avenue Adventure . Sam, now a sophomore at the University, got his start by creating the Albany Haunt when he was 12-years-old. He then ran it for five years. The Avenue Adventure was Sam's first crack at an Alternate Reality Game, and he managed to get the local Chamber of Commerce signed on. Lo...

Nick Rheinwald-Jones & Katelyn Schiller are the co-writers of ' Safehouse '82 ,' a spy thriller that follows up on Rheinwald-Jones' 'Safehouse '77' which featured the two as actors. Since that show Schiller has become co-artistic director of the company Rheinwald-Jones founded, with the pair collaborating on this summer's 'The Pod' at the Hollywood Fringe Festival. We talked with the co-writers on...

Bernie Su is the multiple Emmy winning showrunner, co-creator, and executive producer of ' Artificial ,' the first scripted narrative series on Twitch which also won Twitch its first Emmy. Bernie's been at this for a while, with ' The Lizzie Bennet Diaries ' being one of the seminal works of the transmedia age.  As live immersive and interactive creators look to expanding their work across mediums...

As individual performers keight leighn ( bedrumplai , snow fridge ) and Elisabeth Stranathan ( blackout , bedrumplaii )have an otherworldly intensity to them, as if they existed both in our reality and in a metareality just two steps to the left of our own. Together they form the G8B4 -- which so far specializes in one on one experiences for audiences in person and online. , their current offering...

Actor Alex Demers (The Johnny Cycle: The Living, The Blue Blade) joins us to talk about the craft of acting in immersive and his own journey into the immersive field. Plus: a big update on the 2020 Summit , as in DATES, LOCATION, and NAME and some notes on a new musical in LA -- CAGES . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dave Bushore of Marvel Studios and Ian Bowie & Michael Koperwas of ILMxLAB join us to talk about ' Avengers: Damage Control ' the all-new collaboration between their companies and The VOID . The VR adventure is the biggest yet to hit The VOID's hyper-reality centers, and it puts you in the role of new recruits who must take the latest Wakandan/Stark tech and use it to help the post-Endgame Avenger...

Julia Henning, founder of The Halogen Company , is a familiar presence on the LA immersive scene. As an actor, she's performed with Just Fix It Productions ( Haus of Creep ), The Speakeasy Society ( Johnny III ), and in Darren Lynn Bousman's  Lust Experience and Theatre Macabre . As Creative Director of Halogen, she's taken the company into both traditional and immersive endeavors, with One Exit ,...

Last week, at VIFF Immersed , Ricky Brigante of Pseudonym Productions gave the opening keynote and our own Noah Nelson moderated the closing panel with the competition judges.  So naturally, the night before, Ricky and Noah stayed up drinking and talking, and recorded it all for you. This after the back and forth of first Noah’s and then Ricky’s column on growing the audience for immersive. Record...

Eric Gradman, CTO and Mad Inventor at LA's Two Bit Circus meets up with Noah at their DTLA headquarters to talk about the technical side of immersive and their all-new story room Dr. Botcher's Minute Medical School . Head's up: there's cursing. Show Notes: This week's Picks of the Week Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Survivor: China and  Survivor: Cambodia — Second Chance player Peih-Gee Law joins NoPro's Anthony Robinson ( Survivor: Fiji ) and Room Escape Artist 's David Spira for a talk about how Survivor is the ultimate immersive experience for its players, and their shared love of escape games and puzzles. All to celebrate the premiere of Survivor: Island of the Idols . Originally scheduled as part of our...

John Henningsen, Artistic Director of LA's Thymele Arts sits down to talk with Noah about just what the performing arts incubator in East Hollywood is, its role in the immersive world, and the future of immersive in LA. Note: John very graciously gives us a desk in the co-working space free of charge, but that's not why we're talking to him. We're talking to him because he and Thymele are an integ...

Choreographer Koryn Ann Wicks stops by the studio to talk about her work exploring immersive in dance. Her I Love You So Much, SQUEEZE ME TO DEATH is getting a remount at the Bootleg Theater this October in LA, and her and her team recently took home the grand prize of the LA Immersive Invitational for their work CASTING . We dive in on the language of dance and immersive in this one. Show Notes O...

Graham Wetterhahn, Founder of After Hours Theatre Company  ( One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Last Five Years: A Multisensory Experience) joins host Noah Nelson to talk about the founding of the company, their immersive-adjacent work, and the first LA Immersive Invitational -- which was a total blast. Show Notes: The 2019 Immersive Design Summit videos are here! Denver Immersive Retrospectacle...

The co-creator of Blackout Haunted House , Josh Randall, joins host Noah Nelson to talk about the storied show -- which has inspired many others in the horror genre -- and his storied career. "Each and every conversation I've ever had with Josh has challenged how I see our field, and this is no exception. I look forward to years more of them." -Noah Check out Blackout's Kickstarter .   Show Notes:...

This week Jonathan Pedigo and Alex Leff, the co-creators of Bar of Dreams Los Angeles , join host Noah Nelson to talk about pranks, comedy, and creating interactive experiences. It's a fun conversation that goes in directions you don't quite expect. Plus: we check in with Scout Expedition Company about The Nest , the tickets for which went ON SALE today!  And there are LIMITED DATES available alre...

Jacob Patterson of Think Tank Gallery and Bobby of the Pizzaboyzzz join us as we visit the Tank at the edge of the Arts District in DTLA. The current show is Nothing Cheezy , a pizza-themed collaborative art show that acts as both a parody of the ubiquitous "selfie palaces" and, well, it's also a selfie palace. The show has been extended through mid-September and features special events pretty muc...

Three interviews from the floor of the world's biggest computer graphics conference that explore the state of the art of immersive tech: From Magic Leap Studios ,  Dan Lehrich  VP of Production; the CEO of  Glassbox Technologies , Norman Wang ; and the Chief Creative and GM of Intel Studios ,  Diego Prilusky . Augmented reality, virtual production, and volumetric filmmaking are our topics of the d...

Jackalope Live Action Studio's Matthew Webb rejoins us to talk about their latest forays into making blockbuster LARPs. We talk Night City, their Cyberpunk 2020/2077 game ( check out some awesome photos of the event along with us at the top of the show ), and the revamp of The Night In Question , the Studio's successful Vampire: The Masquerade game which has led to their announcement at GenCon thi...