From the outside looking in one of the most common questions people ask me about Sleep No More is: why do you keep going back? What is it about this work that has garnered such a passionate fandom? There are a lot of answers to this question, but the simplest one is desire.
Sure, the first few return visits may be due to the FOMO and the fact that it is literally impossible to see everything in one (or 10) visits, but it's been 12 years for me. The most true answer I can give to why I keep going back lies in another question. If you could play one character in Sleep No More, who would it be?
This question is often asked from fan to fan and has started each roundtable led by the incredible Ilana Gilovich. I won't quite make it to my 12th anniversary (I first saw SNM on February 28, 2012), but even after all these years my answer to this question remains the same. If I could step into the role of any resident of the McKittrick, it would be Sexy Witch. Sexy is a character whom I rarely follow, but one who truly embodies the spirit of Sleep No More. It's even in her "name", though this was changed later to Fate it's never really stuck, she is sex personified and that's part of the point. The reason we keep coming back, it's not the sets, it's not the choreography (though both are obviously wonderful), it's desire. The need for connection, the ability of Sleep No More to make you fall in love, again, and again and again.
At a salon earlier this year Andrew Murillo, who returned to the cast this year in the roles of Lady Macbeth & Matron, but portrayed Sexy Witch back in 2012 said that when she was learning the role she was told that Sexy Witch should make 100 people fall in love with her every night. When you first fall in love at Sleep No More, that's when the true magic sets in. That's what keeps us revisiting the same halls and the same characters over and over. To ignore this element of the production is doing a disservice to the piece.
Many first time visitors, or even those who have never been to the show, mistake the nudity as the "sexy bits", but it's the eye contact, the moments of quiet, a brief look, a hand offered, that is where the desire lies. No one has more moments like this with more people than Sexy Witch. She is there to make you fall in love and isn't that what we're all chasing in life anyway? If I could step into her shoes and make 100 people fall in love with me every night, maybe then I would truly understand the power of this place and the residents we follow night after night, visit after visit. The power of desire.
Hello? Is anyone there? I honestly don't know. I haven't written here in so long I'm not sure I even remember how, but it's December 31, 2024 and a new year is about to begin and with that new beginning comes a great loss. There are 6 performances left of Sleep No More and my emotions are heavy as we welcome 2025.
I attended the show last night surrounded by old friends and new. It was my last time arriving to the hotel alone. A show filled with strange crowds, loud talkers, overcrowding, and yet a show of pure magic none the less. But I'm not here to talk about last night, I'm here for the Porter.
From 2012-2014 the McKittrick was my home. I was frequently at Sleep No More, but also young and broke in NY I was often in the building for other things. Hopping into the Manderley after the show ended to see a band, in the Club Car for a special concert. Up at Gallow Green for one drink and several hours of sitting around. Any chance to be close to Sleep No More even when I couldn't afford the show itself, I took it.
Then I took a break. I'd found love and the gap that Sleep No More had filled in my heart no longer felt so vast. I didn't need the show in the same visceral way I once did. My partner and I attended many parties at the McKittrick over the years, but the memories of the frantic, emotionally fraught, time from 2012-2014 began to fade. (To be fair there was a lot of alcohol back then).
I slowly started going back to the show a couple years ago and in early 2024 I followed a Porter I hadn't seen before, Andrew Pastides, and that show began (as my friend Anna has coined it) my "Sleep No More Renaissance".
It is impossible for me to choose a clear favorite character in that building, but it is fair to say the Porter has always held my heart. From my first Porter 1:1 with Zach McNally, to the incomparable Will Seefried, to playing the Porter myself in college at Bryn Mawr, I will always follow the Porter.
Like many of the "older" fans, my history with Sleep No More is forever tied to moments of the past. The faces I used to see time and time again, those performances and choices that were made in the early days that will live in my dreams forever, which is why I must thank Andrew as we approach the end. Andrew Pastides' Porter re-captured my soul that night. The chills, the heartache, the desire, it all came flooding back.
Andrew's Porter was heart wrenchingly perfect. I hadn't felt that kind of pain and desperation in the hotel in so many years, it was a revelation. I wish I had written about it more then. I wish the memories didn't fade so quickly, but I will never forget the feeling of his hands on my shoulders as we watched Macbeth hang.
We may be about to walk out of the Manderley for the last time, but the Porter remains. The Porter will never escape the loop. He will be there in devastating heartbreak for eternity. So I pray you, remember the porter.
A simple image can do a lot of the work, can’t it?
There’s perhaps a hypothetical universe where one could assess Life and Trust in a vacuum, a show with no lineage or heritage, that is not opening at the close of a beloved predecessor and step-parent, and not appearing around a year after the closure of its nearest sibling.
But as Vice President Harris might say, Life and Trust did not just fall out of the coconut tree, it exists in the context of all in which it lives and all that came before it. If The Burnt City and its subsequent fate tell us a tale of what Punchdrunk took away from Sleep No More and where they wanted to go next (and how that worked out), then Life and Trust is a parallel tale of the lessons Emursive has taken from their long, successful production of Punchdrunk’s smash hit, and what they viewed as elements that might put lightning in a bottle once again.
(Significant spoilers to follow).
I start with a couple of provisos. As of this writing, I’ve only seen Life and Trust once, and I know that’s far too little time to have a deep familiarity with everything happening in the building. I have other visits planned still, and look forward to those, because the production is on a massive scale and I know there are some major elements I did not see with my own eyes. I find myself, uncharacteristically for someone who mostly writes about Sleep No More or newer Punchdrunk productions I prebook extensive visits to, in the shoes of an average theatergoer whom Life and Trust has so far had just once opportunity to ensnare, the way Sleep No More lodged itself in my soul in March 2011 and never let me go.
But I also want to note that the last year of loving Sleep No More has been a tumultuous one and I am very eager for it to go away. The news of its intended closure hit like a ton of bricks and the farewell has been long. The repeated extensions have long since expended the good will last November’s news awoke, and I am now, even as one of the original superfans of the New York production, extremely eager to move on. I have said my goodbyes, had one last Porter 1:1 with Paul Zivkovich, I have grown more and more irritated at the lack of a solid end date while my $500 in final weekend tickets loiters in the ether somewhere, bankrolling Emursive’s new venture, I suppose. Like I said a long time ago when I first thought I was done with SNM, my heart now longs for something new.
Nor did I find that at The Burnt City. Punchdrunk’s latest solo offering had many things going for it, but it unfortunately failed to find its audience and failed to establish itself as a long-term lifestyle and entertainment feature. The expertise in doing that, it would seem, lies more with the Emursive side of the house, and left to their own path, Punchdrunk opted for a show that was, as I wrote in my review earlier:
brooding, sad and full of unceasing lamentation – fitting, perhaps, to our terrible moment in history, and probably edifying – but a night at this museum will never occupy the sort of lifestyle position a night at the McKittrick Hotel continues to be
I am sad that I was correct in that prediction. I love large-format immersive work, and I want it to succeed, even when it’s not exactly my own personal jam.
So this brings us to Life and Trust, an Emursive production with an entirely different creative team – and including a significant number of notable Punchdrunk performance alumni. Promotion for this new production highlights this lineage: “the producers of Sleep No More bring to you a new theatrical experience of money, power, and desire.” It’s an accurate statement, and Emursive are right to claim a share of the success Sleep No More enjoyed. But you can also imagine the kind of transference that follows: comments on the ads are full of people tagging friends and saying, “new from the Sleep No More people” – unaware that the Sleep No More creative team have nothing to do with this. Punchdrunk themselves have had no hand in this new production, and yet their reputation, by way of the legacy of their previous work, are deeply bound up in it. So there’s inevitably a delicate and potentially uncomfortable intertwining of the two companies even after their partnership ends when Sleep No More finally closes.
To be absolutely clear: I don’t know if that delicate balance involves conflict. I have few sources either way, and because this is to a certain degree an internal family affair, those sources I do have are reluctant to share a view. Further, there’s certainly non-disclosure and non-disparagement terms in place that mean we’ll probably never get an unvarnished view of how the descent and birth of Life and Trust has been received particularly on the Punchdrunk side. For all I know, it has either explicit or implicit blessing to take elements of the Sleep No More format and apply them to an entirely different intellectual property and be used by an entirely different creative team.
But, and I am merely speculating here, imagine what it might feel like, if you were a long-time Punchdrunk person, whose career had been built in developing and refining a certain theatrical practice and methodology, and gaining widespread acclaim for it. From Faust to several versions of Sleep No More to The Drowned Man and The Burnt City. Imagine what it might feel like to watch that fall into others’ hands – the hope you would have for gentle care for it, the anxiety you would have for its future stewardship and success. Would you wish the hallmarks of your previous work could be, quite literally, trademarks instead, with legal protections and real ownership? Or would you be pleased to see that way of storytelling proliferate well beyond your own limits, and for that matter, beyond your control? In any case, it is surely not just simple and straightforward.
And so one cannot come to Life and Trust without wondering how much it relies on its predecessor, and asking how carefully those methods have been applied.
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It would be deeply, grossly unfair to say Life and Trust is a “rip-off” of Sleep No More – that implies theft that hasn’t happened, and a direct imitation that isn’t intended, desired or even possible given that the material is different. Instead, what we encounter is a network of numerous elements that are structurally analogous, as exactingly as they can be to emulate another, previous mode of experience and calculatedly divergent to deflect critique of that similarity. The experience is very deliberately meant to feel familiar to a Sleep No More audience. There are also layers of variation to ensure you know it is not the same; the differences ought, putatively, to be indicative of what Life and Trust’s creators think you will want more of; and what you will want less of. It is very plainly a response to and mutation of its predecessor.
The masks, as I intimated before, tell a lot of this story. They are larger – as is this show. They are more ornate, in a kind of hellenistic way, and you will indeed enter spaces that are glitzier and glossier than anything you’ve seen before. They are also unnecessarily complicated, with horns that catch on the set and obscure already difficult sightlines; they are black for contradistinction with ‘the other mask show,’ but that choice has significant consequences for the effect they create in the space and what that implies about the meaning of audienceship here. But they do effectively communicate to you: you know how this works, you’ve done this before, you will don this and be silent, clasp your hands behind you and follow the loops.
Familiarity is everywhere when you enter at 69 Beaver Street, but maybe not with what you’re expecting. It’s not the entryway into Sleep No More; it’s the entry landing at Gallow Green. There’s jazz playing and posters (far too few in variety, and not printed full bleed, sadly) advertising the bank. You check in, you wind through recursive hallways (not a dark maze, but) to coat check and phone check, before you head up to Conwell Coffee House. I am a very big fan of Conwell Coffee House, it’s a gorgeous space and a clever daytime front for the show. It is also quite bright, which is helpful because there’s active food and beverage service but also quite a few more sharp edges than Manderley has. It does, however, contrast tonally with what comes later and the divide between the two feels jarringly abrupt. You are issued not a playing card room key but an investor-type classification card. I wish this were some kind of real world object connected to other networks of meaning, rather than these more blunt, functional hermeneutics. Like a lot of features, it was made-for-show, and the artifice requires your buy-in.
From here, a staff member will bring you to a briefing room where you await the arrival of Mr. Conwell. After an introductory narrative, one of his assistants gives pre-flight and distributes masks, then off you go. Pre-flight, you’ll note it’s the same but with different words and some nice period touches.
The framing narrative is, if I have followed this correctly: you’re meeting with bank magnate Conwell on the eve of the stock market crash of 1929. He reveals that yes, 40 years ago he did make a deal with a servant of the devil, an illusionist passing through who gives him a recipe for a general analgesic to help his sister with a bone condition, which becomes the foundation of Conwell’s fortune. The devil’s agents now return to collect his prize but first he will get one night of revisiting the events of 40 years previous, which were, I guess, “revelries.”
This isn’t strictly how Goethe’s Faust unfolds in any sense, particularly not in that what Faust stood to gain from Mephistopheles was wealth. Faust lends a number of elements to whatever story is being told here, and I admit, I am going to need a few more visits to gather it all up, but from what I did see, a lot of the major plot points are here and are neatly and clearly presented: infatuation with Gretchen, a fight with her brother (as a boxing match, rather than a duel, but an excellent scene nevertheless), Gretchen’s arrest (if there’s infanticide I didn’t see it yet) and eventual condemnation.
As a quick aside: yes, I am trained as a Germanist, but not specialized in this period. I’ve read Faust a a few times as well as most of Goethe’s other plays; The Elective Affinities, and some essays, but my training is late 19th and early 20th century. So I come at this as someone who knows Faust reasonably well, but not in extreme detail. Instead, I am better equipped to view this through a lens tinted by more recent Faust adaptations, notably Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus, and his son Klaus Mann’s Mephisto – both of which could be interesting intersections with this version, and I can’t rule out that they aren’t – but haven’t seen sufficient signs so far. But believe me I was looking for hetaera esmeralda references and will be delighted should I ever find any.
Life and Trust is certainly more of a, let’s say, nominal Faust adaptation. Gone is the prologue in the theater, or the prologue in heaven. We’ve got Faust’s wager with Mephisto, but I’ve seen no signs yet of the parallel wager between Mephisto and God that gives the play its philosophical, theological, and intellectual direction and significance. As we gather from the finale, Mephistopheles collects Faust’s soul, dons him in a straightjacket and puts him on an elevator to hell – which isn’t even how Faust I ends, let alone Faust II. I don’t think it’s a strike against the show to have taken these liberties with material an audience does not know well. The Drowned Man struggled with the unfamiliarity of Woyzeck to such a degree that they distributed handbills with a plot summary at entry. And since we’re not getting to warp across time and space in Part II in this show, it’s a fair if crude conclusion (but I’ll return to the finale later).
Alongside this is what I began to call the immigration subplot - some number of characters, especially down in the industrial and carnival levels, are plainly immigrants of various origin and under surveillance and persecution by something called the American Protection Association, or similar, which keeps extremely spotty files on some of them. Gretchen’s case file indicates her name is Gretchen and her alias Margaret – they don’t seem to know how German diminutives work, and neither do you. I encountered one character in the furnace or mine area who eventually took me up to his room, danced with some clowns, then pulled me for a 1:1. I am going to have to guess it is a placeholder and not yet complete, because it mostly consisted of instructions to not hit my head when leaning back to see a photo he showed me. This sent me on a quest which does not, evidently, lead to his Sicilian mother, much to my disappointment.
Something that stood out to me in many scenes is that they felt rushed for exposition. Which is to say – a performer would arrive in a space with another and immediately enter dance choreography with them. Accordingly, I found myself having a hard time ascertaining the nature of their relationships and the intention of their interactions. Characterization on the whole – and there are *a lot* of characters, does not yet feel particularly strong, either. I was glad to have just enough anchors in my knowledge of Faust to glean who was Gretchen, who was Valentine, and I knew the always-brilliant Parker Murphy was Conwell / Faust. Mephisto, well, I gathered that from his corset, because as Hamilton taught us, villainy and faggotry are a good pairing. When I saw about ten other people at the finale I hadn’t seen before, I thought: I don’t even know who the people I followed are, who are all of you? I don’t say this to slight the performances of these roles – which are energetic and engaging. Jake Warren, an extremely tall, handsome and wet man, was outstanding as Valentine (mostly I stumbled on him by luck, in a bathtub, but then went with my follow-whoever-is-cutest approach that utterly ruined my first time at The Burnt City – Zagreus, whose loop had not yet been written, alas). Instead, I had the impression the performers have not yet had much time to settle into the space and learn how to best relate to and use it to tell their stories. So, there’s a lot of reason to expect this is something that’s going to improve dramatically as the run goes on.
The space. My god, the sets. I cannot fathom how much money has been poured into making some of these rooms. Well, I can, as a good chunk of it was my money once. There are some absurdly gorgeous and impressive places and as you descend further and further you wonder, how is this in a 4th level subbasement? Why is this basement nicer than my apartment? What is that glowing obelisk? Am I going to die when I slip on this tile and hit my head on that concrete dais (I almost did)? Is this Poodle Room going to get use? Do Fraggles live in the LED forest? Seriously, I loved that LED forest so much, until I took note of the floor material which jolted me right out of feeling like I was in it. And then I turned the corner and saw more of the tragically ubiquitous MEPHISTO posters that coat – and I absolutely mean coat – many of the transitional hallways. I hope this is just a temporary measure, and judging how the posters are just inkjet printouts, they’re almost doomed to be in the humidity - but it is stunning how some rooms have a degree of finish and opulence that boggles the mind, and others look like a middle school drama club production step and repeat. The set is absolutely the star of this show, except for when it’s not, and when it’s not it’s downright embarrassing. What isn’t there (yet) is the kind of object depth that we’re used to from a Punchdrunk set, where there’s enough detritus of actual life that you’re able to believe people use the space for whatever its fictive intention is. I have heard the set was the cause of a delay in the opening of previews, so perhaps there’s plenty more furnishing still to come.
Choreographically, don’t expect anything to break your brain or be outside the conventions of contemporary dance. There are only so many ways to roll onto a couch or writhe on a table, we can probably all do it ourselves, laying an inverted arm on a surface and pulling ourselves over it. You know the move, Banquo does it, Boy Witch does it, everybody does it, it must mean something! There are several fight scenes though, and the big Valentine / Mephisto / Conwell boxing match is absolutely spectacular; Dorian Gray and Tall Hot Man in a horse mask was also gorgeously rendered and full of tension (and ‘the gay shit’, which is what we were all searching for). Speaking of which – I also saw a scene of two lesbian lovers divided by a jail cell gate – no idea who the characters are, but their scene together was powerful and gut-wrenching as they were split apart and a guard came and exerted state violence.
Which brings us to the soundscape. I had been spoiled early on that a significant amount of the score is new original composition, and this has been polarizing. For my part, as a bass clarinetist, I actually enjoyed much of what I heard and presumed to be composed for the show. It also needs to be said: bravo for hiring a composer to take on such a task, we need more of that. I think the vibe it created was effective - pressing and a bit frenetic. It did not, unfortunately, feel cinematic in the way we are accustomed to when Stephen Dobbie draws on his vast encyclopedic knowledge of film scores to find utterly perfect cues. I couldn’t help but wonder if this choice was partly about risk mitigation, given that we’ve never had a good conclusive answer as to how thorough a Punchdrunk show is with its licensing arrangements, but in lieu of that unique talent, I actually thought the new music was a good alternative. The unfortunate part is that I can barely remember any of it.
Where I was disappointed, actually, was in uses of familiar material to score scenes. Erik Satie with dejected vaudevillians? Groundbreaking. Bach for a fight scene with the fascist cop? Instantly evoked Kristallnacht in Schindler’s List and its not especially well-received pairing with English Suite No. 2. I have been thinking about the music of Punchdrunk working in a kind of inverted Verfremdungseffekt – the use of familiar sound and potentially text to establish dramatic context when the theatrical modality itself is paradoxically alienating but also operating to create the impression of intimacy. I have also been thinking about what a powerful intertextual indicator soundtrack choices can be – having finally watched Dark City and seeing where the cue that was used for The Burnt City’s loop reset was used in the film, and wow – what an intelligent and meaningful choice. I feel like these are missed opportunities to build a network of meaning around the space and the performances to heighten their impact and broaden their interpretative potential.
Gradually, events culminate and the audience conducts upward to a ballroom sequence, which gradually conducts out a door into an extremely impressive stairway upwards that you have not seen before this point. And *then* it conducts further upward into the actual finale space, which is dark and full of various platforms. The finale then winds on and on and on, nearly interminably, in what I can only describe as a “Banker’s Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation” number. The demonic helpers toss the blood-signed contract between them. The rest of the cast don trenchcoats and bowlers. Dollar bills rain from the sky and money is shredded as Conwell is laced into a straitjacket and disapparated by magic trick into the elevator to hell. For a show that so insisted on punching you in the face about being Faust that they bolded those letters in the logo, the gruesomely literal representation here shouldn’t be surprising, but if you come away from it not feeling talked down to, consider yourself in luck. Disastrous finales aren’t doom – I despised the finale of The Drowned Man, the show I otherwise consider to be the absolute finest in this format, because it massively broke the engagement mode with the performers (and the Riverdance line was just too silly for the tone of the show otherwise, and not in that great haunting A Chorus Line finale kind of way either). They’ll obviously work to refine it, but it’s a place where the big Broadway lineage of the show’s direction becomes very evident. It concludes with applause and an effective curtain call for the cast – I appreciate the chance to recognize them, but when you’re accustomed to the spell not lifting until you’re all the way out, it also feels like a cold shower.
On the way out, I had to speak with a staff member about a bad fall I had taken – backing away from performers who suddenly started to move quickly, I collided with another audience member, tried to move the other direction and tripped over a set feature, narrowly missing its sharp edge with my head as I fell onto my wrist. They took all the details – I assured them this wasn’t about liability but just a note that that fight scene needs a steward since the room has so many hazards – and they listened intently. Customer care at Life and Trust so far has been absolutely excellent, particularly in the wake of my cancelled first performance. This is something where Emursive’s long-term experience on their side of Sleep No More is a tremendous asset. These shows are, after all, mass entertainment. We get so enamored of the art side, and it flatters ourselves to focus on that, that we forget this is entertainment on a vast industrial scale and it takes a particular expertise to make that work effectively. Punchdrunk did not really have it down when Peep opened at The Burnt City, and things had only somewhat improved when I went back at the end. For institutions that need to build a loyal returner audience and good word-of-mouth, it’s indispensable.
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For a show in its absolute infancy, Life and Trust is quite an achievement: it is operating at a vast and complicated scale relatively smoothly, and with a high level of technical achievement. Emursive’s focus is plainly on impressive scenic engineering and some high-flash spectacular set pieces. The finer details, thus far, are lacking. I think we can grant some grace to a show that has been running a couple of weeks in previews when compared with something that is in the fourteenth year of its third iteration. But if I think to another vast show I spent a lot of time at recently, also when it was in its early previews, I’m struck by a particular hollowness at Life and Trust that I hope my next visit or two will help to cure, but worry is out of its scope. That’s an intellectual and conceptual depth, ambition and vision that I am hoping to see from someone but haven’t got to yet. It’s gorgeous in many ways, but does not advance the state of the immersive art. It echoes and reiterates the state of the immersive art circa 2011 with a patina of more recent aesthetic trends.
For Punchdrunk’s part, Felix Barrett has indicated they intend to do no more new mask shows. I wonder if they watched brand new audience pile into The Burnt City and instantly queue for 1:1s and thought, this isn’t doing it anymore, our audience knows this game all too well. As a company, their DNA is to innovate and defy expectations, and achieve emotional response from their audience with some element of thoughtful, novel intervention. I did not detect any desire for that at Life and Trust, where the idea was plainly, do everything we did before but bigger, in black and with horns on top that you just don’t know why they’re even there. In fact they are counting on their audience knowing this game too well, and seem quite content to keep playing it.
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The short version:
Should you go? Yes, absolutely. The set alone is worth a visit of its own.
Am I going back? At least once, because it’s being comped, and we’ll see after that.
Is it better than Sleep No More? No, but that might not matter to you, and if you like it more, great! Different tastes are good.
Will it succeed? I hope so, even if I won’t be its biggest cheerleader. It employs a lot of wonderful people and I want big, lavish productions to do well enough that more of them continue to be planned.
Will you start a new Tumblr? I’d call it Too Faust Too Furious and no, it is not 2011 anymore, and never will be again. That’s a good thing.
A really fair and thoughtful review by scorched. I have now seen Life & Trust six times. Still pondering whether to revive my dusty tumblr and share my own thoughts, but in the meantime please enjoy Evan’s words.
It’s hard to describe the frenzy we experienced from April to June of 2012. It seemed like shortly after Remixed there was an unceasing parade of events at the McKittrick and it was truly the center of the universe. The show was the talk of the town, and at the time, regulars and fans enjoyed a level of access and proximity to the show that simply doesn’t exist anymore. We were very much a part of the family and no one in that family really knew how to process being at the center of a cultural phenomenon, so we were all along for the ride and there were astonishingly few boundaries.
Mayfair was coming and the promise of a heathen bacchanal (“Come Let Me Clutch Thee”) had everyone in a tizzy. In the lead up, there was also a steady trickle of promotional events and brand partnerships. Bowmore Spirits was hosting a whisky party at the Hotel, and was offering a chance at free tickets in exchange for retweets. Team Hard RT aggressively participated, and when the drawing came, the tickets went to a dummy account the brand clearly owned. We called them out on it. Then came the DMs saying if any of us could make it to the Hotel in time, the tickets were ours. Alas, they went unclaimed.
In the meantime, I was suddenly under an NDA.
The reason for this was that I had been invited to test the MIT Media Lab extension to the show, and while I was told I would be allowed to write about it on Scorched, they had offered the story as an exclusive to the New York Times, so I had to wait for that to go out before I could say anything (the post eventually went up here, and was sparse on specifics because for all we knew, this was going to end up live in the show someday soon).
I arrived as normal at the Hotel - and proceeded to Manderley, where this little bit that I wrote in a teaser actually happened:
Amidst the tables and chairs, Calloway stands alone, basked in a spotlight. He appears to be singing to himself softly, slowly turning his hands around, as though weaving his quiet song (in that is-he-touched-in-the-head way that Calloway has).
He looks at me and beckons me toward him. I approach, and he bends down to kiss me on the cheek. When he rises, I look up at him, as he towers over me, and I can see that he’s been crying. My face turns sad. I reach up my hand and cradle his face, wiping away a tear with a sweep of my thumb. He exhales, deliberately, and stares back at me with a look of grief and loss.
I know that somewhere, something dreadful has happened.
Then I was taken in to meet Felix Barrett and Peter Higgin, who fitted me with the enhanced mask. It had antennae sticking out of it and was extremely heavy and uncomfortable – a discomfort that only grew as the night went on. But they didn’t tell me much else and I was brought up to the fifth floor, where the autopsy room had been closed off from the regular show. Inside, I found Alba Albanese, who introduced me to the story of Grace Naismith’s disappearance - and to a ouija board. The board started to move: “G…. E…. T…. O…. U….T…,” and I heard a scraping at the door. I fled out into the corridor.
Regular attendees had noticed strange things were happening. There were signs posted around the show with Grace’s photo, and there were markers to show points of interest (like signs for quest interaction in an MMO). But the very first thing I noticed was that the padded cell was closed off - and occupied. This has long been my favorite unused room in the hotel so I was thrilled. Inside was Ben Thys. The stewards sighted my tech mask and admitted me to the room.
From the 2nd teaser:
We are standing together in the center of the room.
He looks deep into my eyes, smiles, and then…
he smells me.
He draws his face close to mine and moves, slowly and cautiously, in a circle around my face, sniffing at it, clearly seeking some trademark scent.
Then he stops sniffing. He smiles, and pulls me close again. This time he drops his head back and opens his mouth wide, as though to allow me a chance to inspect his teeth. I look and find nothing out of the ordinary. When he finally raises his head again and closes his mouth, his grin has changed into a look of grief.
“You.”
There is a long, painful silence.
“You never came."
It is as though the very life drains out of his face. And with that, he drifts back to where I found him when I entered, slumped in the corner, and buries his face in his hands.
Bewildered, I set out to figure out what was going on. The 4th Floor had various clues - Grace had loved a man named George. I found another previously inaccessible space at the end of the hall to the Rep Bar - the Law Office. Inside was a typewriter (another portal device) that wrote out a message: “SUITCASE” - and there was indeed a suitcase in the room. I took the suitcase and went exploring – I think I may have been under the impression the Porter would help me. I recall making it as far as the lobby when a Steward approached and reclaimed the suitcase, noting to me that I wasn’t supposed to be carrying the props. Oops. Somewhere - and honestly 12 years later I don’t recall where - I found a note detailing Grace’s contract with Hecate, and how she was supposed to make George fall in love with Grace.
From the 3rd teaser:
When I finally return to him I am sweating and shaking.
I have been running and searching for nearly an hour, with hardly anything to show for it. But I know that he must have the answer, if only somehow I can get it out of him.
By now it’s become a ritual, how he greets me. He holds my shoulders and pushes me against each of the walls, laughing, smiling like a young child. Then he smells me and his proximity makes me anxious. He can be gentle one moment and ferocious the next. I hope that maybe this is how he shows me his trust.
And then we sit down and I show him what I’ve brought.
He looks at the paper then up at me. I point at him intently.
“Yes,” he says, “that’s me. I’m George.”
My heart skips a beat. Now I feel like I’m getting somewhere.
“…I do not know why I’m in here.”
Poor Ben. He told me later he was ad libbing all of it, they hadn’t really anticipated that I’d keep going back to him with pretty much any prop I found trying to get him to explain any of it. I obviously went to Hecate (Careena), who presented me with a vial of salt, but I wasn’t getting it yet. I wandered the 5th floor, hearing voices through my mask in the bathroom hall. I found the closet in the forest maze, and groped for a light switch - in the process, pulling the microphone off the wall. Oops again.
I was feeling fairly exasperated as I’d figured out who was who, but it wasn’t clear if I was supposed to try to find Grace or what. Also, the mask was absolute murder so I went back to Manderley to see Pete and see if he could adjust it. I told him what I’d seen, showed him the vial of salt, and he said, “I don’t know what that’s about, that’s Careena doing her own thing I guess.” It was chaos and I kind of loved every second of it. Matt Downs, my dear friend who I had only really met shortly before all of this, watched all of the mask drama unfolding with keen interest, knowing full well something insane was happening.
I had sort of run out of ideas and the third loop was well underway, so Pete said they’d try to get me up to 4 to see the big showpiece that had been set up to conclude the experience. To do this, it needed to be made plain to Careena to depart from her regular Hecate track. So Calloway was asked to escort me from Manderley up to the Rep Bar. It was a crowded night at the show, and William patiently but urgently pushed me through the crowd, taking me to the front so Careena would see me and understand. Then he took me to Agnes’ apartment and I waited.
Eventually - the show was very near its end at this point - Hecate emerged from the bedroom. I don’t remember any of the text, but this led to the reveal of the salt hands, the evidence of Grace’s fate. This 1:1 is depicted in the photo the New York Times ran with their coverage.
After all of this, we all gathered in the ballroom for a debrief. Only one other test participant had remained. They had brought me, a frequent visitor; this other fellow, who had been once before; and a walk-in who had no idea what the show even was - and that person had bolted almost immediately. Over beers, we had a great conversation for the next hour or so with the graduate students who had been working on the project. I told them how envious I was – they were doing more interesting work with narrative than I ever had in my own literature Ph.D. program. I got to see the ballroom with all the lights up - gross, honestly, and far more colorful a space than I had ever realized. Afterwards, as we walked back up to a nearly empty Manderley, Felix Barrett asked if I could answer something for him. Sure, I said. “Why is your Tumblr avatar a picture of Gabe Forestieri?” Definitely not what I thought he might ask. “Well, have you seen him? He’s gorgeous.”
The teaser posts were the best I could do in the run-up to Mayfair. Questions poured in and utter silence would have added fuel to the fire. The trolls came out and attacked me for teasing a recap (which, truthfully, was a ridiculous thing to do). So it led to the creation of what I think is one of the most absurd examples of fan art in the long run of the show, the Recap Teaser Trailer:
For some backstory on this: we did it in just about 3 hours of effort. I wrote some of the gags at my office on 7th Ave before heading to my apartment to do the video editing. Kevin Cafferty asked his friend Liam to film his daughter eager for a recap. My sister in law sent a clip, Frances Koncan sent her clip. Jordan Morley asked to help and offered the clip in the original goat mask. Matt went to the McKittrick and asked random audience in line to play along. The result is... a real time capsule from a very different era of the fandom.
As we anticipate the “Supercinema” party on Feb 13, it might be fun to look back on some of the miscellaneous parties at the McKittrick over the years. (Not including May Fair & related events - I’ll write something separately about those.)
There are of course tons of events that happen at the McKittrick - this is just the ones that have some relation to the characters/themes of Sleep No More.
Hecate’s Valentine - February 14, 2012
This was the first McKittrick party that I didn’t go to, because I dislike Valentine’s Day. I regret missing it - it looks like it was good!
Luckily, @scorchedthesnake provided a thorough write-up:
“There’s always some additional material tacked on to transition over to the party. This time it was Hecate [Careena Melia], with a large paper boat, directing attention first to Boy Witch [Nick Bruder], up on the mezzanine balcony, lip-syncing My Funny Valentine. The spotlight changed to strobes, and Boy Witch and Bald Witch [Kelly Bartnik] got freaky before the banquet table lights came up and Sexy Witch [Stephanie Eaton] performed a solo there before being joined by the rest of the triumvirate, who then ventured into the audience to unmask, as Hecate tossed the boat at the crowd, splashing everyone with red glitter.”
(Drowned Man fans - you know Stephanie Eaton as Stephanie Nightingale, who played the Diva PA.)
Also per @scorchedthesnake:
“Open spaces were the ballroom, lobby, Manderley, and around midnight, for the first time, the Rep Bar, which was badass (no goat masks, sorry). Hecate and coven held court near her table, doing “1:1s” which in my case consisted of a shot of whiskey with Kelly Bartnik.”
Also, Dita von Teese was doing 1:1s.
Please let me know if you have more details, or video, of this party. :)
Sleep No More Remixed - April 1, 2012
It began with a telegram:
Which led to this:
This was absolutely the best thing that’s ever happened in the hotel. (Well, aside from the Boy Witch party.) It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, not just at the McKittrick, but ever in my life.
This was right at the height of Sleep No More’s popularity - tickets went on sale at 1pm, the website crashed, and they were sold out, within three minutes. I got on a waiting list, paid extra, and got in.
It was only open to guests who’d already visited the hotel. This was my sixth.
The first thing I remember being different was that as I entered the maze, the music was the “Imperial March” from The Empire Strikes Back. Or maybe it was the Superman theme. Or one melded into the other. I can’t remember. Whatever it was, I burst out laughing.
The first loop was normal.
The second and third loops, all the music changed to pop hits of the 70s, 80s, and early 90s. The cast didn’t know what the music would be, so every time a song changed, you could see them trying not to crack up.
The music I either remember myself or have pieced together from others (I can’t vouch for the accuracy 100%):
Witches 1: Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”
Lady Macbeth’s bedroom solo: Whitney Houston’s “He Fills Me Up”
First Macbeth duet: “Time of My Life”
Macduff duet: “Just the Two of Us” and “Man in the Mirror”
Boy Witch cabaret: “Diamonds are Forever” (since the performer has to lip sync, the Porter was holding up cue cards)
Hecate cabaret: “Whole Lotta Love”
Ballroom dance: Whitney Houston “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”
Boy Witch/Porter phone booth duet: “Bump and Grind”
Boy Witch pool table solo: “Cool” from West Side Story
Toto’s “Africa” was playing in the empty Taxidermist’s shop
Macbeth bath: “Take These Broken Wings”
The rave: a fucked up remix of Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name.”
Banquo’s murder: Michael Jackson’s "Smooth Criminal”
Second banquet: Guns ‘N’ Roses “November Rain” (I died laughing)
Final banquet: Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song”
Much of the instrumental music became movie soundtracks - Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, and Jurassic Park in addition to Star Wars and Superman.
It was awesome to experience the show not taking itself so seriously, and hilarious to see Very Serious scenes undercut by ridiculous music. It was fun to anticipate what music would come next, and impossible not to giggle while watching the performers struggling not to crack up.
At the end of second loop, I was watching Sexy Witch’s solo in the rep bar. I remember her going up and down, below the bar, up, down, and then up - and - her face looked different? What??? But everything else was the same, green dress, one strap down. Was I going crazy?
I followed her down to the banquet, and the entire cast had swapped.
It was the best mindfuck.
(It is worth noting that there were complaints online afterward about the audience being pushy and full of 1:1 hunters. I didn’t think it was any worse than any other night full of repeat visitors, ie, every party night.)
After the show ended, we were left in the lobby, which turned into a karaoke party hosted by a drag queen. Anyone, audience or cast, could sign up to sing karaoke. I didn’t know anyone, so I just hung out and watched. I didn’t recognize most of the cast at this time, but I remember Stephanie Eaton singing “Baby Got Back,” and that the night ended with both Boy Witches (Nick Bruder and Conor Doyle) singing “Diamonds are Forever.”
I don’t know why they’ve never done anything like this again. Are they afraid it’ll undercut the mystique? This is what got me coming back to the show itself again beyond just special events. It was so clever and completely hilarious. I loved it.
Independence Day at the McKittrick Hotel - July 4, 2012
The show started early (5pm) so that we’d finish in time for the fireworks. I remember it felt wrong to be in the hotel while the sun was still up!
As we entered, Maximilian (Nick Atkinson) gave a toast “mourning the fall of the British Empire,” which was an extraordinarily clever way for a show ostensibly set in the UK to celebrate US Independence Day!
After Sleep No More ended, the party guests (we were designated with brass rings on white ribbons around our necks) were directed to climb six flights of stairs, up to the roof. Maximilian led the way, and a band stationed on each landing played “Yankee Doodle.”
We emerged into the light, and GALLOW GREEN. It was new; this was the first time I’d ever seen it.
I’m sure everyone reading this knows that Gallow Green is beautiful; it was a spectacular debut, to suddenly enter upon it with no idea that it would be there. And so Gallow Green always has a warm place in my heart, despite the unfortunate douchebro crowd it attracts these days.
This was the one and only time I went to the show with my parents - they came as a birthday gift, and were very, very bemused. (Thank you Zach McNally for giving my dad the Porter 1:1 and weirding him out for life!) At least they enjoyed the all-American buffet food at the party. The view of the fireworks was excellent, and the cocktails flowed so freely that our waitress kept bringing us extra drinks “just in case.”
Here is my parents and me doing one of those photos that newbies always do!
Apparently behind us was @bloodwillhavebloodtheysay and @caoine, though I didn’t know them at the time.
And here’s some photos my mom took of the view and fireworks.
Valentine’s Dance - February 14, 2013
This was a Jazz Age themed dance, featuring Michael Arenella & His Dreamland Orchestra, “the world’s premier Jazz-Age dance orchestra, steeped in the hot-dance band tradition of the 1920s and early 1930s.”
I bought the party-only ticket for this, which was a mistake, as it was (afaik) the only party where they didn’t let the party-only guests in to see the opening performance. They held us outside despite the supposed 10pm entry time, so we missed everything :(
Luckily @thebloodybusiness took video!
It began right after the show ended, in the ballroom. Paul Zivkovich and Leslie Kraus did a gorgeous duet to “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” attached at the lips.
Hecate (Careena Melia) then lip synced to “If I Only Had a Heart” and played cupid to Maximilian (Nick Atkinson) and Violet (Elizabeth Romanski).
Then a group of “McKittrick waiters” got the crowd into a dancing mood.
Here’s also a montage with a bit more footage
Once the party started, they had cast and staff as “cigarette girls,” giving out candy and popcorn. Yum!
They’d also given out dance cards - the idea was to fill your card with dance partners.
Apparently this is “Gregory Moore and the Dreadmland Follies,” performers that come with Michael Arenella & His Dreamland Orchestra:
And I have no idea what the rest of this is, but it’s in the McKittrick Gallery. Fill in details if you know!
Independence Day at Gallow Green - July 4, 2013
I wouldn’t count this as a real McKittrick party. I didn’t go, but I didn’t hear about any special performances or anything. I’m just including it as an excuse to complain about the poster art. Wtfffffffffff. So tacky.
I’m going to leave out subsequent Independence and Valentine’s Days; there was nothing particularly interesting or “Punchdrunk” about them.
But…. one final event that’s worthy of note:
The McKittrick Salon: Dinner & A Conversation with Punchdrunk’s Felix Barrett & Maxine Doyle - February 10, 2015
Not exactly a party, but I’m including it here because it was great and I hope they’ll do it again someday.
Conor Doyle interviewed Sleep No More creators Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle, before turning it over to the crowd for a Q&A.
The surprise part was that the guests actually sat with the audience at dinner prior to the Q&A. I ended up at a big table with two empty seats, and was bewildered when Felix Barrett was seated almost across from me, and Julian Abrams (the photographer of the Drowned Man book) was seated next to me. Apparently at another table, Maxine and Conor were also seated among guests.
The dinner lasted quite a while, and the wine was flowing incredibly freely, so I’m pretty sure everyone was wasted by the time the Q&A started. I spent most of my time chatting with Julian, but occasionally listened as Felix explained fascinating things like his original planned ending for The Drowned Man - which I could only hear about 1/3 of because the band behind us was so loud. Gaaaaah.
I was also drunk enough to try to explain to Felix why I think Drowned Man was better than Sleep No More. I said that Sleep No More feels alienating in comparison, and mentioned as an example that several characters end the show by closing a door in the audience’s face, leaving the audience to wander aimlessly until a black mask comes by and tells them to leave. To my immense surprise, Felix asked which characters, wrote it down on his iPhone - and then those character endings actually did change within a few weeks. (!?)
Fingers crossed that they’ll do something like this again someday.
Photos are from the McKittrick Gallery or are video screenshots (except the ones by Laura’s mom - and I’m not sure who took first the Salon one, let me know if you know! The second is by Emma Story). Embedded videos by Jim Stark.
Ok, here we go. I finished this morning and am reeling. I can’t concentrate on anything other than this book. Where do we go from here? That ending. God. Insanity.
Azriel travels with Bryce back to Midgard. His mate is in Midgard, which is why he hasn’t yet found his mate.
Also that’s why mates are so rare. They can be from different worlds
Amren can definitely fill Bryce in on a lot of history. Initially I thought Amren was Asteri, but maybe not. I don’t know
Rhys is going to figure out how to mindspeak across worlds to Ruhn. Maybe using the horn?
What if Bryce is pregnant? I am super not a fan of this, but Sarah J Maas is usually really careful about talking about getting pregnant and stuff, but Bryce & Hunt we’re just having a lot of crazy sex and protection wasn’t mentioned. Maybe I missed this in Crescent City. Lmk if I’m wrong in the comments.
I feel like there is more going on with the “River queen’s daughter”. Why did we never get her name? That usually is important.
Anyway, I am still reeling. Please people of tumblr, help me figure this out. Aaaaaaaa
I just finished House of Sky and Breath and my world is collapsing. What a ride. I can’t and can believe Sarah is doing this to us. Anyway what does this mean for the future? Is this why we have heard so little about the next ACOTAR book? Is the next ACOTAR book and the next Crescent City one and the same? I AM DYING HERE. DYING.
Ruhn and his family have so many of the NIght Court powers.
Cormac and Bryce can winnow.
Ruhn can communicate mentally with Day. “He’d learned that he could talk to people on a sort of psychic bridge, as if his mind had formed it brick by brick between souls.”
Ruhn and Bryce can communicate with Mind Speak.
Ruhn mentions that his cousins could, “invade people’s unguarded minds”
Not to mention that Bryce almost mistakes Rhys for Ruhn. The Dusk Court definitely had some sort of heir from the Night Court, and that ancestry and powers have filtered down through the generations.
A Timeline of the Historical Events in Crescent City and A Court of Thorns and Roses
**major hosab spoilers**
Because I was hopelessly confused as to when all the events occurred, I put together a timeline of all the lore that happened in Crescent City and in A Court of Thorns and Roses.
So to break my heart even more, something I just realised while rereading ToG… SJM has written the same last line in the first book and the last book.
These scenes show how far Aelin has come since the first book and how much she has changed; her story has been amazing.. this was just the perfect ending to my favourite book series ❤️❤️
I almost feel bad for the Chaorene baby. Can you imagine how hard it’s going to be for that kid to talk their way out of ANYTHING???
Chaorene Kid: But daaad, I can’t do my chores right now. My feet hurt :(
Chaol: Oh? Your feet hurt? Your mother healed an army and disintegrated an evil GOD while pregnant with you. You think her feet hurt? Yes. Did she do it anyways?
