#punchdrunk

[amber-jinx]

Best night for sister stans in 4 years...

2.8.25

[my-burnt-city]

sometimes it's been two and a half years since your show closed, but you've finally got around to getting the perfect commemorative tattoo

[localcuttlefish]

Post-canon Lord Macduff, anyone?

Walk with me, let me mindspike you. Parallel between Lady Macbeth frantically trying to wash the blood off her hands, and post-canon Lord Macduff desperately trying to scrub the blood off the sheets and floor until his own hands start to bleed.

Anyways. The murder scene in the mirror in the Macduffs’ residence in Sleep No More, am I right?

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

[te-pu-si-ti]

[galacticemberidol]

punch drunk love

[drinkthehalo]

Goodbye to the McKittrick Hotel

April 16, 2011. My friend Tammy had told me she'd seen an incredible production of Macbeth that she was certain I would love. I walked into the McKittrick Hotel that Saturday night with no idea that I was entering a place that would change my life forever.

What an extraordinary, fruitful place of creative energy it was. How wild, almost unbelievable, that such a place survived in New York City for nearly fourteen years. 

My first impression: You have to walk around and climb stairs and wear a mask? How can you do Shakespeare without dialog? Until I realized the dialog was in the dance, and the rave shocked my jaded sensibilities, and I was in a tiny room with a beautiful sobbing naked man, and then I went home and dreamed about it and knew I had to go back.

Then the parties. Halloween 2011 was the best event party I had ever been to - welcoming, engaging, fun. For fourteen years the McKittrick became my Halloweens, my New Years Eves, my May Fairs (I didn't even know that was a thing), that wonderful exhausting year of 2016 when they did Supercinema almost every month. The parties became more elaborate, the costumes, the set designs, the stories, the interactions, the performances. The Paisley Players, the epic ballroom extravaganzas, the tableaus in the walled garden...

Remixed (the first) remains the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. November Rain at the banquet. The Imperial March in the maze. Diamonds are Forever, forever...

The Boy Witch party made me cry and cry. Two nights only and it was probably the best thing I've ever seen. The carousel on the ballroom stage, the fire, the lady in pink tights, the lost love. Every time I hear that version of Crazy in Love, I feel that emotion again.

At the Clue party, Maximilian led us through the floors, and we watched Neil Patrick Harris chop off his own head in the Macbeth bedroom.

Fourth of July 2012, after the show, a marching band played as we climbed six floors to the roof to reveal a beautiful secret garden where we watched the fireworks. Gallow Green was magical in the early days, with Paul Corning's gardener watering plants and occasionally leading people away, and Annabella planting herbs and making potions with us.

One day after the show, Lulu put a stamp on my hand and told me to go to the elevator. I took it up and a character led me into the Heath for the first time. We'd go there for drinks or dinner, watch Elizabeth Lindsey glide through the space like watching a portal into a film noir, follow instructions on secret notes and hope to win the lottery. (Once I did; Ginger took me, blindfolded, to High Street, and I still have the memories of discombobulated absurdity - and a spoon with my name engraved on it.)

Then they put a cozy little Scottish lodge on the roof, with bunk beds and blankets and heaters, and a forest out back with a canoe? in a tent. We'd huddle around the fire pit, or sprawl on the bed. All the books were pre-1939. At some point there was a room full of board games. My friend Matty would sit at the desk writing his dissertation and people thought he was a character.

I watched Rosemary's Baby on the rooftop, curated by Amy Poehler, and Vertigo in the ballroom, shivering in the air conditioner.

Calloway started doing these "salons" in the Manderley after the show, with songs and narratives and recurring characters and Hans dying every time. Then one day the email said something about "McKittrick Follies," and I showed up and characters were singing and telling stories and everyone was drinking and talking into the night.  

I can't believe we were so spoiled by that boundless creative energy for so long. For months? years? we had a weekly Follies, then... biweekly? Sunday afternoons we'd sit on the beds in the Lodge drinking mulled wine before going down to the Follies; then Wednesdays I'd work late and walk into the Manderley at 10pm, or go home and walk up the High Line to come back, listening to the show crowd's excited chatter as they exited, entering to music and humor and drinks that flowed and flowed and flowed. So much extraordinary talent, all concentrated in this one place and sparkling off of each other, creating and creating and creating.

Ginger was so funny. Lily's voice was beautiful. Mallory was the bawdiest thing. Nick's Maximilian was a true original. Conor and Austin were so awkward and snarky. JWW has the most dear, sweet, unique style. I can't list everyone; I can't believe we were blessed with so much. 

There were so many incredible singers and musicians over the years. Kat Cunning. Lisa McQuade. Julia Haltigan. Stephanie Amoroso. Onalea Gilbertson. Every iteration of the Manderley band was full of wildly talented musicians. I was lucky enough to see Cibo Matto in the Heath, and Leslie Odom Jr in the Manderley. The place was absolutely punching above its weight in terms of talent.

I learned to drink in the Manderley bar. When I first went, the only drink I knew how to order was a Sex on the Beach. I had my first gin gimlet at the Manderley Bar. The Professor, Brandon Tyler Harris, asked me what gin I liked, and I didn't know, so I tried them all and discovered that it's Hendricks. Then I switched to smoky mezcal margaritas, and drank them for years, occasionally starting trends. Later it was scotch sours, smoky Laphroaig, heaven in a glass. At the Heath they'd had my all time favorite drink, long gone; something with Scotch, orgeat, and a cabernet float... I'm at the age now where I've largely had to stop drinking; the era of alcohol in my life will always be tied up in the McKittrick.

If it weren't for Sleep No More, I wouldn't have gone to London and made many of my dearest friends; would never have experienced Shanghai the way I did, with local friends to guide me.

Lily Ockwell brought me on the Manderley stage on my birthday. The lights were very bright. Could she have imagined how utterly terrified I was? In a good way.

At my 100th show, Kit/Ginger bought me a drink as soon as I walked in.

Gus from front of house overheard me talking about an upcoming trip to Shanghai and invited himself along. We had so much fun, we took a trip to Costa Rica the next year.

After my cat Lucifer died, London gave me the biggest hug as soon as he saw me.

At Austin Goodwin's Juilliard graduation performance, the whole evening was so beautiful. All these extraordinary young people who'd worked so hard, accomplished so much, brimming with possibility for their futures. I wanted so much to be one of the families, full of pride and love for someone I'd helped nurture. When I wrote a tumblr post wrestling with the decision to have a child, Austin sent me a message telling me he thought I'd make a good mother. It is one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me, and helped me make one of the hardest decisions I've ever made.

Once on new years eve, Anabella gave me a Tarot card - Ten of Pentacles. I knew when I got that card that it was about my desire to have my own family, a child of my own. I put it on my fridge as inspiration and it's still there next to pictures of my kid.

I met my best friend on High Street, looking in the window of the tailor shop, watching Paul Zivkovich as a clown. This is the friend who is now in my will to take care of my child if I die.

I say I'm not creative, but the McKittrick brought out the creativity I do have. So many words in this blog. Several interviews for academic papers or articles. A box full of costumes in my closet: Andrea Alden in the Infidelity Ballet scene; Medusa out of a bunch of plastic snakes I painted and attached to a headdress; Vampire Willow; a Baz Luhrman Capulet; Mrs White. I see photos and find myself wearing costumes I don't even remember.

In early 2020, I hadn't been going to Sleep No More for a while, but when covid got scary, suddenly that's where I had to be. I was there until the day I showed up and the doors were closed.

I genuinely wonder, will I ever be as good at anything in my adult life as I was at following the Macbeth loop? I knew just where to stand, to view a perfect wide shot, to see a close up at a respectful distance. I loved to follow Macbeth down the corridor into the rave, a shadow halo'd in red, arms out against the tin walls. And to follow him out, running full speed, enraged and out of control as the music swelled and he went into the speakeasy to kill Banquo; there was no room for anything but adrenaline and utter absorption in the moment. To follow the Macbeths down the stairs as they screamed and shoved and kissed chocolate blood all over each others' faces. To stand still in the bedroom as they danced and fought around the room, the audience swarming around them, everything moving around me from close up to wide shot to close up. 

Will anything bring as much peace as a Porter loop? I could always go there when I was sad. The hotel lobby was my favorite space. So dark it was almost black; figures emerging through the shroud of darkness. The tiny office, the papers and pencils. The sweet silliness of that character, the eternal hope. The overwhelming sadness. To be the one not chosen. Trapped, unable to change anyone's fate, watching and witnessing.

I used to think, there's a lot of downtime in this loop between the big moments like the cabaret, but in the end I realized, there is no downtime. Every moment is beautiful. I'd go there just to see the ominous deer loom over him as he reset the dining room, or to see those white sheets moving through the darkness like abstract art.

Zach McNally's Porter was my first 1:1, in 2012. I remember watching the tears down his face during the cabaret and thinking, wait, this character is as important as the Boy Witch. On Saturday, I watched him fade away into the shadows for the last time.

At the very last show, Andrew Robinson's Porter cried along with the audience as we watched him trace his hand. At the end, he cut his toast into a tiny heart and gave it to Danvers. She burst into tears, cut it in half, and they ate it together.

Boy Witch ended for me when my favorites left; it was all memories, echoes of the past. I'll never forget Conor, who always saw me, no matter how far away I stood, and always created some little moment to make my night special. 

(I used to rarely watch the shower scene, and once he ran up to me in the bar and told me, you paid for your ticket, you can watch what you want to watch.)

Oddly, at my second-to-last show, I followed Macduff. Never a favorite, but the choreography is so good. Steven Bangerter looks and moves so much like Rob McNeill, and his sweetness balances out the character. How extraordinary to see the echoes of Rob, who was in the 2003 London production, so clearly and vividly, 21 years and who knows how many performers later. (I did not see the original production, but there are photos, and the first time I saw Rob in the Drowned Man I thought, wow, he moves like Macduff.)

I was noticing new things up until the end. Macbeth, upside down in the ballroom at the reset; the hanged man Tarot card. Macduff, lifting Sexy Witch in the ballroom and spinning her around, like Rob McNeill once did to me as we danced to the finale stage at the end of a Drowned Man.

After the second Remixed, I worked up the nerve to speak to Stephen Dobbie, asked him about the song choices, raved about how great they were. I'd forgotten that the November Rain video actually has a banquet scene in it.

One time I sat across from Felix Barrett at dinner and accidentally changed the ending of the show. I complained that the matron just closes the door to the pagoda and black masks hurry you away; he made a note on his phone and within days it was better.

Once, I had a long conversation with Maxine in the Manderley. (And a few brief ones in London.) Sunday night when I said goodbye, she gave me a hug and said, you've been here all these years.

I don't know why it matters that I met these people. I'm not trying to break into the arts. Maybe I just have so much admiration for the people who've succeeded, in a world that makes it so difficult. Actually if I could have been anyone in the building, it would have been Carrie Boyd; color-coded spreadsheets are my jam. What an unsung superstar. Her salon was the best.

Once after a roundtable, I found a note in my bag from Ilana. "Thank you for your heart and mind." I'd say the same to her.

I don't even know what else to write. Fourteen years of memories. After I post this, I'll think, oh I should have mentioned that other thing too. How can you sum up something that meant so much?

The McKittrick was at the center of my experience of New York City; of my mid-adulthood. I will mourn it at the same time as I marvel that it ever happened, that I found it as early as I did, and that it could possibly have lasted so long.

[oddlyevilomens]

wear the clothes that make you feel bulletproof. lay your war plans out in front of you.

[scorchedthesnake]

All There Is.

On March 7, 2011, I arrived fairly reluctantly to a dilapidated block of 27th Street and queued up for some show my friend John O’Malley was working on. All I knew was that I was going to “chase sexy dancers around a warehouse” or something like that, and it all sounded ridiculous. I couldn’t have known then that my life was about to be changed: that I was going to find the synthesis of many of my niche intellectual interests; that I’d fall in love and have my heart broken, repeatedly; that I’d gain an appreciation for an entire new wing of the arts; that I’d make friends who would reshape my heart and my life; that I’d launch into a social media venture that would secure me a major career change. What if I had known any of this would happen?

It’s incredible to me that nearly fourteen years have passed since that day. Fourteen years is longer than any romantic relationship I’ve had, longer than any job, longer than any program in a university. Longer than my time in a cult. Other than swimming, which I’ve done for 35 years, it’s the longest commitment I’ve ever had to enthusiasm for anything. And it strikes me as especially incredible because at the outset, it was likely to be a very, very temporary thing. A six-week limited engagement, to test the waters and hopefully succeed enough to fill out the first lease, so there were long-term ambitions, but by no means was radical success guaranteed. But as the Boston run had prefigured, the show indeed hit at just the right time, and just the right place, and became electric. 

Why It Worked

As we come to the end, I want to think for a bit about precisely why that happened. Over the past year, there’s been some space to debate the reasons for Sleep No More’s success versus the alleged failures, or at least disappointments, of The Burnt City; and what this might mean for the possibility of Life and Trust repeating the achievements of its predecessor. The opening of Life and Trust has also opened some debate over which entities can most appropriately lay claim to the credit: the creative partner, Punchdrunk, or the producing partner, Emursive. It’s clear that you don’t get a nearly 14 year smash hit without an extremely productive relationship, even if it is, and always has been, replete with tension and conflicts. That creative tension is probably one of the very ingredients of success, as the artistic vision must be brought into balance with a sustainably profitable operating plan.  

But to think that elements like “great choreography” or “murky narrative” or “efficient management” are really behind what made Sleep No More a phenomenon is to both drastically miss the point and bark up the wrong trees. The conditions for Sleep No More’s success, in my view, are the combination of two main elements: first, the concept of the intellectual property itself; and second, the timing of the show’s opening into a specific cultural and media environment.

When The Burnt City opened, early audiences felt like something was missing. In my review I wrote that

“desire is not a currency here. At SNM and TDM, there is a sultry suggestiveness amongst the characters and between them and the audience. At The Burnt City, everyone is too busy being dead, being robots, being dead robots or sacrificing their children to uncaring gods to have much space for suggestive glances and come-hither looks.”

It remains clear as day that the allure of Sleep No More, and its lasting value as entertainment, stems from, frankly, its sexiness. The show was unrepentantly horny from minute one – and, it has to be said: not because of its nudity. The nudity, in fact, is found in some of the least erotic sequences in the show. The atmosphere, however, is sexually charged and ready to pop: that it never really does, that the “orgy” is more violent than sexual, that the sex is mostly suggested, or suspected, is the actual magic here. 

Naturally, this has led to some real difficulties over the long run. On the one hand, audiences, well removed from just immersive enthusiasts and Shakespeare nerds, took heed of the motto “fortune favors the bold” and did some reprehensible things; management was slow to support and better protect performers from the worst of these offenses. Further, the culture of sexual expression in 2011, libertine and aggressive coming out of the preceding recession, gave way, in concert with generational change, to newer, more conservative attitudes. At launch, Sleep No More was a millennial playpen; it now lives in a Gen Z world, alongside films devoid of sex, opposition to sexual content as some sort of impediment to plot, and the anodyne world of the reiterative superhero industrial complex. 

But sexual suggestiveness is what made the whole place sizzle, whether we like to confess that or not. Sure, the worldbuilding is engrossing, the dancing frenetic, the soundscape exquisite – but this whole time, people have been going for vibes. And the vibes, especially in those crazy first few years, were laced with the possibility that sexual adventure could be right around the corner – even when, the whole time, it really wasn’t. As a byproduct of the tension between the art and the entertainment of it, it’s extremely flattering for us as fans to act like we are unmoved by our erotic imaginaries and only compelled by our allegedly higher aesthetic and critical impulses. The broad success of the show – its ability to cater to people other than us nerds – and the party culture that has accompanied it, show this to be an error. 

It’s why The Burnt City just wouldn’t last – a beautiful and meaningful show for sure, but not very fun. Not sexy. Life and Trust suffers from this a bit less, but has another problem that Sleep No More never had to contend with: it’s not cool. And this is the thing that really made it possible for Sleep No More to run and run and run: it was, and is, extremely cool.

How SNM got to be cool is the big question – it was certainly by design, but relied massively on timing, luck, and the right media mix in the launch period. First, it had novelty on its side. Very few people had ever seen anything like this (sorry Boston, you’re not people! But at least in this case, for once, you were definitely tastemakers). Second, the show relied at launch on word-of-mouth and celebrity interest, using principles that we now understand as influencer marketing. Remember, at the time: Instagram was only a few months old and not yet ubiquitous. The show cultivated a reputation as dark, sexy and mysterious, and the mask meant the famous could go along for the ride. In those early days I remember: Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Paris Hilton, Matt Damon (standing in line like a normie), Elijah Wood. Lauren Ambrose walking up and inquiring about entry. It was only a matter of time until there was critical mass of celebrity exposures for it to hit headlines, and sure enough: Neil Patrick Harris’ long excited rant on Regis and Kelly marked the show’s true arrival. Smartly, there weren’t even ads. There was barely a presence on the major social media platform of the time (Facebook). This wasn’t a show for plain people, it was a show for people in the know about what was cool and unique in New York – and that mythology of scarcity and exclusivity worked wonders.

By comparison, on the day ticket sales launched for Life and Trust, there were a couple hundred immersive theater geeks lined up at Conwell Coffee House to buy them. That’s not a fault of that show – the media environment is completely different now; the Coffee House was smartly pre-launched and pitched to influencers to build interest and intrigue, but: without the novelty factor, this has all had a dull impact. Is it cool to anyone to know what “another mask show from the producers of Sleep No More” is, in the year 2025? Hardly. Whereas SNM had its wheels greased, Life and Trust has an uphill battle for cultural relevance and mindshare. At least The Burnt City had a long-cultivated community of Punchdrunk die hards in place for it, and as the creative side, a certain amount of house loyalty that Emursive now has to earn on their own.

This Fandom

The relationship of Sleep No More to its fan community, is, obviously, a topic I care a great deal about. I have never been part of a fandom before. I did not intend to create a fan community of any kind when I launched this blog, and fortunately we had other early Tumblrs that took on that role. The great beauty of the early years on Tumblr was that the platform allowed each enthusiast to create whatever kind of appreciation worked best for them. In my case, the joy in that came from curation and collection. Others showcased beautiful fan art, others wrote vivid recaps, others answered questions and cultivated community. And, importantly, Tumblr allowed everyone to do so at whatever periodicity worked best for them.

I can’t take credit for the idea of being a Sleep No More fan on Tumblr. That is owed to whoever it was that created fuckyeahsleepnomore (remember when the archetypical Tumblr was named in that format, fuckyeahwhatever? Fuckyeahpaulzivkovich, fuckyeahwillseefried, fuckyeahnatecartershair, we could have driven it into the dirt if we wanted). Some of the things I did on this blog became paradigmatic conventions of being a fan on Tumblr: pick a name with some textual significance to the show; write some stuff; repost from the tags and try to find other enthusiasts. I think the other thing that happened, significantly for the emergence of our fandom, was that my proximity to the show strengthened the notion that being an online friend to the show could gain you access to the people involved.

I came into my close relationship with the production through a mixture of early arrival, connections, a certain amount of goodwill from the blog, and, it has to be said, some gay men’s privilege. Jenny Weinbloom spotted me early as a frequent visitor. John O’Malley facilitated some introductions. My pre-Scorched essay “A Sword Between Banquo and Me” made the rounds over email. After my fourth show, I became really comfortable talking to performers, particularly after the Saturday late show when everyone gathered in Manderley until 4am. When the first round of new cast arrived, it included two people I had previous connections with: I had met William Popp at a swim practice, and my best friend had worked with Tony Bordonaro on a soap opera. We were all young gay New Yorkers and our lives already intersected substantially. So it didn’t seem so weird that we were at parties together outside of the show, occasionally hanging out, and having very casual, friendly relations.

In those early days, there were basically no boundaries, and the kind of access early fans had to the show and the performers would really stun fans who’ve come in since, say, 2016 or so. It was magical, and problematic. No one really knew how to navigate being at the epicenter of a cultural phenomenon, and the early fans were along for the ride. As dancers, the cast weren’t particularly attuned (and neither was I) to the vicissitudes of Broadway stagedoor fan culture, and to the extent that crept in slowly, began to make plain how unsustainable that chummy closeness was; more recently, conventions of East Asian fan behaviors, gifting in particular, has also come over. All of this feels alien to me, but I think the lesson there is that 2011-2013 was just an extremely abnormal time, a kind of whiplash from the sudden fame of the show (which did not, directly and personally, extend to its cast, whom the show kept extremely shrouded).

Sleep No More learned how to program for loyalty very, very late in the game. The Salons, which I’ve been to, and the roundtables, which I have not, have been really wonderful gestures toward community engagement that would have been unthinkable in the early years, and Ilana Gilovich deserves tremendous credit for championing and moderating these events. In my own personal case, I’ve had small but meaningful gestures over the years: the invitation to the MIT Media Lab experiment, some helpful assistance from the Box Office (though not here at the end!); a warm welcome back at the end of my long unemployment. But the chief benefit of being a fanboy was never anything that came from the production, it was that I made friends of performers and staff, and that gave me a currency in the early and middle years that I greatly enjoyed. It’s almost fully spent now.

Tumblr’s deletion of pornography largely killed the platform, and the latter generation of Tumblr fans gradually moved into the Second Age of their fandom like I had when this blog first concluded in 2014. Over the past year of repeated extensions, permit issues, and complicated preemptive mourning, I’ve dipped my toe into the new homestead of Sleep No More fandom, which is now on Discord. Whereas Tumblr was petty and cruel, the Discord tends to be prudish and overprotective; but these differences are generational as opposed to platform-oriented, and are the product of a fandom reacting to a different kind of relationship with the admired object than what we had in the early years. The Discord is also deliberately and explicitly communitarian, which is something else extremely alien to me, and very much the opposite of the egotism of the Tumblr era, but has been a great comfort for its participants through a year of confusion and uncertainty. For my part, I have found peace and joy in seeing the fandom grow well beyond me and develop mores that I just don’t understand. That means progress has come along.

My chief regret over all the years is the tendency of fans to be excessively deferential to the show. Far too eager to not offend, far too unwilling to criticize. It’s okay to say something isn’t good, or that you don’t like a performance. It may shock people to know this, but in my one conversation with Maxine Doyle, she herself commented that the show had not been good that night. It happens, and it’s useless to shine the apple of pretending otherwise. Nor do we get points for white-knighting for Emursive’s miserable management, or trying to rationalize terrible creative decisions like axing all the Manderley characters. Our fondness for something is well-reflected in our ability to articulate flaws, errors and poor choices, and I wish we had all been better about this all along. 

What it all meant for me

The Discord’s moderation has suggested that it will be deleted some time after the show closes; and so Tumblr’s longevity in the post-porn era is truly its most astonishing feature. This means that, barring another upheaval or change of ownership, this blog will endure on the internet as a relic of what Sleep No More was. If you go back to the beginning and read it forward, you will get the fragmentary tale of one very naive, overenthusiastic ex-academic moving to New York City and living out his own little Bildungsroman inside an immersive theater production. I am really pleased that so many of you came along for the ride, and that these confessions of my younger self – embarrassing as they often now are when I look back at them – can do a good job of telling someone why Sleep No More meant so much to so many people.

Over the past year, I’ve tried to add more detail to my personal experience of the show, and be a little more upfront about what was going on than I could be at the time. For as much as I wish I could claim to be an extremely intellectually even observer of the show and the culture around it, I feel it’s more fair to reveal that in fact, the main driver behind much of my love for this show was that I met a boy, he broke my heart, and I stuck around to let it really scorch me. None of this diminishes what the show meant; is it not the very essence of the show itself? “And then one day, he went away. And I thought I’d die. But I didn’t. And when I didn’t, I said to myself, is that all there is to love?”

Somewhere, back in the day, in an interview I know I listened to but could not possibly source, Felix Barrett said something along the lines of: every visitor to the show should fall in love at least once while inside. And I think he’s absolutely right, and I think every single fan of the show, in their heart, has done so. Hopefully not with the contours of my own experience exactly, but it’s the essence of it. I know I am compelled by powerful scoring, dramatic lighting, dynamic movement, and intelligent intertextuality. But I fall in love with a kind and gentle heart, and a generous spirit that is on a journey and eager to share it. And I encountered quite a few of these over our many years together in the hotel.

I’m also acutely aware that this blog itself played a major role in giving me the life I have today. The job I landed in 2014 was a corporate social media role – one that I landed in part by talking about the work I had done on this blog. I also talked in the interviews about my enthusiasm for the show, and how it had given me a sense of meaning, belonging, and purpose to my intellection. I talked about the struggle my year of unemployment had been with unvarnished honesty, and my manager later told me that was what had clinched it. I learned the kind of storytelling I did in that search here, on Tumblr, talking about this show.

For nearly fourteen years, thinking and writing about this show, and this mode of performance, has been the most satisfying intellectual enterprise I have ever engaged in – far better than all that grad school. I could not have known at the outset that this is where all my critical faculties would be fully engaged, or that several of my obscure interests, my fondness for Arthur Schnitzler or for Thomas Mann, would be extremely relevant. Now, as we begin to look forward, I know that this activity does not end here with the closing of the show. I hope to continue, both in remembrance of what we all experienced, and in anticipation of successor productions in this format, to think and write about this kind of immersive theater. The difference will be that the mask will be off, and I will be writing as Evan, not as Scorched the Snake. 

Saying goodbye to fourteen years of Sleep No More means saying goodbye to several full chapters of my life, and to all of my life in New York City thus far. It is saying goodbye to earlier versions of myself, to someone who was afraid to have to push his way through a crowd, afraid to talk to strangers in bars, afraid to gaze deeply into someone’s eyes, afraid to express desire. To someone not yet open to all the range of creativity that this show and its people have introduced me to. To someone who did not yet know all the brilliant and loving souls who made it all possible. But I am happy to say goodbye to those versions of me; the one I am now is so much richer, so much wiser, so much more connected to a beautiful world than I had ever been before. 

We have had such a wonderful time. The show’s closure is about to tear a giant hole in my life, my habits, and frankly, my personality. I cannot wait to figure out what I will do to fill that void, what insanely enriching and engrossing thing I will feel pulled to next. If there is one paramount lesson of this whole experience, it is that my enthusiasm for something will take me on great voyages when I trust it. We all now just have to trust it.

In just a few days, we will gather for three nights of celebration of this world we’ve made and shared together. In the early hours of Sunday, January 12, we will each exit the McKittrick Hotel for the last time, stepping out into the cold of night, but not into darkness. The streets of town, paved with stars, will glisten and glow before us as we walk away toward our next adventures, forever changed, and permanently enchanted by our friends, our loves and our losses.

“How strange it was, how sweet and strange, there was never a dream to compare.”