The No Proscenium Podcast

Welcome to PART TWO of No Proscenium’s Episode 500 Celebrating TEN Years of the NoPro Podcast with the first of three REVIEW CREW MIX TAPES… this first one features SF Curator Brian Resler — whose couch is integral to the origin story of an entirely different website that covers immersive things… our associate producer Parker Sela, who also hails from San Francisco, but who like many a Bay Area kid answered the siren call of LA, our Toronto curator Katrina Lat, who I think may be on a plane to Venice right now, or soon, and Scott Gillies, long time friend of the show who did some special assignment work for us this year in Japan.And then you get some BONUS POD with friend of the show David Spira of Room Escape Artist and Reality Escape Pod with a VERY NoPro After Dark style segment that, honestly, I thought we’d be saving for like HOUR six or seven of the show, but there’s A LOT of moments like this and… well it all makes sense why these go together.SHOW NOTESThe Last Chevy's On EarthRainforest Cafe River Adventure RideBoston Slide CopBoston Slide Cop: Sixteenth Minute of FameDr. Botcher's Medical School (aka the thing with the puppet at Two Bit Circus Noah couldn't remember the name of)Alien War DocumentaryVanished ARG write-up at ARGNRoom Escape ArtistReality Escape PodA Visit to the 2025 Osaka World Expo Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the past ten years NoPro has been your guide to Everything Immersive… and this is the first part of the multi-part celebration - slash - victory lap that is EPISODE 500.Over the course of this weekend, for about TWELVE HOURS, give or take, okay maybe closer to THIRTEEN HOURS we will be checking in with over two dozen of our favorite people to chat about this thing of ours — this immersive, experiential, spatial thing of ours …It’s a series of conversations that is nostalgic, silly, sometimes profound, often rambling, that covers theatre, technology, theme parks, games, defunct restaurant chains, roadside attractions, margaritas, and puppets.These are, in fact, the friends we made along the way and more than a few of the friends we dragged along with us for the ride over the course of the TEN YEARS of making this show.And at the end… well, I guess we’ll both just have to stick around because even I don’t even know yet.For this first part — entitled a A Quick Jaunt Through The Immersive Cosmos — we take a stream of consciousness trip through experiential hyperspace with 5 interviews.Actors Siobhán O'Loughlin & Dasha Kittredge, Tender Claws co-founder Samantha Gorman, Producer Scarlett Kim, and director Rory Mitchell.Show NotesSiobhán O'LoughlinDasha KittredgeTender ClawsScarlett KimThe Mercantile Agency (Rory Mitchell) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week writer and director Eliza McNitt joins us to talk about Venice Immersive, the annual XR extravaganza inside the Venice International Film Festival, where at this year’s event she is the President of Venice Immersive's International Jury, which will judge the 30 pieces in competition.SHOW NOTESVenice ImmersiveVenice Immersive 2025: XR Experiences To Stoke Your FOMO (A NoPro Guide)Ancestra (YouTube) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we’re joined by Gillian Leitten, CEO of The Lumen Prize because today is that day that the 99 finalists for the Prize are announced (check the Show Notes) and Leitten is here to talk with us about the prize which celebrates artists forging new systems of meaning through technology’s evolving creative frontier.We give a special focus on the Hybrid and Experiential categories, the later of which is the evolution of last year's Interactive/Immersive category and for the second year in a row features the most finalists of any category, 16 in total.SHOW NOTESThe Lumen PrizeThe 2025 Lumen Prize Finalists Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on the show Franki Chan, founder and chief creative officer of IHEARTCOMIX, the award-winning creative marketing agency who joined us last weekend at The Next Stage Immersive Summit along with the team from #METAFORYOU of Terence Leclere, Dasha Kittredge, and Annie McGrath, to talk about the 2-night overnight horror horror experience at the legendary Stanley Hotel dubbed The Overnightmare is with us today to share the backstory of IHEARTCOMIX — from parties at LA’s Beauty Bar in the Aughts to becoming a record label to just last week where they took over Hurricane Harbor for Bob Odenkirk’s Nobody 2 wherein Bob… well I’ll let Franki tell that one.We get Franki's view on our world from his vantage point coming from the marketing world as we make our way towards the big episode 500.SHOW NOTESIHEARTCOMIXFranki ChanThe OvernightmareWe Smashed Around While Waiting for ‘Twisted Metal’ Season 2 (Gizmodo)#METAFORYOUThe Next Stage Immersive SummitEscape rooms to theme parks: immersive entertainment is booming | The Excerpt (USA Today Video Podcast w/Noah) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Zach Morris of Third Rail Projects and Charlie Miller of The Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ Off-Center join host Noah Nelson to talk about the upcoming Sweet & Lucky: Echo — a companion story of the 2016 hit Sweet & Lucky –– which helped put Denver’s immersive scene on the map.SHOW NOTESSweet & Lucky: EchoThird Rail ProjectsThe Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ Off-CenterThe Next Stage Immersive Summit Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Parker Sela takes over the show to talk about Pompeii, no not the ancient Roman city that was destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD, but the Fosse-tacular immersive by Detour Productions that is coming to San Francisco at the end of this month.Billed as “part Fosse fantasy, part queer cabaret, part end-of-the-world dance party,”  Parker checks in with returning guest, Detour co-founder and Pompeii director Eric Garcia along with performer Mudd The Two Spirt who plays the M.C. in Pompeii. And if you haven’t clocked it by now, yes, this show is a mash-up of movies from what Detour calls the “Fosse cinematic universe.”SHOW NOTESPompeiiThe Next Stage Immersive Summit Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This summer a spectacle has bloomed at Meow Wolf’s Convergence Station in Denver and Omega Mart in Las Vegas, bringing a new interactive performance layer that unfolds on a continuous loop and new characters from uncharted corners of the multiverse in the form of dancers, puppets, and shimmering creatures called Flickerwermz.It’s called Phenomenomaly and it’s running now through August 9th, and the event is inspired by the world — our world — of immersive theatre and dance. Joining us this week to talk about the event are Alexandra Renzo Contracted Creative Director of Phenomenomaly & Brie Lipari General Manger of Meow Wolf Denver.SHOW NOTESMeow Wolf's PhenomenomalyMeow Wolf DenverMeow Wolf Las VegasMeow Wolf & Niantic Spatial The Next Stage Immersive Summit Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on the show it’s a hangout show as members of the NoPro Review Crew — namely Toronto curator Katrina Lat, New York correspondent Nicholas Fortugno, our associate producer Parker Sela, and catching up part way through NYC curator Allie Marotta as we chat about a whole lot of things including the brisk sales on Masquerade — that’s the immersive Phantom of the Opera that goes into previews next month, Tribeca Immersive, Voidspace Live, and whatever else tickles our fancy.SHOW NOTESMasqueradeTribeca ImmersiveVoidspace LiveToronto FringeFairyland Summer Solstice Ceremony at the ApothecaryThe Next Stage Immersive Summit Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on the show we’re joined by long time friend of the show Brent Bushnell — co-founder of Two Bit Circus, scion of the famed Bushnell family, and one of the earliest subscribers to the No Proscenium newsletter — who is here to talk about a new venture he is a co-founder of along with Aidan Wolf and Kevin Habich — DeamPark which turns mixed reality headsets into a configurable virtual theme park — transforming public spaces into ticketed playgrounds filled with dynamic virtual characters and which recently raised over a million in seed funding.SHOW NOTESDreamParkDreamPark raises $1.1M to transform real-world spaces into mixed-reality theme parks (Games Beat)The Next Stage Immersive Summit Program GuideThe Next Stage Immersive Sumit Badges Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.