The No Proscenium Podcast

This week on the show — two of the brightest stars in the Spooky Season Sky here in Los Angeles — actors Daniel Montgomery and Misha Reeves – are here to talk with us all about ACTING! in immersive with a horror twist!

The pair have been friends since high school, and amongst many other accomplishments, are part of the core company of JFI Productions staring in multiple editions of Creep LA and The Willows, of which Daniel is the writer.

SHOW NOTES

• Noah's ‘The Willows’ Review
• I Need to Tell You Something
• HAG
• The Queen’s Fools: Faeries & Fools
• Post-Mortem Review
• What is a Standardized Paitent?

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This week on the show: a quick check in on what's on the site and what's to come on the podcast for the season.

SHOW NOTES

• The Other Kind Of Trauma Ward: 'Below' Haunts The Hospital of Emotions In L.A. (The NoPro Review)
• L.A.'s Haunted Hayride Scares Up Some Fun At Griffith Park (Review)
• 'A Halloween Carol' Puts A Surprising Spooky Season Spin On Dickens (Review)
• Everything Immersive

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We kick off our Spooky Season podcasting with a visit from Juliet Bennett Rylah and Kevin Gossett who have been exploring SoCal's horror and haunt realm for us this Fall. We dive into Universal's Halloween Horror Nights, Knott’s Scary Farm, Six Flag's Fright Fest, and Candle House's The Pineapple.

Spoilers ahead for the mazes. Content advisory: language and some adult themes.

SHOW NOTES

• Universal's Halloween Horror Nights
• Knott’s Scary Farm
• The Beating, Twisted, Heart of SoCal’s Haunt Scene Endures: Knott’s Scary Farm 2026 (The NoPro Review)
• Fright Fest
• Fright Fest: Always "The Other" SoCal Theme Park Haunt (Review)
• The Pineapple
• Informed Consent for Immersive Events (Opinion)
• NYC Immersive Industry Fall Mixer
• NOW PLAYING: Nekomachi — Cat Town (UPDATED for 2026)
• HAG
• The Madness!
• Rotten Apple 907
• Reign of Terror

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This week our own Katrina Lat reports back from Venice Immersive 2026 where she shares her highlights -- mostly -- of the festival's grand collection of XR experiences.

SHOW NOTES

• Venice Immersive 2026
• Venice Immersive Video Diary 2026
• Venice Immersive 2026 FOMO Guide
• Solwata
• Raj'in (We Shall Return)
• In 36,000 Ways
• Empire At Sea
• Sunset Motel
• Finding Frida
• The Pigeon Ring
• Nevatars
• Back To The Experience
• Nel Blu
• Octopocalypse

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Martin Gimenez and Thomas Jancis report from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on what they've been up to, and Martin interviews Sauna Theatre co-founder James Grieve along with Clair Korobacz and Julian Rickert of Australian theatre company one step at a time like this.

Plus: Noah with a few words of thanks about the New York Immersive Invitational.

SHOW NOTES

• 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Festival Diary
• Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026 FOMO Guide
• Onward To Edinburgh! (Podcast)
• Sauna Theatre
• one step at a time like this

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This week we're joined by Majestic Repertory Theatre's Troy Heard whose Prom Night '99 was recently attended by NoPro team members Briana Roecks & Anthony Robinson, as well as host Noah Nelson. The four also were all at the most recent edition of Midsummer scream -- the world's biggest Halloween & Horror convention in Long Beach for what turned out to be the LAST edition of the con there. (Don't worry, it's only moving down the road to Anaheim.)

The gang peppers Troy with questions about Prom Night, goes long on some of the pieces in the Hall of Shadows, and talks Vegas past, present, and future in this rather "After Dark" edition that was recorded after the sun went down.

SHOW NOTES

• Prom Night '99
• Melodramatic Delights On The Dance Floor: 'Prom Night ’99' Lights Up Vegas’ Arts District (The NoPro Review)
• Majestic Rep Theatre
• Sceam'd
• Midsummer Scream
• Midsummer Scream Is The Spooky Season Preview Every SoCal Haunter Loves
• Universal Horror Unleashed
• One Year Of Screams Later: 'Universal Horror Unleashed Las Vegas' Spices Up The Summer (The NoPro Review)
• Odyssey Adventure Company (Nevermore)
• How Sweet It Is: Museum of Ice Cream - Las Vegas (Review)
• Plaza Hotel & Casino
• AREA15
• Briana Roecks

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This week just a quick minisode with some program & event updates!

SHOW NOTES

• The New York Immersive Invitational
• Melodramatic Delights On The Dance Floor: 'Prom Night ’99' Lights Up Vegas’ Arts District (The NoPro Review)
• How Sweet It Is: Museum of Ice Cream - Las Vegas (Review)
• 1986-6-6
• Midsummer Scream

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This week on the show, Immersive Experience Institute co-founder Kathryn Yu joins host Noah Nelson to talk about her ongoing series Understanding The Immersive Audience, which takes a deep dive into looking at what makes the immersive enthusiast cohort tick and provides some advice on what could best be called good marketing hygiene for immersive work in a time when producers find it increasingly difficult to find their audience.

SHOW NOTES

• The Understanding The Immersive Audience Series
• The Immersive Experience Institute
• The New York Immersive Invitational
• Tech firm Fever produces live shows worldwide, with local consequences(Seattle Times)

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This week on the show we're joined by a delightful panel of immersive creators who are headed to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe — the largest

performing arts fest in the world that pretty much takes over Edinburgh, Scotland for the month of August – for a very loose conversation that feels a bit like sneaking backstage

Joining us for the episode are are Emily Carding, creator and performer of Hamlet (an experience), Peter Michael Marino, whose Planet of the Grapes is headed to Fringe after a sold our run in NYC, and Katy Murphy, creator of the interactive games how (No) Refunds — which is hosted by her alter ego Tiffany Gold.

SHOW NOTES

• Hamlet (an experience)
• Planet of the Grapes
• (No) Refunds
• NoPro's Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2026 FOMO Guide
• Edinburgh Festival Fringe

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This week we take a detour to have a one-on-one with an artist we've wanted to talk to since season one: Julia Masli, the creator and performer of the incredible Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha, which is making its way to San Diego starting on July 28th, and will be popping up at the Philadelphia Fringe this September.

SHOW NOTES

• Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha in San Diego
• Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha at the Philly Fringe
• Next Stage Salon NYC: Finding Your Audience
• Subscribe to No Proscenium

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This week host Noah Nelson is joined by esteemed members of the NoPro New York Review Crew: Curator Allie Marotta, East Coast Editor at Large Blake Weil, and Senior Correspondent Nicholas Fortugno for an often feisty conversation about what's happening in the NYC immersive scene in what has been a very busy year. (I mean, look at those Show Notes!)

But first the gang digs into the recent, and somewhat controversial announcement of a new Punchdrunk production destined for the Wynn Al Marjan Island, the first casino to be planned for the United Arab Emirates. We dig into what it means for the Punchdrunk brand and a whole lot more as the punches are not pulled.

SHOW NOTES

• Wynn Al Marjan Island Announces Landmark Partnership with Punchdrunk, the Global Pioneers of Immersive Theater
• Conwell Coffee & Cocktail Hall
• The Circuit
• The Circuit (Review)
• Lunch Dances
• Tempest Tossed (Review)
• Hamlet/The Furies
• Hamlet/The Furies (Review)
• Woyzeck (Coming Soon Article)
• Clinamen
• Balloon Museum
• Radiohead Motion Picture House
• Marina Abramović's Balkan Erotic Epic
• Big Feelings
• Whisperlodge
• Growing Takes Time
• FestiValle (The thing in Sicily Blake talks about)
• 13th Hour Escape Rooms
• Rip Van Winkle's Journey
• Every Brilliant Thing
• Cats The Jellicle Ball
• Legendary (TV Series)
• The Rocky Horror Show

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This week on the show, a very Season One style episode wherein host Noah Nelson talks to Ellie and Alex DiBerardino of Say Nothing and Leave, the creative team behind the Test Pilots series, along with their oftentimes collaborators Sarah Lew and Danthony, the director and creator of Baby Man. All of which was at Second Place Studios at the Hollywood Fringe Festival last month.

We get into what makes the shows work, how the four met up in the underground immersive scene – yes, we still have one of those; no, we will not explain – and other elements of what comes with taking part in something like 40 different runs during Hollywood Fringe

SHOW NOTES

• Say Nothing and Leave
• Test Pilots
• Change Your Mind
• Danthony
• Baby Man
• Sarah Lew
• Enormous Things: The Musical
• Really Big Spoon
• Hollywood Fringe Festival
• Second Place Studios
• Mirth Arts Foundation

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This week we're talking about the state of XR -– from what's happening with the new tech to the out-of-home experiences that are actually drawing audiences – with a ridiculously talented panel of practitioners, professionals, and press.

Joining host Noah Nelson in the virtual NoPro studio Scarlett Kim (Center for Unclassifiable Technologies and Experiences) , Ray Mosco (General Immersive), Rory Mitchell (Mercantile), and NoPro's Toronto curator Katrina Lat.

SHOW NOTES

• Scarlett Kim
• Raymond Mosco
• Rory Mitchell - Mercantile Agency
• Katrina Lat
• Sony Pictures Invests $100 Million in Cosm, Shared-Reality Venue Owner (Variety)
• LIVE from AWE 2026 ft. Malia Probst, Mary Matheson, and Shelley Peterson (The AI XR Podcast)
• Tender Claws: Body Proxy
• Siggraph 2026
• AWE Nite
• The Immersive Experience Institute

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This week on the show host Noah Nelson is joined by The L.A. Times' Todd Martens, ARGNet owner Michael Andersen, and NoPro's own Kathryn Yu to spin stories from Knott's Ghost Town Alive, do some close reading of a new Harvard Business Review article on immersive experiences, and react to the big Sphere-related news of the week.

SHOW NOTES

• Mr. Todd's Wild Ride (L.A. Times)
• ARGNet
• ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ Set to Screen at Sphere Las Vegas in 2027 (Variety)
• Why The Best Immersive Experiences Succeed(Harvard Business Review)
• Understanding The Immersive Audience (Immersive Experience Institute)
• Knott's Berry Farm's Ghost Town Alive
• One of the Best Larps I Ever Played Was at a Theme Park(ARGNet)
• Pageant of the Masters (Festival of the Arts - Laguna Beach)
• Museum of Make Believe (Laguna Beach)
• Kcymaerxthaere
• Test Pilots (Hollywood Fringe)

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Out of the blue, we're back, with season 2 of the podcast.

This summer we're catching up with our favorite folks, hanging out and talking what we've seen, what they've been making, and generally celebrating the fact that immersive is here and not going anywhere.

To kick us off in the new era we're joined by: associate producer of the podcast, and an immersive creator in her own right Parker Sela, Executive Editor Emeritus of No Proscenium and co-founder of The Immersive Experience Institute game designer Kathryn Yu, and Artistic Director of After Hours Theatre Company Graham Wetterhahn.

The topics du jour are the Without Walls Festival and L.A.'s immersive scene which has been really hopping this year.

SHOW NOTES

• The Immersive Experience Institute
• After Hours Theatre Company

Without Walls Festival

• Tea Party at the End of the World
• Suzik
• Again Again
• The Apple Avenue Detective Agency
• Handle With Care
• Night Watch

L.A. Immersive Scene

• Dataland
• Dark Library: The Time Machine
• You Must Be Here For The Reading
• Hatch Escapes
• Undersigned
• Drowned Out Productions
• Confession
• The Elysian's Spaghetti Festival
• Brassroots District
• Hollywood Fringe
• Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind
• Hospital of Emotions
• Ghost Town Alive

Beyond L.A.

• The Still Point
• Masquerade

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Our guest on this special edition this week is Charles Melcher of the Future of Storytelling who you might know from his own podcast and who is the author of the new book The Future of Storytelling: How Immersive Experiences Are Transforming Our World which is available now.

Charlie’s book is really a fantastic snapshot of the world of immersive storytelling as it stands today, containing both an extensive catalog of expeirences AND essays that provide an framework to understand what makes this work… well.. work.

Best of all — we’ve got a copy of the book to give away.

Plus: an update on Season Two production!

SHOW NOTES

• The Future of Storytelling: How Immersive Experiences Are Transforming Our World
• Book Excerpt: The Future of Storytelling (Plus Giveaway)
• FoST
• Spotlight Series: Yannick Trapman-O'Brien

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This week, a visit to Dungeons & Dragons The 20-Sided Tavern in Los Angeles – where the show is wrapping its current stand this weekend before heading off to Scottsdale, Arizona and Dallas, Texas.

We sit down with Alex Stompoly, one of the Tavernkeepers of the Tavern to talk about the unique role he plays in the production which is part MC, part rules lawyer, and carries with it some creative heft of its own.

SHOW NOTES

• Dungeons & Dragons The 20-Sided Tavern
• Alex Stompoly
• No Proscenium
• Everything Immersive

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We're still on hiatus, but we recently got a chance to visit the new home of The Willows in LA and talk with Justin Fix and Stephanie Turek of JFI Productions as we toured the new home of one of LA's favorite immersive shows. The show has gotten a glow up in this new production, and fair warning that there are a few audio spoilers of new elements. If you're not deterred by that, come along and explore the new space with us, maybe encounter a real ghost, and get a bonus mansion tour thrown in as part of the bargain.

SHOW NOTES

• The Willows

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We've reached the end.

Of Episode 500 and Season One.

Which means one last word from our host.

See you in Season Two.

(But don't act too surprised when we pop up a few times for some specials between now and then.)

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This one is for the diehards.

On Friday, August 29th, 2025 we held a Launch Party for Episode 500 in the NoPro Discord. We had no idea who would show up.

To our delight Jacob Patterson, who you had a chance to hear in the last part of the marathon, ARGN’s Michael Anderson — who gives us a spoiler-free expectation set on Masquerade, the immersive Phantom currently in previews in New York City, NoPro correspondent Briana Roecks who shares some Spooky Season anticipation for both LA and Las Vegas, and drop-ins from Laura Hall and Cameo Wood as well.

It’s a hangout episode and fair warning: the audio quality is sub-par in the extreme! I’m even on my Airpods because I was so exhausted from editing and being on the Yeti for hours on end that I just jammed the Pods in my ears and forgot how bad they would sound. So if you skip this because it sounds mid, I won’t take offense. This one, as they say, is for the sickos.

But if you do stick around, well: you’re a real one, and all the copious links in the show notes below are going to make sense.

SHOW NOTES

• Tammany Hall is a Petco: Zohran's Summer Scavenger Hunt
• Masquerade
• Majestic Rep Las Vegas
• People In the Dark: An Immersive Ghost Story
• The Willows
• The Haunted Soiree
• The Wild, Citywide Scavenger Hunt That Ate San Francisco (Wired)
• Santa’s Village
• Where Dark Things Dwell
• Junior’s at Resorts World
• The Beast @ Area 15
• DASH – Different Area, Same Hunt
• ‘The Long Walk’ Turns Screening Into Endurance Test With 3 MPH Treadmill Rule(The Wrap)
• 'What the f--- is this?': What Darren Aronofsky has to do with new payphones in NYC (Gothamist)
• Why Did the Indie Film Studio A24 Buy an Off Broadway Theater?

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