You WILL be walking a lot, and possibly bounding up and down stairwells depending on the approach you take. Frankly, I was lost the first hour until a little lightbulb went off! And even though things repeat, the finale holds a surprise. Buy the 7:00 tickets and stay for the full three hours. As a participant, I assure you the silence is necessary to hold the immersive feel. The show is meant to be visited in silence. It’s tastefully and brilliantly done, but something to be aware of. People with Sensitives to Smoke or Strobe Lights: Although mostly dark and mysterious, the intricate sets sometimes use smoke machines, intense lighting, and even swings in temperature.This show takes effort, but will stick with you long after the show ends if you try. Passive Audiences: If you can’t be bothered to focus and connect the dots on your own, stick to Broadway.If you’re lucky, an actor may offer you a drink - hint: it’s real liquor. Children: There are plenty of adult themes, ranging from jealousy to murder to sex (including some nudity).I spent the first hour making my way through the set (approach #3) followed by watching specific characters through their journey (approach #1, repeated twice over for two characters). In my opinion, all three strategies would be equally successful, as long as you give each one long enough to sink in. Don’t be afraid to explore beyond closed doors and in dark corners. Exploring the entirety of the set with an orderly approach, catching snippets of multiple story lines as you go.When there are no actors in that particular set, you’ll have the ability to dive into the intricacies of the room itself, snooping through diaries and rifling through suitcases. Stay in one room for the entirety of the performance, watching the action unfold.You could then potentially do the same thing for two other overlapping characters, piecing the back stories together to assemble the total plot. Follow one specific character through their self-contained story, start to finish. There are three main approaches to experiencing the show: Essentially, each character loops through their story in an hour and then they begin again, giving you three chances to take in as much as you can. In fact, the creators of the show are so aware of this that they give you three hours to explore. To have Sleep No More explained fully would take hours. Like me, you probably still don’t fully understand. One of many intense scenes at Sleep No More NYC interactive theater (Photo by Yaniv Schulman and supplied by Sleep No More, used with permission) Sleep No More Explained Knowing that I only caught a fraction of the story is exactly what made it so intriguing. I never did connect all the plot lines and I’m still unsure if I even met all the characters. I was on pins and needles wondering what I missed. I left the show unsettled, in an altered state of reality as I walked back to my hotel under the Chelsea Highline. This forces you to focus on everything, look through family photographs, and rummage through drawers, all adding to the fully immersive feel. Since there’s very little spoken dialogue, you’ll never know which details of the set and the story are integral to the overall message and which are merely ambiance. Although I wasn’t technically part of the story, the show is clearly participatory. To illicit such an emotional response is not easily done. Not once, but twice, I found myself completely alone in a silent cemetery that creeped me out so much I ran to a different set. At one point, I had to walk away from a nurse who never took her gaze off me, her eye contact burning a hole through my mask. More often than not, I found myself chasing characters down staircases, barely keeping up with them to find out what happens next. Photo by Robin Roemer and supplied by Sleep No More, used with permission (no photos are allowed during the performance) That is how I found myself wearing a white Venetian mask, silently roaming through elaborately-designed sets, half entranced and half confused. You can’t watch it all, meaning everyone’s experience is unique. Each actor tells their own story, with other actors simultaneously telling interconnected stories in other rooms and other floors. Instead of sitting in an audience and watching the show, you’re free to independently wander and follow cast members as you wish. In a converted Chelsea warehouse, theater-goers are welcomed to the “ McKittrick Hotel” and challenged to participate in a story that’s one part Macbeth, one part Hitchcock, one part interpretive dance, and one part escape room.
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