Everything Immersive's
SPRING FLING
a celebration of all things immersive
GAMES • PANELS • SALONS • SOCIAL VR
DISCORD • ZOOM • CLUBHOUSE
After the year we've all had, we could use a party.
To mark the anniversary of "The Summit That Wasn't" the creators of the HERE Summit & Festival are throwing a party across the Known Metaverse. This one goes out to creators and the enthusiast community.
Not only will we have our signature creative salons and summit-style panel discussions covering Big Ideas and celebrating revolutionary work in the morning and afternoon of Saturday and Sunday, but as the sun dips on Saturday we're throwing open the doors!
Starting at 3PM Pacific/7PM Eastern on Saturday and going till "whenever" will be a virtual carnival of games, VR worldhops, Clubhouse rooms, and a community generated "unconference" in our Discord & Zoom – and anywhere else you can think to put one. It's Game Night for the immersive community and everyone is invited.
We're not going alone on this one, either, with friends from across the immersive & experiential spectrum: like ARGNet, Room Escape Artist, PAIR-CG, Voices of VR, The Wild Optimists, the XR Social Club and more.
Tickets are on on sale now for $5 for 2020 HERE badge holders & No Proscenium Patreon backers, and $10 for the general public.
Stay Connected: Everything Immersive (FB Group), No Proscenium (Twitter).
Click here to see the event Code of Conduct.
To mark the anniversary of "The Summit That Wasn't" the creators of the HERE Summit & Festival are throwing a party across the Known Metaverse. This one goes out to creators and the enthusiast community.
Not only will we have our signature creative salons and summit-style panel discussions covering Big Ideas and celebrating revolutionary work in the morning and afternoon of Saturday and Sunday, but as the sun dips on Saturday we're throwing open the doors!
Starting at 3PM Pacific/7PM Eastern on Saturday and going till "whenever" will be a virtual carnival of games, VR worldhops, Clubhouse rooms, and a community generated "unconference" in our Discord & Zoom – and anywhere else you can think to put one. It's Game Night for the immersive community and everyone is invited.
We're not going alone on this one, either, with friends from across the immersive & experiential spectrum: like ARGNet, Room Escape Artist, PAIR-CG, Voices of VR, The Wild Optimists, the XR Social Club and more.
Tickets are on on sale now for $5 for 2020 HERE badge holders & No Proscenium Patreon backers, and $10 for the general public.
Stay Connected: Everything Immersive (FB Group), No Proscenium (Twitter).
Click here to see the event Code of Conduct.
Schedule
CLICK ON THE BLOCK TO SEE THE FULL DETAILS
SATURDAY MARCH 27th, 2021
Block One
Doors Open 9AM PDT
Salons & Panels Begin 10AM PDT
Conference Programming ends at 2:00PM PST
Block Two
Social Spaces for Pick Up Play/Post Shows Open at 2PM PDT
Organized Play - including VR Worldhops - Begins at 3PM PDT
Social Spaces/Discord Cafe staffed until 10PM PDT
SUNDAY MARCH 28th, 2021
Block Three
Unconference/Lighting Talks/Social Spaces at 9AM PDT
Programming Begins at 11AM PDT
Closing Session at 2:00 PM PDT
Speakers
Making Meaning in the Metaverse (Salon)
Nancy Baker Cahill is a new media artist who examines power, selfhood, and embodied consciousness through drawing and shared immersive space. She is the Founder and Artistic Director of 4th Wall, a free Augmented Reality (AR) art platform exploring resistance and inclusive creative expression. Her recent AR public art project, Liberty Bell, commissioned by Art Production Fund, earned features in the New York Times, frieze Magazine, Artnet, Smithsonian Magazine and the Washington Post, among many other publications. The project, on view through 2021, spans six historic and culturally significant sites along the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. and appeared in Artnews’ list, The Defining Public Artworks of 2020. Baker Cahill was also included in ARTnews’ list of 2021 Deciders. Her 2018 TED talk, Augmented Reality (AR) as an Artist’s Tool for Equity and Access, launched her international public speaking practice. She has since delivered keynotes at the 2019 Games For Change, 2020 A.W.E. (Augmented World Expo) and has spoken at the Hirshhorn Museum and numerous academic institutions and conferences. She is the Art and Creative Technologies Advisor for the XRSI Safety Initiative and is one of ten artist scholars in the Berggruen Institute’s inaugural 2020 Transformations of the Human Fellowship. In May of 2021, Baker Cahill will receive the Williams College Bicentennial Medal of Honor.
Edward Madojemu is a Nigerian concept artist and animator specializing in game development and animation using VR tools. Having directed Dami and Falian: How was your Day, a 360 animated short-film featured at VIFF Immersed 2019, Edward is interested in exploring new methods of storytelling across interactive and non-interactive mediums, in hopes of bringing Afrocentric narratives and experience into the limelight. Edward spends his spare time developing accessible, VR-driven production pipelines, hoping to expedite the process to allow for smaller, independent teams of artists to sustainably create media.
Sarah Perry is a movement director, performance coach and practitioner working in Film, TV, Animation and Theatre. Recent work includes Movement Director for 'Dream'; a live online production in collaboration with The RSC, The Philharmonia Orchestra and Marshmallow Laser Feast. Movement Coach on 'A Discovery of Witches' Season 2 and Season 3 for Bad Wolf/Sky One. Other credits as Movement Coach include 'Jupiter Ascending' directed by The Wachowskis and 'Guardians of the Galaxy', directed by James Gunn. Sarah has coached many Actors in Film, TV & Theatre, liaising with Directors, VFX Supervisors , Stunt Coordinators and all heads of department. Sarah is frequently called in to work with various renowned VFX companies to assist their animation teams working on various projects, productions and characters, working with: Jellyfish Pictures, Framestore, MPC, Double Negative and Aardman. Sarah's skills range from creature performance research and direction, performance capture movement direction, actor preparation, developing a movement language and style to suit a project, developing an actors' or characters movement language and vocabulary, ensemble devising, posture & movement analysis, wellbeing for actors ...Sarah also works as a Yoga Teacher & Yoga Therapist, teaches Movement for Actors at numerous UK Drama schools and Universities and teaches Acting & Character Movement for Animators nationally and internationally.
Strange New Worlds - The Art of Worldmaking (Salon)
Kaitlin Chin is the director of Cirque du Nuit, a performance company that specializes in creating art and telling stories in unusual places, and is the showrunner and head developer for THICKETT. She has traveled the world as an aerialist, mermaid, interactive performer, and, briefly, a pro-yo-yo-er. She enjoys excellent coffee and/or fancy cocktails, and has a cat named Loki, Destroyer of Worlds. You can find more information at www.kaitlin-chin.com and www.cirquedunuitnyc.com.
Jen "Fionna" Davis-Wilson has been building interactive experiences in VR since 2018, and is an admin for VRC Prefabs, community of world creators in VRChat. She was part of the dev team of "The Devouring" horror game, that won Best Immersive Game and Best Immersive World at Raindance 2020. She comes from a background of mechanical design at IDEO and Facebook FRL, and now is a cofounder and tech artist of Studio CyFi, an indie developer studio. Her passions are in social VR, creator communities, and creating all sorts of immersive experiences.
Em Lazer-Walker (she/they) is a Toronto-based artist/engineer who makes interactive art, experimental games, and open-source software tools to empower creativity. Most of her work focuses on using nontraditional interfaces to reframe everyday objects and spaces as playful experiences and to inspire people to become self-motivated learners. She currently works as a senior cloud advocate at Microsoft.
She’s built projects as far-flung as a site-specific generative poetry walk, a game played on 19th century telegraph hardware, and a commercial board game that uses Amazon Alexa. In the past, she’s worked at companies like Pivotal Labs and Etsy, on games and apps such as Words With Friends and Timehop, and as a researcher in the MIT Media Lab's Playful Systems research group. She’s passionate about fostering diverse and inclusive communities, and organizes game events such as the Roguelike Celebration and the annual alt.ctrl.PARTY.
As a game designer and installation artist, her work has been featured in places such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Venice Architectural Biennale, and has been showcased at games events and spaces such as IndieCade (2016 finalist), alt.ctrl.GDC, Bit Bash, Come Out and Play, Babycastles, Different Games, and New York Toy Fair (2019 Game of the Year nominee).
She’s built projects as far-flung as a site-specific generative poetry walk, a game played on 19th century telegraph hardware, and a commercial board game that uses Amazon Alexa. In the past, she’s worked at companies like Pivotal Labs and Etsy, on games and apps such as Words With Friends and Timehop, and as a researcher in the MIT Media Lab's Playful Systems research group. She’s passionate about fostering diverse and inclusive communities, and organizes game events such as the Roguelike Celebration and the annual alt.ctrl.PARTY.
As a game designer and installation artist, her work has been featured in places such as the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Venice Architectural Biennale, and has been showcased at games events and spaces such as IndieCade (2016 finalist), alt.ctrl.GDC, Bit Bash, Come Out and Play, Babycastles, Different Games, and New York Toy Fair (2019 Game of the Year nominee).
ᚹᚦ (Wynn Thorn) were once letters of the English alphabet,
collectively forgotten. Remember them as symbols of memory and
experience, as reflections of the past. ᚹᚦ produces atmospheres that
bring people to another dimension of time, space, or reality. You are
the main character guided through a labyrinth of spaces, feeling
suddenly as though you have crossed a threshold into another world.
You are an explorer and observer, discovering clues, listening through
walls, plunged into a story by omnisensory elements of a narrative
environment. The stories themselves are a construction of archetypes
found in global mythology and folklore, or illustrations of periods of
time and modes of being. ᚹᚦ is a node at the intersection of
interactive installation, immersive set design, historic preservation,
and cultural celebration.
collectively forgotten. Remember them as symbols of memory and
experience, as reflections of the past. ᚹᚦ produces atmospheres that
bring people to another dimension of time, space, or reality. You are
the main character guided through a labyrinth of spaces, feeling
suddenly as though you have crossed a threshold into another world.
You are an explorer and observer, discovering clues, listening through
walls, plunged into a story by omnisensory elements of a narrative
environment. The stories themselves are a construction of archetypes
found in global mythology and folklore, or illustrations of periods of
time and modes of being. ᚹᚦ is a node at the intersection of
interactive installation, immersive set design, historic preservation,
and cultural celebration.
Tagging The Metaverse (Salon)
Sarah Bay-Cheng, PhD is Dean of the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design and Professor of Theatre & Performance Studies at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her research focuses on the intersections among theater, performance, and media including histories of avant-garde theatre and film, social media, and digital technologies in performance. Her publications include books Performance and Media: Taxonomies for a Changing Field (2015) and Mapping Intermediality in Performance (2010), and over 50 articles and essays. Bay-Cheng frequently lectures internationally and in 2015 was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar in Media and Cultural Studies at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Since 2016, she can be heard as a co-host for On TAP: A Theatre and Performance Studies podcast. Bay-Cheng has also worked as a director and dramaturg with particular interest in intermedial collaborations and a fondness for puppetry.
Mariel Marshall is an interdisciplinary artist based in Toronto, Canada. She is a core member of the Toronto/Brooklyn experimental performance collective bluemouth inc. The company’s latest work, Cafe Sarajevo, toured to Singapore’s M1 Singapore Fringe Festival in January of 2020 and to Toronto’s Progress Festival in February 2020.
Mariel started coding back in 2015, and has been working at the intersection of art and technology ever since. She co-founded the performing arts intelligence company StagePage in 2019 and is currently a co-organizer of the Performing Arts Information Representation Community Group, a group dedicated to community-sourcing the foundational infrastructure to power the next generation of digital tools for the arts.
Mariel started coding back in 2015, and has been working at the intersection of art and technology ever since. She co-founded the performing arts intelligence company StagePage in 2019 and is currently a co-organizer of the Performing Arts Information Representation Community Group, a group dedicated to community-sourcing the foundational infrastructure to power the next generation of digital tools for the arts.
Covering the New Age of ARGs (Panel)
Michael Andersen (he/him) is the owner of ARGN.com, a website focused on providing reporting on alternate reality games along with occasional excursions into the broader immersive entertainment space including puzzle hunts, escape rooms, Larps, megagames, immersive theater, and transmedia storytelling.
Inside A Mind (he/him) documents new forms of storytelling and the reactions audiences have towards them.
Nick Nocturne (he/him) is the creator and host of Night Mind, a YouTube channel dedicated to coverage, analysis, and support of creativity in the field of unfiction and brilliant works of nontraditional storytelling. From ARGs to internet oddities, mind-bending novels and symbolic puppet shows, Night Mind encourages celebration and exploration of media that strays from the common and introduces new methods of immersion and storytelling.
Anthony Robinson (he/him) is a longtime contributor for No Proscenium. A graduate of Yale's American Studies Program, Anthony is by turns an old-school LARPer, sometimes assistant director for film and tv, a busy dad, a theatre nerd, and an alumnus of Reality TV's Survivor. He likes long walks along the beach, a good night dancing to Brit Pop's greatest hits, making Star Wars inspired props, and loudly discussing the last immersive theatre experience that he just went through.
Marn S. (she/her) is the co-host of the ARGonauts Podcast, a show geared towards explaining and archiving alternate reality games. She has been following, participating in, and assisting with archiving ARGs since 2008, and has run (and co-run) her own as recently as this past year. Marn is also a writer of serialized web fiction, interactive fiction, and self-published tabletop games.
Playful Isolation: Creating & Enjoying Theatrical Digital Escape Games (Panel)
Matt Carson (He/Him) is, by last count, a Bisexual Performance Artist/Game Designer/Dramaturg/Game Developer/Writer/Actor who tells people he grew up in Toronto because no one outside Ontario has ever heard of Milton.
He graduated from York University's Theatre program with a dual specialization in Devised Theatre and Play-Writing in 2014 and immediately hopped on a plane with his partner-in-all-things Kathryn Kaehler to Melbourne, where they are currently based.
His hobbies, taste in media, and eclectic employment decisions have all provided ample power for the haunted mine-cart-ride that is his creative process. But mainly, he and Kathryn made an online game-theatre-narrative thing in the middle of one of the world's longest lock-downs literally called Isolation and he's just super jazzed to chat about it.
He graduated from York University's Theatre program with a dual specialization in Devised Theatre and Play-Writing in 2014 and immediately hopped on a plane with his partner-in-all-things Kathryn Kaehler to Melbourne, where they are currently based.
His hobbies, taste in media, and eclectic employment decisions have all provided ample power for the haunted mine-cart-ride that is his creative process. But mainly, he and Kathryn made an online game-theatre-narrative thing in the middle of one of the world's longest lock-downs literally called Isolation and he's just super jazzed to chat about it.
Mark Larson is an interactive experience designer with over a decade of work involving puzzles, board games, and escape rooms. He is the lead designer and writer of seven of Trapped Puzzle Rooms' Audio Escape Adventures, including the recently announced Spirit Train, and has designed puzzles for TPR's Taco TWOsday and Mystery Night series. Mark also serves on the board of directors for the DASH puzzle hunt (playdash.org). Mark resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where, try as he might, he can't seem to cull his board game collection down to a manageable level.
Peih-Gee Law (Hivemind Writer at Room Escape Artist, Reality Escape Pod Co-Host)
Peih-Gee is most well known for being a fan favorite contestant on the reality show Survivor, where she played first in Survivor China in 2007, and again in a returning All-Star season Survivor Second Chance. She calls Survivor “the greatest immersive game in the world.” Peih-Gee is an ardent fan of escape rooms and immersive entertainment, and she considers herself an ambassador for the escape room community. Loves: narrative-driven games with lots of player interactions, wordplay. Hates: Math puzzles and poor functionality that distracts from immersion. She loves jigsaw puzzles, watercolor painting, and playing board games. She lives in Los Angeles with her pet shrimp, her cat Butter, and her sister.
Peih-Gee is most well known for being a fan favorite contestant on the reality show Survivor, where she played first in Survivor China in 2007, and again in a returning All-Star season Survivor Second Chance. She calls Survivor “the greatest immersive game in the world.” Peih-Gee is an ardent fan of escape rooms and immersive entertainment, and she considers herself an ambassador for the escape room community. Loves: narrative-driven games with lots of player interactions, wordplay. Hates: Math puzzles and poor functionality that distracts from immersion. She loves jigsaw puzzles, watercolor painting, and playing board games. She lives in Los Angeles with her pet shrimp, her cat Butter, and her sister.
David Spira (Co-Founder of Room Escape Artist ,Reality Escape Pod Co-Host)
conceived of Room Escape Artist because he saw the potential of this new entertainment medium back in 2014. From the start, he applied his professional skills as a digital experience designer to the burgeoning industry of escape rooms. David is full of ideas: from in-depth research pieces to new content types… like cute animals solving puzzles. He is always pushing REA to try new things, take risks, and be something more.
conceived of Room Escape Artist because he saw the potential of this new entertainment medium back in 2014. From the start, he applied his professional skills as a digital experience designer to the burgeoning industry of escape rooms. David is full of ideas: from in-depth research pieces to new content types… like cute animals solving puzzles. He is always pushing REA to try new things, take risks, and be something more.
Sarah Zhang fell in love with escape games in 2013, and co-founded Omescape in Bay Area in 2014. During COVID, she is one of the designers of the award-winning virtual escape game “Pursuit of the Assassin Artist”.
Celebrating The Cast of The Under Presents (Panel)
Brandon Bales is an actor with a wide variety of credits. In immersive theatre, he has worked on multiple productions of Delusion (including the VR version of Lies Within), as well as two productions with The Speakeasy Society. Working with Tender Claws on The Under... and tUP: Tempest marks his first foray into digital immersive, though he has had plenty of digital credits so far; he has appeared in numerous video games, with a long-running role in the online RPG Guild Wars 2. Among straight plays, he has worked in Los Angeles with Sacred Fools, Moving Arts, and Open Fist. Brandon has also appeared Off-Broadway with 13P in Have you Seen Steve Steven?, and was in the world premiere of Terrence McNally's Some Men at the Philadelphia Theatre Company. Film and TV credits include : Adam McKay's Vice, For All Mankind, American Crime Story, and many more.
Michael Bates is an actor, writer, and an Associate Artistic Director of The Speakeasy Society, with whom he has performed with since 2014. With Speakeasy, he was most recently seen as Jack Pumpkinhead in The Kansas Collection, Yuri in The Johnny Cycle, and Bob Cratchit in Ebenezer 2020: An Immersive Internet Spectacular, which he also co-wrote and assistant directed. Other recent credits include Justin Denton’s virtual reality experience Chained, where he originated and performed the Spirits of the Past, Present, and Future; The Under Presents, where he was an original cast member; and Tender Claws’ The Tempest, where he plays one of many Prosperos and Prosperas. Michael is a native Angeleno who holds an MFA in Acting from the California Institute of the Arts.
Karlie Blair is an LA-based immersive artist. As a live VR actor in The Under Presents, she played 12 characters including Abby, Sasha, Deandra, and DJ Crob. Outside of VR, she has performed with immersive companies such as The Speakeasy Society, Tension Experience, Shine On Collective, and Drunken Devil, as well as at festivals like Edinburgh Fringe, NYC Poetry Festival, Electric Forest, San Diego Comic Con, and SF Sketchfest. She is also managing director of #Metaforyou, production manager of Whisperlodge LA, and a co-creator of original work with Ladybug & Leviathan and DR3AMLOGiKK. Karlie is a graduate of UC Berkeley and has also trained at Yale School of Drama, Trinity College Dublin, Pandemonium Studio, and UCB. @blairkarlie on Instagram and karlieblair.com.
Sophie Cooper is a Los Angeles based actress specializing in immersive theatre. She studied at the London School of Dramatic Art focusing in Shakespeare and the Stella Adler studio of Acting in New York focusing on film performance. She’s found her passion in immersive theatre working with JFI productions on Creep LA: (LORE, Awake, Haus of Creep) and The Willows. She is currently a part of Woolf & the Wondershow’s ‘Cages’ and the MadCap Motel, both in DTLA. She’s so thankful she was able to be a part of ‘The Under Presents’ and she can’t wait to see what’s next for Virtual Reality live performance.
James Michael Cowan has performed in Immersive, Stage, Screen, TV, Mixed Reality, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality. Highlights include Tempest (Tender Claws), The Under (Tender Claws), Chained: A Victorian Nightmare (MWM), Henry IV (Shakespeare Company of Los Angeles), The Kansas Collection (The Speakeasy Society), and I Should Have A Party...(Source Material). James is currently performing in Tempest (Tender Claws), tix available in The Under box office for weekends in March.
Whitton Frank is a voice, film, television and theater actor from Los Angeles. Recent work includes the award winning horror short Seeing Green as well as groundbreaking work in the immersive VR experiences;The Under Presents and The Tempest. She can be heard as a guest star in season 1 and 2 of RomCom Pods, and as an audiobook narrator on Audible and other sites. She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and LAMDA in London. Whitton is proud to have worked with many amazing theater companies in Los Angeles. In her copious free time she moonlights as a DJ specializing in vintage jazz, blues, and soul. Follow her on instagram @missredabouttown and Twitter @WhittonFrank
Geneviève Flati has puppeteered with The Jim Henson Company since 2015, performing in Brian Henson's Puppet Up Uncensored! at the Jim Henson Company's Charlie Chaplin Soundstage in Hollywood, and at the Charles M. Schulz Theater for Knott’s Scary Farm. She puppeteered for the new Jim Henson Company TV show, Earth to Ned, currently streaming on Disney+. "G" has done two international tours with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus as clown and sketch writer. She performed at Disneyland for 7 years as a puppeteer for Disney Junior Live on Stage and an improv stage performer in Tommorowland. "G" was most recently the puppet captain and lead puppeteer on Stuff of Legends, a DnD show from League of League of Legends, currently on YouTube. She has worked extensively as a VR host in 3 games featured on the Oculus- The Under Presents, The Tempest, and Dr. Crumb's School for Disobedient Pets.
Geneviève is the founder and director of (Wo)men Rule Broadway, a nonprofit production company, which made its international debut in London at the Vault Theater Festival 2020. She currently works as a pediatric hospital performer through Healthy Humor Nonprofit. She has studied and performed improv with the Upright Citizens Brigade, Second City Hollywood, iO West, Nerdist, and the Improv Space. She has been a house team member of Improv Shmimprov for almost 10 years and is a house team member for Fancy Hobo musical improv. “G” teaches improv, puppeteering, and acting at McCoyRigby Arts Conservatory and The Governor's School of the Arts.
Geneviève is the founder and director of (Wo)men Rule Broadway, a nonprofit production company, which made its international debut in London at the Vault Theater Festival 2020. She currently works as a pediatric hospital performer through Healthy Humor Nonprofit. She has studied and performed improv with the Upright Citizens Brigade, Second City Hollywood, iO West, Nerdist, and the Improv Space. She has been a house team member of Improv Shmimprov for almost 10 years and is a house team member for Fancy Hobo musical improv. “G” teaches improv, puppeteering, and acting at McCoyRigby Arts Conservatory and The Governor's School of the Arts.
Stephanie Hyden is a dynamic creative specialist, with a track record of successful projects both on and off the stage. As a performer, she plays in the surreal realms of award-winning VR/immersive theater hybrid The Under Presents and has taken participants on a dark journey with illusion-based remote show One Day Die. She has served in writing, assistant directorial, and show production roles for the ambitious pen pal experience iConfidant and Theatre Macabre in association with renowned director Darren Lynn Bousman. She appeared in, and was part of the production team for, the ground-breaking ensemble immersive shows The Tension Experience and The Lust Experience. Her onstage skills were honed as the Master of Ceremonies and Tour Host for the cult sensation The Devil’s Carnival and its follow-up, The Devil’s Carnival: Alleluia! Stephanie’s passion for live audience engagement and interactive psychology has led to in-development work for several recognizable studios and entertainment companies.
Dasha Kittredge is an actor and creative director specializing in interactive storytelling. She is currently a live actor in Oculus/Tender Claws' Tempest and The Under Presents which was a 2020 Emmy Awards Finalist for Innovation in Interactive Media as well winner of Forbes "VR Game of the Year" and winner of the AIXR VR Awards "VR Experience of the Year". She has performed as the lead actor in large scale immersive theatrical productions including 5 seasons of Delusion, Angela in The Willows which is available on Oculus Go/AmazeVR, ATLAS with The Speakeasy Society at Two Bit Circus, Rochester 1996 with Capital W (winner of the Golden Key award Hollywood Fringe Festival 2018), ABC Project's C(OVELL), Haus of Creep by JFI Productions, and Crimson Cabaret by The Unmarked Door. Dasha is the lead creative director of immersive interactive experiences with Metaforyou whose recent clients include Amazon Prime Video, Magnolia Pictures, Wayfair, New Balance, Pasadena Playhouse, and numerous private events. Moderator of SXSW 2019 panel Immersive Marketing: Beyond the Instagram Palace and a guest teacher at SUNY Purchase’s Immersive Performance class in fall of 2020. Dasha holds a BFA in Drama from NYU and additionally trained at UCB and the Moscow Art Theatre. Her work has been featured in the LA Times, CNET, and The Verge.
Terence Leclere is an actor, an immersive person, an entertainer lebenskünstler who communes by extemporaneous expression in moment to moment realities, imbued with his studies at William Esper Studios NY and The Second City TCLA, and honed through many lives lived in live performances around the world. Known as a prolific performer in the Los Angeles Immersive Theater community, select performer/deviser credits include Darren Lynn Bousman’s The Tension Experience and Theatre Macabre, Crimson Cabaret, Annie Lesser’s C(ovell) and E(levator), Drunken Devil, Whisperlodge, Speakeasy Society’s Kansas Collection, Ceaseless Fun’s The Stars, live events for Just Fix It Productions, Safehouse ‘77 (original cast), and regular performer/prose-titute Jacques Used in the Poetry Society of NY’s project The Poetry Brothel. Beyond performing in over 60 immersive interactive shows, events and experiential activations nationally and internationally, he is also the founder of #metaforyou, a company that provides immersive interactive services via talent, content, and consultation. He has recently spent the past year acting in the award winning VR experience The Under Presents by Tender Claws, bringing to life characters such as Russell the Sweeper as well as (one of the 11) Prospero(s) in their acclaimed meta show within a show TEMPEST.
Find him @terenceleclere on your preferred social media. www.terenceleclere.com
Find him @terenceleclere on your preferred social media. www.terenceleclere.com
Currently living in Los Angeles, Deirdre V. Lyons has been in over 75 Film and Theatrical productions throughout the west coast. Right before the shut down, she was a cast member with Model Land, Tyra Banks newest project.
She has worked with some of the premier immersive companies in Los Angeles, including the critically acclaimed JFI Productions, as part of the original cast of “The Willows” which enjoyed two remounts due to its popularity and a virtual reality experience on the Oculus platform, which was followed by another VR film called ‘Freakin’ Weekend.’
In 2019 she joined the cast of ‘The Under Presents’ from the production company Tender Claws and their subsequent production The Under Presents: Tempest. She is an principle in Finding Pandora X, and a founding member of The Ferryman Collective, a group of artists dedicated to creating live theater in VR.
She has worked with some of the premier immersive companies in Los Angeles, including the critically acclaimed JFI Productions, as part of the original cast of “The Willows” which enjoyed two remounts due to its popularity and a virtual reality experience on the Oculus platform, which was followed by another VR film called ‘Freakin’ Weekend.’
In 2019 she joined the cast of ‘The Under Presents’ from the production company Tender Claws and their subsequent production The Under Presents: Tempest. She is an principle in Finding Pandora X, and a founding member of The Ferryman Collective, a group of artists dedicated to creating live theater in VR.
Hailing from Vancouver, BC Haylee Nichele started her professional training at Arts Umbrella and continued in NYC at the Juilliard School where she graduated with a BFA in Dance. She has 10 years of immersive performance experience and has worked for: Punchdrunk, Third Rail Projects, Justin Denton’s Legion HoloLense Experience and Chained: A Victorian Nightmare, Capital W, The Speakeasy Society, and currently you can find her in Tempest by Tender Claws. She is also an immersive creator and her work PACK co-created by Samantha-Jane Grey and Thoenn Glover was shown at the Scotia Dance Center in Vancouver and CREATURE co-created by Justin Denton and produced by The Great Co. She consulted for the VR experience The Key, is part of The 5th Wall Forum’s inaugural teams, and has taught many immersive workshops in the USA and Canada.
After Soren Royer-McHugh had a few life-changing altercations with Grotowski and the ‘physical theater,’ he decided he'd keep acting until they make him stop. He is a member of LA's Ceaseless Fun theater company. instagram.com/blunderyears // sorenroyermchugh.strikingly.com"
Katelyn Schiller an award-winning Actor, Playwright, Illustrator, and Co-Artistic Director of Los Angeles immersive theatre company Spy Brunch. A devised works creator and performer, she works on the front lines of the LA immersive scene acting and collaborating with companies to empower hits like ABC Project's C(ovell), Drunken Devil’s Bacchanalia & Bloody Gras, Sampson Creative Enterprise’s Grunge Shop Tavern, CoAct’s The Sideshow, Spy Brunch’s Safehouse ’77, Safehouse ’82, and The Pod. Kateyn is a live virtual reality actor for the video game company Tender Claws, in the experience, The Under Presents. For limited runs you can help her, Prospero, conjure a tempest in Tempest; a VR exclusive immersive theatre production inspired by Shakespeare’s wettest classic. Katelyn Schiller likes tiny things. They're like regular things, but like, tiny. See her draw cats on instagram @schillerkatelyn
Educating The Next Generation of Makers (Salon)
Elena Araoz directs theatre and opera internationally, Off-Broadway, and regionally with productions spanning Brooklyn Academy of Music, Cherry Lane, New York City Opera, Prague Shakespeare, New York Theatre Workshop Next Door, Bucharest International Theatre, Glimmerglass Opera, to PEN America. Upcoming productions include Anna in the Tropics (Barrington Stage), the audio drama Nightfall (Audible), the opera I Am a Dreamer Who No Longer Dreams (Resonance Works, after her acclaimed premiere staging with White Snake Projects), and a new virtual opera A Survivor’s Odyssey (White Snake). She recently conceived and directed the virtual experience The Manic Monologues (McCarter Theatre). A virtual production of Araoz’s Sugar Skull replaced its second national tour. Her virtual a farm for meme was dubbed by The New York Times as “form-busting” for its unique combination of “box puppets, shadow play, live film and archival footage into a gorgeous mise-en-scène that feels theatrical in its purposefully homemade aesthetic.” The Wall Street Journal raved, “A remarkable new environment for operatic experimentation,” about her virtual CGI/motion-capture Alice in the Pandemic (White Snake). Time Out New York mentions, “Elena Araoz is a director with deep wells of imagination; she seems drawn to magical realist work.” She is a faculty member at Princeton University where she founded and leads Innovations in Socially Distant Performance. www.elenaaraoz.com
David Bassuk (he/him) Professor of Theater Arts, School of the Arts. Purchase College, State University of New York. M.F.A. Southern Methodist University. www.davidbassuk.com
His teaching explores the integration of theater, transmedia storytelling, gameplay and the design of immersive narratives and storyworlds. Teacher and mentor to students working in pervasive and alternate reality games as well as transmedia narratives. Directs in professional Acting program, mentors students in stage directing, creative writing and designing experimental performance. https://www.purchase.edu/live/profiles/269-david-bassuk
Currently, Creative Director of White Horse Immersive Studio based in Hangzhou, China - whose mission is creating immersive interactive work in performance and media. http://whitehorseimmersive.com In Philadelphia, served as Artistic Director of Novel Stages Theater and later Arcadia Shakespeare Festival; in Los Angeles, Co- Artistic Director of Ark Theater Company. In earlier years, Lincoln Center Theater, American Place Theater and the National Endowment for the Arts. Director Theater Arcadia University 1990-2003, Dean Theater Arts & Film Purchase College from 2003-2007.
Theme Park Design: Creative Director immersive theme park, “Magical Mystery Tree” in Hainan, China, under-construction in Evergrande Group’s development Ocean Flower Island. Theater Directing: Premieres: Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, American Camera at Lincoln Center, Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle as musical and Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People. Academic Productions: The Maids, Tales from the Vienna Woods, Master and Margarita, Hedda Gabler, Peer Gynt, Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Cherry Orchard.
His teaching explores the integration of theater, transmedia storytelling, gameplay and the design of immersive narratives and storyworlds. Teacher and mentor to students working in pervasive and alternate reality games as well as transmedia narratives. Directs in professional Acting program, mentors students in stage directing, creative writing and designing experimental performance. https://www.purchase.edu/live/profiles/269-david-bassuk
Currently, Creative Director of White Horse Immersive Studio based in Hangzhou, China - whose mission is creating immersive interactive work in performance and media. http://whitehorseimmersive.com In Philadelphia, served as Artistic Director of Novel Stages Theater and later Arcadia Shakespeare Festival; in Los Angeles, Co- Artistic Director of Ark Theater Company. In earlier years, Lincoln Center Theater, American Place Theater and the National Endowment for the Arts. Director Theater Arcadia University 1990-2003, Dean Theater Arts & Film Purchase College from 2003-2007.
Theme Park Design: Creative Director immersive theme park, “Magical Mystery Tree” in Hainan, China, under-construction in Evergrande Group’s development Ocean Flower Island. Theater Directing: Premieres: Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, American Camera at Lincoln Center, Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle as musical and Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People. Academic Productions: The Maids, Tales from the Vienna Woods, Master and Margarita, Hedda Gabler, Peer Gynt, Lady Windermere’s Fan and The Cherry Orchard.
Anna Henson is an artist, researcher, and educator working in spatial, interactive, and analog media. Her work engages performance practices and critical perspectives to center explorations of embodiment, co-creation, and storytelling. Anna’s background spans academia and industry, sparking dialogue across these communities. Anna has worked as a projection designer for theatre on Broadway and beyond, as well as in creative production roles in AR/VR and experiential advertising. She holds an MS in Computational Design from Carnegie Mellon University, an MFA from The Glasgow School of Art, has been a National Academy of Sciences Student Fellow, and creative resident of the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. Anna has contributed to ACM Designing Interactive Systems, the RealTime Conference, HCI International, and Immerse News. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Practice in Emerging Media Arts at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
Patrick Jagoda (he/him) is Professor of Cinema & Media Studies and English at the University of Chicago and a game designer. He is Executive Editor of Critical Inquiry and director of the Weston Game Lab. He is also co-founder of the Game Changer Chicago Design Lab and Transmedia Story Lab. Patrick's books include Network Aesthetics (2016), The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer (2016), and Experimental Games: Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification (2020). He has also co-directed several alternate reality games, including the parasite (2017), Terrarium (2019), A Labyrinth (2020), and ECHO (2020), which take up themes including diversity and difference, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. He is a recipient of a 2020 Guggenheim Fellowship.
Halloween In Quarantine (Panel)
Christian Ackerman (Creator/Producer/Director - Joe Bob's Haunted Drive-In): Los Angeles-based producer, writer, and director Christian Ackerman began his career as a production assistant at The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Since then, he has gone on to produce over 25 feature films including Portal, Deadly Reunion, Bethany, Stalked By My Doctor: Patient's Revenge, and Family Vanished. He spearheaded the revered My Favorite Horror Movie trilogy of books, featuring 150 essays by horror legends and luminaries on the film that shaped their lives.
Allison Fox (Co-Founder at 88Twenty Group) For over 20 years she's cast, directed, produced, and operated haunts and themed entertainment experiences all across California. Now, as co-founder of the newly formed 88Twenty Group, Allison is developing new ways to integrate live entertainment, filmed media, and technology to create unique and memorable experiences.
Troy Heard is the artistic director of Majestic Repertory Theatre in downtown Las Vegas and creator of their immersive experiences Krampus and Horrorwood Video. He's CEO of Table 8 Immersive, an experiential marketing agency with clients such as Jack Daniel's, MGM Resorts International and Cirque du Soleil. He's a graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design and life-long Halloween addict.
Evan Neiden (they/them) (Creator, Candle House Collective) Evan Neiden is a poet, performer, and creator of experimental theatre with a background in ARGs, haunts, audio drama, and traditional folk storytelling. In 2018, they founded Candle House Collective – which, since its inception, has created over 20 remote immersive experiences for audiences of one at a time. They make work that explores the human condition as a conduit for self-exploration and empathetic connection.
David Markland is the executive director and co-founder of Midsummer Scream, the world's largest Halloween and horror convention (at least during non-pandemic-riddled years). In 2006 he created CreepyLA, one of the first sites to feature reviews and a guide to local haunted attractions and other spooky events. He has worked for over 20 years in live events and marketing, with MTV Networks, Nike, ESPN, and the Special Olympics. KROQ's Kevin and Bean declared him "The King of Halloween" shortly before their show was cancelled - coincidence?
Embodying Virtual Space w/ Tara O'Con (Workshop)
Tara O’Con is a multidisciplinary performing artist, experiential consultant and certified professional transformation coach drawing from over 20 years of experience as an independent performer/choreographer and as a collaborating artist with Third Rail Projects (original creative cast of Then She Fell, Grand Paradise, Ghost Light among others). She also works with experiential brands and immersive theater-makers to create meaningful and ethical storytelling experiences for their audience and with creatives of all backgrounds to enact powerful change in their personal and professional lives. more @taraocon.com IG:@taraocon
Social Play (Clubhouse)
Kyle Kaminsky is an experience designer, event producer, and play enthusiast. He has designed wellness play programming for several start ups and is the co-founder of PLAY, an organization dedicated to making the world a more playful place through in-person and virtual immersive experiences. His most recent creation, “the silent PLAY experiment”, was featured on NPR. He has created and facilitated corporate team building experiences for 7+ years to improve company culture through the practice of play.
Michael Ronen is a founder, experience designer, digital event producer, and facilitator for the virtual work era. He has produced and directed award winning immersive theatrical events across the EU. He founded tech startups Splash VR: the first VR video camera app, and Spilly: AR/AI camera apps licensed to Giphy Inc. Today Michael consults senior management on strategy, fundraising, and corporate values. As a virtual conference networking facilitator, he recently facilitated DLD and Kinnerent with connecting over 1000 attendees in his method of "digital intimacy". As a digital producer, he produced and designed the Burning Man multiverse Sparklverse.
Kyle and Michael founded the Social Play club on Clubhouse to bring more intimacy into the audible only space. Through exploring the art of conversation and empathy building through the practice of play, the Social Play club strives to increase EQ, help people stretch their social muscles after pandemic atrophy, bridge gaps between all cultures and languages, and design experiences that bring a deeper sense of connection and humanity to people all over the world.
Kyle and Michael founded the Social Play club on Clubhouse to bring more intimacy into the audible only space. Through exploring the art of conversation and empathy building through the practice of play, the Social Play club strives to increase EQ, help people stretch their social muscles after pandemic atrophy, bridge gaps between all cultures and languages, and design experiences that bring a deeper sense of connection and humanity to people all over the world.