Episode 2: Immersive Experiences

• See pictures from the team's visit to Galactic Starcruiser!
• Pop & Play, Season 4, Episode 1: An Immersive Experience at Disney’s Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser
• Pop & Play, Season 2, Episode 1:  Role Playing Games with Matthew Berland and Antero Garcia
• Pop & Play, Season 2, Episode 5: Choose Your Own Adventure

Nathan Holbert:

Welcome to Pop and Play, the award-winning podcast. Still winning so many awards.

Haeny Yoon:

Wow. All we do is win, win, win.

Nathan Holbert:

The award-winning podcast, all about play in its many forms, silliest forms, serious forms, and even powerful forms. I'm your co-host, Nathan Holbert.

Haeny Yoon:

And I'm Haeny Yoon. We are two educational researchers that figured it might be fun doing something other than write articles that no one will read.

Nathan Holbert:

People read all of my articles. They're huge. Huge.

Haeny Yoon:

Okay. You keep telling yourself that. So each week we chat with other scholars whose articles do get read, artists, activists, parents and children about the significance and value of play in their lives.

Nathan Holbert:

And in this season we've been exploring what it means to play roles, whether we're talking about role-playing or playing roles in games, craft, theater. What's it all about? What compels us to try out these new identities and engage in these spaces?

Haeny Yoon:

And today we're talking about immersive theater. How do you design opportunities to invite others to take on roles? And what are the techniques and systems used to tell a story in an immersive way?

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, that is still in some ways a mystery to me, and I'm excited to talk to our guest today, Caro Murphy, who is a real expert and professional at creating immersive experiences. You and I have been in preparation, not just for this episode, but for the whole season on a journey.

Haeny Yoon:

Yes, a journey is correct.

Nathan Holbert:

A real quest to experience and understand immersive theater. Right?

Haeny Yoon:

Yes.

Nathan Holbert:

We've done multiple things, but the two largest examples, mostly I should say the two most expensive things that we've done to explore immersive theater is first of all the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser experience, which we'll talk about a little today with our guest, Caro Murphy, who was instrumental in designing it. But the other immersive theater experience that we did together was Sleep No More. Let me say a bit about Sleep No More, because I think there's an interesting contrast here, right?

Haeny Yoon:

Yes.

Nathan Holbert:

So Sleep No More is an immersive theater experience that's been running for many years in New York City. It's essentially the story of Macbeth. It is modern dance, and it is an immersive theater experience where the story is unfolding across five floors of a hotel, and the audience member wanders through and you encounter the actors. You see the story unfold. You see it unfold in little snippets.

You see it unfold oftentimes out of order. And you choose whether or not you're going to stick around on one floor, whether you're going to follow an actor all over the place, whether you're going to just jump around on your own. And so over time you encounter different bits of the story over the course of two hours, and at the end you're probably left with, "What the hell did I just see?" And then you talk to your friends who also went to it and they say, "Well, I saw this crazy thing." And you say, "Oh my God, I missed that. I saw this crazy thing." And they say, "Oh my God, I missed that." And then you, together, piece together bits of the story.

Haeny Yoon:

Yes. Right. I know. What was your experience like?

Nathan Holbert:

I had fun. I thought it was weird.

Haeny Yoon:

That tracks.

Nathan Holbert:

I always have fun. I'm so easy.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, I know.

Nathan Holbert:

I'm such an easy audience member. I really, really am. As I said, I did enjoy it. But I think the thing that is fascinating to me is the way in which this is immersive theater, but us, the theater goers are not impacting the scenes at all. We are purely choosing what to see, when to see it. Sometimes we're choosing on accident, but I thought that was really interesting. And I think, I don't know what to make of that. I don't know if I would've preferred for them to say, "Okay, you're supposed to be here at this time, then you're supposed to be there at this other time," so you can piece it together. Or if I liked the serendipity. But it was a positive experience for me, but it was also very confusing.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. So let me ask you an honest question.

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

Haeny Yoon:

Okay. So did the immersive part of it, and to me it meant putting on a mask and walking around and deciding where you were going to go. The skeptical part of me can't help but think, "Oh, that's cute." It seems like a little bit of a gimmick, right?

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

Haeny Yoon:

And would I have enjoyed the experience more if I just got to sit down in a seat and watch a really well-produced version, contemporary version of Macbeth that told me this story and got me into it. What's the difference between those two experiences? And did this particular experience help you get into the story a lot more than if you sat down in a theater and watched it?

Nathan Holbert:

Was the gimmick worth it?

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah.

Nathan Holbert:

I think yes. I don't think seeing the scenes out of order mattered to me, but I think being in the set and being invited to explore it, to investigate, to poke my head around a corner, that was very cool. I think it was you who mentioned this, they saw somebody else looking at books and looking at notes.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, I did.

Nathan Holbert:

Was this you? Yeah. And then you like, "Oh, I should,"-

Haeny Yoon:

Open things.

Nathan Holbert:

"I should open things." That's cool, to me, the fact that you get to actually dig around in the set.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, that was an epiphany because I struggled with, "What do I do here? What am I supposed to do? What am I allowed to do?" Because deep down inside, I am a rule follower. So I was like, "I don't know what the rules are." I saw someone opening up a suitcase, I think, and I was like, "Oh, I guess you could open things." So then I went through this whole quest on this one floor where I literally opened everything. I was like, "Hmm, open this, open this drawer, open this case, open this, whatever." So I was doing that and I went into a bedroom, it seemed like a child's bedroom. So I went in there and I was like, "I'm just going to open everything here." And I was the only person there.

Nathan Holbert:

Get the drawers.

Haeny Yoon:

So I'm opening everything, having a good old time. This lady comes panting and screaming, and she's obviously an actor, pregnant. And she's like, "Hah-hah-hah" and then she jumps on the bed that I was right next to, and I'm like, "Ahhh!" What's happening right now?" And then after, so she's in the bed, she's writhing in pain, and then all these people start coming into the room and-

Nathan Holbert:

They all followed.

Haeny Yoon:

... following her. And I was like, "Oh, this is cool. I was already here."

Nathan Holbert:

And those are small rooms. So you were right next to her.

Haeny Yoon:

I was right next to her. I did not know what to do. And then I got really invested in following her. And the thing is, if I could really follow her the whole time, that would've been amazing. But I couldn't.

Nathan Holbert:

Nope.

Haeny Yoon:

Because she got lost somewhere.

Nathan Holbert:

Too many people. Sometimes they also lose you on purpose so that you have to go somewhere else. But yeah.

Haeny Yoon:

So I think that was a little bit hard for me because I really enjoy and appreciate a story. I think that's why I like the theater experience. I like watching movies sometimes. I feel like even in reality television, I love it, but I like the story that's unfolding in front of me. I like being like, "I'm really interested in this character because they've developed over time." And I felt like for me, that was the part that was missing, is I didn't feel connected to the story, the character, the plays, anything. I didn't even know if there was a plot. I was like, "I don't know." I could guess maybe there's something happening in this insane asylum, but there could also be nothing happening here. I don't know. There could be all these bathtubs here for no reason.

Nathan Holbert:

Room full of tubs.

Haeny Yoon:

So I didn't feel an affinity or connection to it. And I think that's sometimes my struggle in these immersive experiences is I think it's great. I tried it. I'll give it a college try, but I also feel like-

Nathan Holbert:

The good old college try.

Haeny Yoon:

I feel disconnected.

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah. That raises a lot of important questions for us. What is the role of the designers to communicate to the audience how to play? Yes, people imagine and people play roles, as a kid, we've talked about that. But immersive theater is not a normal experience. And so how do you communicate to the audience, the players, how to play in this space? So let's talk to Caro. Let's talk to an expert.

Haeny Yoon:

Sounds great.

Nathan Holbert:

Great.

Today I am very excited to welcome our guest, Caro Murphy, to Pop and Play to talk about immersive theater. Caro is an experienced designer currently on faculty at Northeastern University. And in their former life, they were an immersive experience director at Disney's Galactic Starcruiser, the Star Wars Cruise. It's not quite a cruise, but it's still Star Wars down in Florida. So very excited to have you. Welcome Caro.

Caro Murphy:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Nathan Holbert:

Well, as I already said, we're excited to have you.

Caro Murphy:

I'm excited. Are you excited? All excited.

Nathan Holbert:

So much excitement.

Haeny Yoon:

Triple excited.

Nathan Holbert:

Triple excited.

Caro Murphy:

You don't want to be in this room, it's electrifying.

Haeny Yoon:

It is, it is.

Nathan Holbert:

Coming in hot. So we are going to talk with you about immersive theater today and your many experiences in that. But before we dive into immersive theater, we like to start with a game. We like to just loosen ourselves up and make sure those conversations are pure and deep. But today I've decided to create a game that is adjacent to immersive theater, and that is something like a text-based adventure game. Did you ever play those back in the day?

Caro Murphy:

Yes, of course.

Haeny Yoon:

What are text-based adventure games?

Nathan Holbert:

We don't have time for this. Haeny.

Haeny Yoon:

Yes we do. Please explain yourself.

Nathan Holbert:

The one that I always think of is Zork. It's all text, no images, and it says, "You're in a room, to the north is a forest, to the east is a white house with a picket fence." And then you type in, "Go north," or "Examine fence," that kind of thing.

Haeny Yoon:

Got it.

Nathan Holbert:

And you move from scene to scene and you have an adventure.

Haeny Yoon:

Thank you for explaining that to me, Nathan.

Nathan Holbert:

So in collaboration with ChatGPT, I needed to use a little AI to help me on this.

Caro Murphy:

Amazing.

Haeny Yoon:

Shout out to ChatGPT.

Nathan Holbert:

Shout out to our good friend.

Caro Murphy:

Our good friend.

Nathan Holbert:

So we have together developed this little text-based adventure game. It's not very long, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to set the scene for you and give you a few choices. And then if you could talk through your decision-making process, and then eventually make a choice, then we'll move on to the next scene. Does that sound good?

Caro Murphy:

Yeah, that sounds great.

Nathan Holbert:

Okay. So opening scene. You stand in a grand hall with three distinct and open doors before you. Each door seems to lead to a vastly different world. A brightly colored door with parrots and treasure maps etched on it, you smell the sea air and hear the sound of explosions and metal clashing. The second door is a dark, slightly ajar door with eerie sounds seeping through. The air, passing through the door, feels wet and smells old. And the third door, a heavy wooden door with a grand crest and torches on either side, you smell horse manure. Which door would you like to check out?

Caro Murphy:

I'm going in the second door because I love horror.

Nathan Holbert:

Ah, excellent.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, nice.

Caro Murphy:

Love horror.

Nathan Holbert:

Well, we will follow the creaky ominous door. So next scene here. The door creaks ominously as you step into the dimly lit foyer of the mansion. A chilling draft whispers through the air, a grand staircase looms before you, each step groaning with secrets. To your left, a portrait's eye seems to follow you and a ghostly cat flickers in and out of existence down a shadowy corridor. You have three choices here. You can explore the grand staircase. The ornate staircase beckons you upward, promising hidden rooms and forgotten stories. You can converse with the portrait. Drawn to the eerie portrait, you feel a strange compulsion to communicate with it. Or you can follow the ghostly cat, the ethereal cat seems to know the mansion secrets guiding you down a path less traveled.

Caro Murphy:

Ghost cat, ghost cat, ghost cat. Oh, definitely.

Nathan Holbert:

Tell us about this-

Caro Murphy:

Love ghosts, love cats.

Nathan Holbert:

Tell us about this choice.

Haeny Yoon:

You love ghosts and you love cats.

Caro Murphy:

Obvious. I love ghost and I love cats. This is obviously the most-

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my God.

Nathan Holbert:

Okay, let's follow the ghostly cat. The ghostly cat leads you down a labyrinth of corridors into the depths of the mansion. The air grows colder and heavier with each step. In a dimly lit underground chamber, you find an ancient altar. As you approach the altar the cat explodes in dark energy, engulfing the room in a feeling of malevolence. You hear the cat's last whisper. "You are now a prisoner of the mansion doomed to roam its haunted halls forever."

Caro Murphy:

Awesome. I get to stay with the cat? I win because I get to stay in the haunted mansion with the ghost cat.

Nathan Holbert:

You definitely got a "Game Over," screen, I don't know. Well, let's talk about it. Let's talk a little bit about how you've engaged in this field and all the storytelling that we just talked about. Why immersive theater? How did you get involved in this? Why is it something you're driven by?

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. Can I backtrack a little bit?

Caro Murphy:

Sure.

Nathan Holbert:

No, I already asked the question. Can't go back.

Haeny Yoon:

Can you explain to the audience or people that might be listening, what immersive theater is and how that might be different from theater, theater?

Caro Murphy:

Absolutely. So I think of immersive art forms as being they all, the thing that they have in common is that they're somewhere on these axes of intersection of the thing that I think of as kind of game. So mechanics and ways and rules of engaging with things and agency, like the participants' agency, and what kind of control they have over the choices that they make and whether those choices have meaning. And then an immersive environment, like a physically transformative space in some way. And so things can fall anywhere on those scales, but if they fall within each of these spectrums, then you are probably looking at something that is in the immersive category or space.

Nathan Holbert:

So why immersive theater? So it has all these different features that you just talked to us about. Why is it something that you've been drawn to and gotten involved in?

Caro Murphy:

Oh gosh, that's a great question. I can't not do it is the best answer that I can give you. How some kids on the playground sit there and play with the flowers and then those kids end up being horticulturalists and then some kids do... I was the kid who was like, "Look out The Shredder's coming, everyone we got to prepare." I have always been creating participatory games for people and I don't know how to not do it.

Nathan Holbert:

I like that. So you just pointed out something that I hadn't really, we've had a few conversations now, that I hadn't really focused on before, and that is this idea of it's about building something for other people. And I think that's really interesting. We could talk to you or other guests about what it's like to perform in immersive theater or to be involved in theater. In fact, we did in a recent episode. But what you just said is something about the thing that's driving you is the opportunity to create experiences for others, which I think is really cool.

Caro Murphy:

And it's this sharing of experience and the transmission of experience between people, which I find to be mysterious and magical and wonderful.

Haeny Yoon:

I loved that Shredder came into this company.

Nathan Holbert:

It was nice, Yeah, I know.

Haeny Yoon:

Shout out to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Nathan Holbert:

Well, so you mentioned, we talked about creating these experiences for others, and obviously you could give entire semester-long classes and lectures and workshops about how to do this properly. But can you talk a little bit about what are some of the key features? What are some of the key components of how you create those immersive experiences?

Caro Murphy:

I think of it in terms of storytelling. So in storytelling, we often think of we have characters and they have relationships, and then we have a setting and those things create events and plot and happenings. And in an immersive setting, you have characters and relationships and setting, but you also have this interaction mechanics. You have ways that you can engage in the world, and that makes a really, really big difference. So there's ways for you to participate, be part of the action, be involved in what's going on, and be in the spotlight and in the center of attention. And knowing when to be in that center of attention and when to let other people be in the center of attention is a huge part of the form.

Haeny Yoon:

Maybe related to that, what do you feel like is a main inspiration for designing an immersive experience? Because I heard you mention character, setting, relationships, and I see all of them as pretty fertile ground for a story to form. So is there a space where you feel you get the most inspiration from? Is it a character that you're trying to imagine in your head that you're like, "Yeah, this is what usually drives me." Or as an artifact like, "I used to really Leonardo," and that's going to drive how I think about these ideas. I'm just wondering where do you get your inspiration from?

Caro Murphy:

Myself, I'm a very aesthetic designer. So aesthetic in the term that we use it in game design, where aesthetic is about emotion and it's about conveying an emotion and allowing people to experience the emotion that you're trying to convey. So I tend to have a feeling that I want other people to experience, and then I design scenarios that I think will best transmit that feeling in the most clear and understandable way.

Haeny Yoon:

I like that. I actually didn't think about that, because I was just thinking about how even in writing, I was like, "Okay, character, setting, you might have things," but I love the idea that you're thinking about an emotion that you want to convey and bring to light.

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, that is a very, that's really cool. And that is, I am glad you mentioned the game design aspect because you could go the other direction. You could start with mechanics. I have this thing that looks interesting, I want to sort see what I can do with it, rather than coming from the direction you are, which is like how should it feel? Right. And then I can figure out the things to do to make that happen.

Caro Murphy:

Exactly. Exactly. And there's no wrong approach to how to do it. So I just think that there's no wrong way to approach design and well, actually that's not true. There's plenty of wrong ways to approach design, but I think that if you look at this dichotomy, this false dichotomy between mechanics and aesthetics, I think that you get really caught up in that minutia and it's like, "No, these are systems that work perfectly together and they can and should be partners, not enemies."

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, not designing one or the other. I want to take us into a specific instantiation of this. I think it's always useful to have an artifact to talk around. And so obviously one reason that we first started connecting and conversing was because of this Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser experience that you had such an important hand in creating, and then Haney and I had a chance to experience what about that. So thinking about the emotions or the feelings as you were engaging in the design process behind that, what were some of the things you were trying to allow participants to experience in that event? And then maybe, if you're able to, talk a little bit about what are some of the moves you made or advice you gave to the actors or things that you did on the set to try to bring those about?

Caro Murphy:

Yeah, so it was such an interesting challenge because the audience size is so large and there are so many diverting paths and there are lots of constraints of design. We are in a theatrical environment that is highly professional. We have certain things that are absolutely expectations that guests are coming in with. There are experiences that every guest is entitled to, and then there are other experiences that you may find or that you may stumble across. And finding avenues for people to be able to raise their hands for those things was something that was a huge collaborative effort with the team. So the way that the Imagineers were working with the immersive experience directors, the way that we were working with the actors, this was just all a wildly collaborative effort to make that happen.

I can give an example of some of the design thinking. So there was the idea that we wanted to have, there was a luggage arrived at a certain point and there was this idea that there should be something mysterious about this luggage and something cool about this luggage, but it also had to be a collaborative activity. It also had to forward some character beats in an interesting way. It also had to teach people a little bit about how to use their data pad. And so-

Haeny Yoon:

I struggled with the data pad.

Nathan Holbert:

You struggled with the data pad.

Caro Murphy:

Yeah. If you don't build tutorials into your system and you just expect people to figure out, it can be really hard. So of course I'm a game designer, so I was like, "Let's make a puzzle."

And then I was like, "What is the simplest third-grade level puzzle that we can put on stage that will allow people to collaboratively do something, physicalize something, use the data pad, have some interactions with characters and make these things happen?" So designing that, part of it was process of talking to a lot of other people involved, I'm talking to other designers, creating this scenario and then teaching it to actors and making sure that they understand the goals of the experience and the goals of the education. And not just, a lot of times actors want to know the why. Their focus is the motivation of their character and why their character is doing the scene. And you're like, "You're doing it teaching the guest how to do it," which is not a great character motivation. So there's also collaborative process with the actor where they can be like, "Oh, I can maybe supply some motivation here. It could be because this or this or this." Awesome. And then you can figure that out with people in a collaborative sense.

Haeny Yoon:

There's so much level of uncertainty and risk in that, right?

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

Haeny Yoon:

I can imagine if I was an actor, because this happens even when I teach, I just don't know what I'm going to expect or how people are going to react to a provocation or a question or something. And you just get all sweaty and you're like, "Oh my God, is anyone going to say anything?" And I think that's such a risky position for someone who's acting or facilitating any kind of immersive space, not just Starcruiser, but any immersive space is such a big risk as a facilitator. There's definitely a lot of, I don't want to say savvy, but something, intuition. Is it all intuitive? What kind of skills or conditions do you actually need to facilitate experiences like this? And I think this relates to educators too.

Caro Murphy:

So there are some very teachable skills. So I have a training course where I go through technique, specific technique, and I break this down into physical techniques, mental techniques, emotional techniques like social and emotional techniques, and then miscellaneous techniques of, okay. And then also techniques for like, "How to get out of dodge if things are going badly." And those are based on psychological frameworks of like, "Okay, here are the dark arts of how to manipulate people. Please only ever use this for good." But it's important to know if you're dealing with an irritable person, then if you can deescalate that situation quickly, then awesome. You can continue your scene.

So an example of technique that is physical is understanding things about your body in space and other people's body in spaces. And so being able to include people by using space to your advantage. And so there's this great technique called triangulation. And with triangulation you find someone who is far away from you and you make eye contact with them and you speak to them. And then you find somebody who's at a 90 degree angle and you make eye contact with them and they're closer to you and you include them. And now everybody in the space in between has been included. So now I, as an actor, I don't have to exhaust myself by making eye contact with every single person.

Nathan Holbert:

You, you, you, you.

Caro Murphy:

And I'm not scanning, I'm landing my intentions on the right person. And still using that technique of understanding physical space to include people. So that's one of the dozens of examples of specific technique. Some of these things seem really obvious to people, but they're not always. So I teach a technique called noticing. And noticing is when you notice something about another person and then say it out loud, so you can be like, "Wow, you have really beautiful blue eyes."

Nathan Holbert:

Thank you.

Caro Murphy:

And it makes you feel so good. But especially if it's something that somebody likes about themselves, and you can usually see what the things are that people like about themselves, people put that on display. So people assume that everyone is already complimenting everybody about things. But that's not true in reality. Usually people don't notice things about each other. And so getting noticed makes you feel awesome and makes you feel really included. So teaching this as a technique for social skills is something that is applicable, obviously not just in immersive theater, but in every facet of education and life.

Nathan Holbert:

I was fluttering my eyelashes just for the-

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my gosh.

Nathan Holbert:

... waiting to be noticed. Waiting to be noticed.

Haeny Yoon:

To play devil's advocate, this is a question for both of you. What if you don't getting noticed?

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

Caro Murphy:

So we also can teach the catch and release technique, so you can pretty much notice immediately if somebody is not vibing with what you're putting down. Some people really just, they don't want to play with you. So we teach actors to just leave the door open. You come up to somebody, you make eye contact, try to start a little conversation with them. They're like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no." You can see their body posture shut down. My cohort Jen Bascom would say they become pretzel arm guests. They fold in on themselves. And in that case, you just let the person know that you find them fascinating. You'd love to talk to them, you have to go. You'll see them around. So you've left the door open. They can approach you if they want to, but they don't have to.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, I think that's really important, because I think about how, I don't know, sometimes you want to be involved, sometimes you don't want to be involved. And I feel like even having the choice to decide for yourself is also a part of the agency.

Caro Murphy:

Definitely.

Haeny Yoon:

And I think about what hard work, that idea of being a facilitator is. It's like you could have all these skills, but at the end of the day, you really have to be attuned to people and have some kind of sense of empathy and care and consideration for how people are entering a space. And I feel like that's really hard work.

Nathan Holbert:

It also is making me think of how it's such a fine line because a little nudging is important because you mentioned this, the catch and release, there still has to be a catch moment. There has be that part where you open the door. And knowing the extent to which you can push on that and make the person maybe slightly uncomfortable or at least let them know you're there for that conversation or that opportunity to play. Knowing the degree to which you can do that and still back off and still leave that door open, that seems like a really hard. It seems like something you really do have to work at a lot.

Caro Murphy:

Identifying where there are boundaries that are flexible or walls that are not right, can be really, that discernment is something that can take some time. And also I do think that while people who are naturally inclined to social emotional skills excel at this work, it can be taught. These are things that you can practice and skill up in and get really good at no matter who you are. Just like you can get really good at drawing, even if you're not naturally skilled at drawing.

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah. I'm curious, Haeny, I want to invite you in on that too, because I think this was in our Starcruiser experience. We had this range of people in our group of four that had different levels of how much they wanted to go in, and also the extent to which we did or did not go in to the experience, once we were there. And I think I would put myself in mostly on a let's play and let's play hard mode, not fully. There was a lot of people that played a lot harder than me, as you can imagine.

But I was like, yeah, I want to try to play, I want to try to role-play with this character. And so there were times where I would still feel really nervous to do it and I would stand back, but so many times the actors would do just what you described. They'd give you a little opening and then you would, "Oh yeah, I want to play too." And then you sort of stumble into it and you kind of have fun after that. But I don't know that you had the same experience. I feel like if I could characterize it as you were down to play, but there was a sense of crossing that threshold was a challenge.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. I'm sure that as you're designing this, you're probably thinking about the ends of the spectrum of people who enter into the experience, like the person that is really positively inclined to it, and the person that's pretzel armed, as you say. So how do you think about those two experiences and how do you stifle that, I guess?

Caro Murphy:

So in the immersive design industry, we have some terminology that we use for the kind of different ways that people interact. So we think of things in terms, and this is just one framework. There are actually many frameworks for this. The framework that I am going to talk about now is the level of immersion. So we think of it as sunbathers. Sunbathers are here to watch and just chill. There are waiters, which sounds like what you are, Haeny. A waiter is they want to get in the water, but they're not really sure. And, they're in there and their ankles are in and they're like, "I'm doing it, kind of."

Nathan Holbert:

They see Nathan flailing in the water like, "Hell, he looks dumb. I'm not going all the way in."

Caro Murphy:

And then we've got swimmers, which is that sounds like what you are, Nathan. So the swimmers are quite proficient in the water already. They can get themselves into the immersive side of the pool and no problem. And then there are divers who are like, "The swimming is not enough. I'm going to explore a whole new world at the bottom of the ocean." And you're like, "Go for it. That's awesome." So generally speaking, we try to focus different storylines and different actors on different levels of immersion.

Nathan Holbert:

Oh, interesting.

Caro Murphy:

So you'll want to create things that are scaled for different types of players. So one of the things that was a fun and interesting design challenge was this feedback that we would get from waiters quite a bit of, "I didn't know how to play and it seemed like other people had information that I didn't have."

Haeny Yoon:

That's me.

Caro Murphy:

"So what am I doing wrong?" And there was a lot of self recrimination. And a lot of like, "Maybe I'm just bad at this," or "I'm terrible," or something. And it's like, "No, no, no." There are, I think, different approaches to this. And I think that's something that we're still trying to crack that nut a little bit in the industry is how do we ensure that the waiters are invited into swim, because we see them in the water and we're like, "Okay, you're fine. You're good." And I think that there's a part of this is maybe activating those diver players.

So the divers are players. So if another player had come up to you and been like, "Oh my goodness, the force just sent me a message and you and I have to work together on this thing," that probably would've been a different sort of invitation. If you knew that it was a player playing with you and not an actor who is managing a lot of time and managing more people. And you're like, "Oh, I feel like waiting in line to get my turn with them." But if other players were like, "Hey, I have a secret mission for you," I think that feels different.

Haeny Yoon:

That's a great point actually.

Nathan Holbert:

That's super great.

Haeny Yoon:

I remember when we went to that cargo room, I only went because you forced me to go.

Nathan Holbert:

I'm excellent at that.

Haeny Yoon:

Or else I would've been gone straight to the bar and gotten another Margarita. So I feel like I wouldn't have even been there if Nathan wasn't like, "Just come with me to the cargo." So I do, I think the engaging other players to figure out how they can scaffold, because I think about that same thing with the classrooms. The teacher isn't the only one that has some agency and facilitating power to think about those relationship and dynamics.

Caro Murphy:

Absolutely.

Nathan Holbert:

And there are ways that happened on the Starcruiser where I would call this a mechanic. I don't think it would necessarily, I don't know if this counts as a mechanic in the game designer sense, but I would notice Rave? Was that the character's name, the scoundrel's name, he would often be like, "Okay, we need to distract somebody. I need you to go distract that character over there and then I need you to be on guard over here." And so there were ways in which they were trying to, the actor was trying to get us involved in the story that was going on. It was a simplistic mechanic, go do distraction as a simple go over there and play. But what would happen was sometimes one of those players would see a Haeny or see a me and be like, "Hey, we're going to distract the stormtroopers, come with us." And that thing you just talked about, they were activating each other. And then it felt like that cool kind of collaborative experience that you were having with other players, which is the sweet spot.

Caro Murphy:

And I think I know what scene you're talking about specifically where that scene is in a super time crunch. If that scene was not crunched for time, then what that actor would be doing instead would be like, "Here's the goal, does anyone have ideas for how we could do this goal?" And then people-

Nathan Holbert:

Which does at other time.

Caro Murphy:

Exactly. And then other people would offer ideas. And that would be like, "You're a genius." But celebrating what the guest is proposing. So creating space, opening those opportunities for like, "Okay, here's what we all want to accomplish together, who has ideas for how we accomplish it?" And that's also something that teachers use constantly in classrooms. Like, "Okay, we have this learning goal. How do we want to approach it?"

Haeny Yoon:

I appreciate that there's lingering questions that I think the community is also just asking for themselves. Because I feel like in these last few months that I've been thinking about role-play, live-action role-play just different kinds of games and what it means for people's community and belonging and social connection, I think that is really powerful. Like, "I have seen that happen at Starcruiser, where people are literally in tears, not just because of the story, but because of the community and the sense of belonging that they feel in that space and the emotion that they have gotten from a giant cement box.

And then on the other hand too, I appreciate that you have these waiters who look like they're trying something and it might look like they're trying, but maybe they're just putting in a toe and being like, "I don't like that." And so thinking about the question of how do we get them to be here? And that's still a question that the community still needs to pursue. And so that's a very balanced way of thinking about any kind of experience that it could be so powerful and great, but it also has things to work on and think through.

Nathan Holbert:

So needs tweaking,

Caro Murphy:

Nothing is ever finished.

Haeny Yoon:

What?

Nathan Holbert:

There were so many cool moves that the stories and the actors and also the space do I think, and we've offline, Haeny and I have talked about this a lot. You just mentioned the sort of ways in which they seem to align with stuff good teachers know how to do. Another one that comes to mind is you mentioned this inviting people to give ideas and then celebrating their ideas. Another one that definitely happened was the debrief at the end, which is like, "What did we just do? Tell me what you did." And then you invite people to tell their stories about what they did, which is sort of this reflection moment, which is certainly a really important powerful teacher move or educational design move. So to create opportunities to value those experiences. Yeah, I don't know. There's no question here. I feel like seeing the ways in which the work that happens in the immersive theater space has some interesting alignment and overlap with the kind of work that it is that a teacher is doing is kind of compelling and interesting.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. I have a question. Can we have a Kardashian summer immersive experience? Is that possible?

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah. So-

Caro Murphy:

It sounds like you just made it so I think it's-

Nathan Holbert:

Dumb.

Caro Murphy:

Created. Tell us about the Kardashian summer experience as a player. What do I get to do?

Haeny Yoon:

Well, the reason why I brought it up was because I think I was thinking about our Starcruiser experience, and I'm thinking about any immersive experience. We went to Sleep No More not that long ago. And I was thinking, "Gosh, if I just had a little tiny bit more background information, maybe my experience of it would be better." But I'm not sure.

Nathan Holbert:

Whereas I know everything there... I know a lot about Star, not everything. I know a lot about Starcruiser, so it's easy for me to jump into that world.

Haeny Yoon:

And so I feel like I went there even to Sleep No More. And I was like, "What am I supposed to be doing here? I'm not sure," I just went up and down the stairs like a million times, but I didn't see any bloody hands either. So I feel like there was some background knowledge that was missing for me. And I was just thinking to myself, I didn't actually think that to myself. I thought this out loud to the group that I went to Starcruiser with, but I was like, "Would you guys have the same emotional experience if I was like, 'We are going on a two-day immersive experience that's about us being in Calabasas, California, and we have to stop the paparazzi from crowding on the Kardashian-Jenners. And so we have to go in there and spy on them, shoot out the paparazzi."

Nathan Holbert:

I'm out.

Haeny Yoon:

And so I wonder-

Caro Murphy:

But there's an audience for that. The beauty of the form is that it's like someone going to a LARP that they didn't like, and it would be as though they had seen one film ever that was not a film. And they were like, "I hate film."

Nathan Holbert:

Films are bad.

Caro Murphy:

"Film is bad." And you're like, "All of it? Really?"

Haeny Yoon:

Yes. That's an excellent point.

Nathan Holbert:

But shat, because I think that's obviously the answer, but I think the sub question here is what role is played by the culture and the context of the thing you are designing? So in this case of Star Wars, there's this built-in cultural knowledge that I show up with all of it. And that also, to your point earlier about the tutorials and easing me into the world, a lot of that stuff is done for you because I already come knowing certain things. Whereas for Haeny, which by the way, I didn't know anything about what coaxium was like, but Haeny, here's the word. And she's like, "What the hell is this? I don't know anything about this." Whereas I'm like, "Coaxium, I don't know. It sounds Star Warsy. I'll figure it out." And likewise, if we were at the Kardashian LARP or immersive experience, you would show up and know the names of all the characters. And I would be like, "Okay, this is..." It's like what role is played by-

Caro Murphy:

And you'd like, "I'm going to have a martini."

Nathan Holbert:

I'd be like, "Back to the bar for me. I'm not going to the cargo hold with you and Kourtney."

Caro Murphy:

Exactly. Shout it to the bartenders.

Nathan Holbert:

So what role is played by that? Is that important? Is that something that's easy for you to build on if they don't have it?

Caro Murphy:

So I think this is probably best answered by a story, which is that in one of the first ever theatrical immersive experiences that I put on, I had no onboarding whatsoever. People waited in line to get into the venue, and I had a bunch of interactive characters just go out and start interacting with them and working the line and doing stuff. And people were like, "What the heck is going on?" They were confused. They didn't understand. Some of them were really into it, but those who weren't were like, "Oh, someone's talking to me. A clown is talking to me. I don't like it." So then I learned that there was a step in the process of onboarding. So cool. So we had modified the design so that people would come in and they'd encounter some of these characters.

And then once they encountered these characters, they then hit somebody who just before they walk into the venue goes, "Hi, do you know who you are and why you're here? Do you understand what's going on and why you're here?" And some people are like, "Yes," great, cool. Go into the experience. And other people are like, "No, I don't." It's like, "Awesome. Here's a chart. Look up your birthday and the thing, and that'll give you a personality trait, and then this is who you are now for the rest of it." And that helped give people an in and an alibi and a way to get attached to the story in a way that was meaningful and helpful for them. And then finding the difference in the audience interaction between the non-onboarding show and the onboarded show vast, because anyone who wanted to sunbathe was sunbathing, but there were no waiters because everyone who wanted to play got the opportunity to do so.

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah. This is cool. This has been a really fun... I feel like there's all these ideas that we have as we've engaged in this question of role-playing and playing roles. I feel like there's all these ideas that are existing across the different conversations. Something that seems really hard to me in immersive theater is you are trying to create an opportunity for me to play roles, which feels so different than what an actor does when they're trying to play in different roles. I guess the question is why is this worth doing? Say a little bit about the different possibilities that this type of art form enable than maybe other types of art forms might.

Caro Murphy:

Yeah. So I think that there's something very special about this art form that has to do with the amount of agency that people have and the physical embodiment of being someone else or playing a different role and physicalizing that. And then getting to experience meaningful agency can create wildly transformative outcomes for people. And by transformative, I mean mind changing or mind-expanding. And for some reason, this format, those elements are so essential for it. And this format does it extraordinarily well because you have the embodiment aspect of it and you have the agency aspect of it. So it's like a shortcut hack to getting people to have really transformational experiences.

Nathan Holbert:

That's cool. This notion of embodiment also keeps coming up, and I think it's so key, it's so core to all of this.

Caro Murphy:

I think it's also something that we're all thinking a lot about post pandemic, where so many of our interactions were not embodied.

Haeny Yoon:

And then you start to miss that part of it.

Nathan Holbert:

Totally.

Haeny Yoon:

You take it for granted.

Caro Murphy:

Yep.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. Well, we like to end our episodes with a segment called What's Poppin'? And what's popping is basically we like to hear from our guests what is out in pop culture, whether it's a movie, a media form, a book, a game, a design, I don't know, whatever.

Nathan Holbert:

What are you into? What's popping for you?

Haeny Yoon:

What are you into that other people should engage with or that you want people to know about?

Caro Murphy:

So I am notoriously terrible at pop culture. But if you want esoteric-

Nathan Holbert:

That works too.

Caro Murphy:

... range ideas about things that are fun. So let's see, what am I doing right now? I just started playing Baldur's Gate.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my God-

Nathan Holbert:

Keeps coming up.

Haeny Yoon:

That's my husband Neil, he plays it constantly. Sorry. Shout out to Neil.

Nathan Holbert:

Shout out to Neil.

Caro Murphy:

Shout out to Neil, fellow Baldur's Gate three player. So Baldur's Gate three is a dating sim that is disguised as an action RPG.

Nathan Holbert:

That is so true. Yeah.

Haeny Yoon:

Okay. I don't even know that much about it, but I am laughing because I've heard those lines.

Nathan Holbert:

It's so true. So true.

Caro Murphy:

Yes. Because all of your interactions with these characters are like you're just trying to romance them. And anyone who disagrees is sadly wrong.

Nathan Holbert:

"Am I in love with this angry lizard? Or is the giant with a heart of gold more my cup of tea?"

Caro Murphy:

Exactly. "Do I want to try to be with the Vampire or with this evil alien chick?"

Haeny Yoon:

Sorry-

Caro Murphy:

I don't know.

Haeny Yoon:

I need to go home and settle-

Nathan Holbert:

It's good stuff. It is so good.

Haeny Yoon:

Anyway, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of confessionals.

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, it's been super great talking to you and learning. I feel like I've learned so much from our conversation, including the one we had today. So thank you for making time with us.

Caro Murphy:

Oh, thank you so much for having me. This was absolutely lovely.

Haeny Yoon:

Pop and Play is produced by Haeny Yoon, Nathan Holbert, Lalitha Vasudevan, Billy Collins, and Joe Riina-Ferrie at Teachers College Columbia University with the Digital Futures Institute. Audio recording for this episode by Moira McCavana. This episode was edited by Billy Collins and Adrienne Vitullo.

Nathan Holbert:

For a transcript and to learn more, visit tc.edu/poppandplay. Our music is selections from Leaf Eaters by Podington Bear used here under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial license. Blake Danzig provided our social media and outreach support. Follow at Pop and Play Pod on Instagram and TikTok for more of what's poppin like the Trashies with Ioana Literat. Thank you to Meier Clark and Abu Abdelbagi for support with our website and additional materials. And thanks to you for listening.