In his article “Immersive Theatre, Defined: Five Elements in Sleep No More, Then She Fell, and More,” Jonathan Mandell writes, “Immersive theatre creates a physical environment that differs from a traditional theatre where audiences sit in seats and watch a show unfurl on a proscenium stage with a curtain.” Here, you’ll find content about theatre that breaks the fourth wall and invites the audience into the experience in many different ways.
The Latest
Podcast
Just Comfortable Enough to Get Immersive
by Martin Boross, Tara Khozein, Diana Delgado, Hope Orange
6 January 2026
Essay
Choreographing Attention in Spatial-Relational Practices
Dávid Somló discusses key trends in the growing field of spatially focused transdisciplinary performances that center audience experience, highlighting examples across several potential directions for this work.
“If your body is a portal, where does it lead?” This question led the creation of Paradise Portals, an immersive performance and dance party featuring Baltimore-area trans and queer artists. Laura Grothaus captures some of these artists’ answers, which span the celebration, transformation, ecology, and even escape.
Teatru Malta’s 1881 infused immersive theatre with game design, all in a dark, castle-like setting. After witnessing 1881 and other Maltese performances, critic Jonathan Mandell is left questioning the evolving forms and definitions of immersive theatre.
In Russia, “LGBT propaganda” has been banned, forcing artists who want to create work that engages with queerness to do so in secret. Viktor Vilisov shares about the process of their show Birds, an immersive adaptation of the Tarjei Vesaas novel, that they have performed in apartments throughout the country.
Creative director and choreographer Brandon Powers takes host Tjaša Ferme on a deep exploration of the merging of extended reality (XR) with theatre. He explains how theatremakers’ knowledge as spatial creatures is exactly what the virtual reality (VR) world is looking for.
In their individual and collective artistic practices, Annalisa Dias and Applied Mechanics model more just and accessible futures for theatre. Their MicroCosmos encounter explores immersive theatremaking, collaborative leadership, and a desire to end the obsession with artistic “vision.”
In this conversation with director Coral Cohen and sound and video designer Ettie Pin, we discuss the process of making a gamified play, Third Law. Insights from the makers take us through game theory, and how the audience had the unique opportunity to shape the world of the play and the trajectory of the characters.
Sandbox-style immersive theatre productions like Sleep No More and Life and Trust present unique challenges to providing accessibility measures for audience members, but it is possible and necessary to prioritize access in these spaces. Allie Marotta assesses current access practices in these productions and recommends targeted improvements.
This episode dives into the performance art of Lebanese artist Rima Najdi. From Hollywood's portrayal of Arab women to navigating complex personal and political landscapes, this thought-provoking discussion highlights the power of performance art in creating social change.
Jan Cohen-Cruz delves into the process of bringing The Most Beautiful Home… Maybe, a multi-city project that aims to use art to influence how people think about housing, to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. Through this process, Jan saw how theatre can bring together housing advocates from different walks of life to find their commonalities and collectively imagine a world with equitable housing for all.
Guest Heidi Bosivert believes that our bodies are archives of stories and if we can't get those stories out, the whole fabric of society will break down. When she worked in tech, addressing social issues, she had a crisis of faith and figured that bringing people into physical spaces and working with the body might be one way of mitigating deleterious effects of technology. Now, she’s creating a media biogenome.
Rex Daugherty offers a guide for theatremakers who want to produce theatre in nontraditional spaces, sharing the experiences of Washington, DC’s Solas Nua.
Creatives and book authors Mallory Catlett and Aaron Landsman dig into their new book based on their piece City Council Meeting, an exciting performance, rooted in a commonplace bureaucratic event, that develops dynamic participatory relationships with audiences and local government.
Aaron Landsman, Mallory Catlett, and Ebony Noelle Golden Discuss Their Latest Publication, The City We Make Together
Monday 3 April 2023
New York City
The City We Make Together looks at how we make art with communities, how we perform power and who gets to play which roles, and how we might use creativity and rigorous inquiry to look at our structures of democracy anew. Published by University of Iowa Press, 2022.
In Martin Domecq’s contribution to the Climate Emergency series, he puts four Brazillian performance art pieces in conversation to draw upon the poetic, political, and civic lessons they offer. These performances—which range from installations to solo and group performances—model possible paradigms that work against ecological crisis.
Gender Euphoria, the Podcast, host Nicolas Shannon Savard sits down with storyteller, educator, and advocate for transgender rights, Rebecca Kling. Their conversation addresses Rebecca’s work as a solo performer-turned-activist, the importance of consent in deciding to take on the trans educator role, and her radical and hilarious approach to the post-show talkback: the Strip Q and A.
Founder, Ensemble Member, and Former Artistic Director of Lookingglass Theatre Company, David Catlin, shares how their limitless aesthetic showcases their Chicago-based artists across the country. In addition we dive into their unique shared leadership model, their growth and goals for the future, and how tension with your board members can be a good thing.
Making Site-Specific Theatre About Climate Change that Could Be Threatened by Climate Change
17 December 2020
Playwright and environmentalist Alice Stanley Jr. shares her experience of Capital W’s newest immersive theatre piece, Fire Season—a play about climate change that took place in the Santa Monica Mountains during this year’s wildfires.
In which both the play’s scenes and the order in which they are performed are determined by the audience’s roll of the dice
Sunday 6 December 2020
United States
This Is Not A Theatre Company presented a performance of Readymade Cabaret 2.0 livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer-produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Sunday 6 December 2020 at 11 a.m. PST (San Francisco, UTC -8) / 1 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 2 p.m. EST (New York, UTC -5).
A Virtual Reality Symposium for Canadian artists and XR technologists, exploring creation and performance in XR
Friday 2 October to Saturday 10 October
Canada
Toasterlab presented the symposium Performance and XR 2020 (PXR2020) livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv from Friday 2 October to Saturday 10 October 2020.
A Dramaturgical Perspective on Tabletop Role-Playing Games
29 September 2020
Todd Brian Backus, Percival Hornak and Nicholas Orvis—three dramaturgs and gamers—talk about what theatremakers can learn from the collaborative storytelling techniques employed in tabletop role-playing games.
Blair Cadden explores how immersive theatre can adopt BDSM practices—including negotiations, safewords, and aftercare—to create safer experiences for both actors and audience members.
Toasterlab presented the Mixed Reality Performance Symposium at UBC livestreamed on the commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday 21 February 2020 from 10 a.m. PST (Vancouver, UTC -8) / 12 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 1 p.m EST (Toronto, UTC -5) to 4 p.m. PST (Vancouver, UTC -8) / 6 p.m. CST (Chicago, UTC -6) / 7 p.m. EST (Toronto, UTC-5).
