A Practical Dramaturgy for Immersive Practitioners by Roby Johnson A thesis submitted to the School of Theatre and Dance, Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in Theatre Studies Chair of Committee: Robert Shimko Committee Member: Adam Noble Committee Member: T. Xavia Karner University of Houston May 2020 Copyright 2020, Roby Johnson DEDICATION Dramaturgy is not a service; it is a collaboration. This thesis is dedicated to all the immersive practitioners who dare experiment and pioneer new stories focused on inclusivity and sharing ideas. You have shown me how we really can transform each other through thoughtful, fantastical experiences. May we all continue to dream up imaginative worlds, together. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many thanks are due for those who supported me through the rollercoaster of graduate school—I am greatly appreciative for all the lessons learned from this experience. Firstly, I would like to thank my committee members, Robert Shimko, Adam Noble, and Xavia Karner, for their mentorship and patience through the thesis process. In addition, I owe my gratitude to my degree cohorts Nontani Weatherly, Laura Moreno, Sam Marchiony, and Elizabeth Keel; you have all helped me grow as a person and scholar. Of course, I am incredibly thankful for former program head Matthieu Chapman—thank you for all you have done to positively shape my thesis and education. I also need to thank my friends across my time at the School of Theatre and Dance: Ve Reibel, Sarah West, Dean Coutris, Derrick Moore, Maya Schultz, Michael Brewer, Andres Roa, Adam Zarowski, Domonique Champion, Afsaneh Aayani, Victoria Gist, Addie Pawlick, Aaron Khron, and Kristi Shackleford. Thank you all for bringing so much joy into my life. Special shout-outs go to Jeana Magallon, Christian Gill, Patrina Randolph, and Logan Butcher for being excellent dramaturgical partners in crime. Furthermore, thank you to all the fantastic students I presided over as a Teaching Assistant—you all were so kind to me, and I will forever admire your passion. Holding jobs during graduate school was not easy; thus, thank you to Jim and Jan Barcz of the Escape Hunt Experience Houston and all the coworkers I had the honor of collaborating with. Moreover, credit is due to the amazing staff of Disney’s Aladdin at the Hobby Center whose energy inspired me to keep pushing forward. I’d be remiss not to mention Cori Stevenson for the fun work we did for the Houston Shakespeare Festival. iv I must give kudos to De’Vion Hinton and Kat Largent for becoming good friends and supporting me through last summer. Also, thank you Kat for your references, advice, and enthusiasm on immersive theatre—your fascination contributed to rekindling mine. To my friends I’ve managed to hold on to, thank you for supporting me. Special thanks are needed for my hometown friends, especially Haley Barnes, for being there for me no matter the time that has passed. I’m indebted to James Carter and Yena Han for being my long-distance lifelines and rolling with my spontaneous messages. Thank you, Andrey Lavro, for being a bright spot from across the world. Finally, Kaitlyn Zoeller, Abbey Perez, Gennady Gorin, and Riley Smith, you have been my foundation through the good and bad. You are incredible friends and I would not have made it without you. Thank you to my marvelous parents, Rob and Paige, my unbreakable sister, Emmy, and the rest of my loving family who have all been so immensely supportive of me for who I am and the choices I make. I am honored to feel so accepted and cherished. Other gratitude goes to Christina Keefe for guiding me to UH, The Broad’s Way drag show that lifted my spirits, the various Starbucks that served as offices, and Niyia Mack for getting me into the L.A. immersive scene. Extra special thanks go to Scout Expedition Co.’s Jarrett Lantz, Jeff Leinenveber, and The Nest’s crew, as well as Spy Brunch’s Nick Rheinwald-Jones, Katelyn Schiller, and the Safehouse ’82 cast—I cannot imagine better people to have taken my first steps with in immersive practice. Finally, thank you to the creators of Strange Bird Immersive, Haley and Cameron Cooper, for your imaginative production, being so receptive to my work, and answering all my questions. Your work is the inspiration for this thesis, and it wouldn’t have been possible without you. v ABSTRACT Immersive theatre is a new, rapidly expanding field of practice, theory, and audience experience. Due to its relative novelty as an experiential artform as well as its inherently interdisciplinary nature, immersive theatre is fraught with conceptual confusion and practical concerns that pose a steep challenge for scholarly discourse and artistic pursuit. Therefore, this thesis serves as a practical dramaturgy for immersive creators and scholars, establishing a common theoretical ground and addressing three primary issues for the genre: audience positioning, blurred boundaries, and framings of consent. Firstly, I explore problems with existing immersive audience ontologies which leads me to posit my own, the “role-to-player,” that better accounts for the many planes of audience engagement across the genre. Secondly, I reveal how immersive theatre boundaries are inherently broken and breakable, offering careful design and game studies as a solution for controlling risk-taking audiences. Finally, I underscore the importance of consent in the immersive environment, reframing it as a tool that aligns and expands immersive capacity—something to embrace and better integrate rather than an obstacle to fear and ignore. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION.................................................................................................................. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... ix INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................. 1 Immersion: Its History, Conceptual Challenges, And Application .............................. 5 Using Surveys of Scholarship to Distinguish Immersion, Flow, and Presence .... 16 A Three-Dimensional Model for Immersion ........................................................ 23 Adapting a Model for Clarifying Presence ........................................................... 31 The Many Definitions & Themes of Immersive Theatre Scholarship ........................ 34 Negotiating Audiences: Embodiment, Subjective Experience, and Positioning .. 40 Immersive Theatre Design: Boundaries and Risk-taking ..................................... 44 Immersive Theatre as a Tool: Ethics and Exploitation ......................................... 48 Issues in Practice and a Dramaturgy to Address Them .............................................. 52 CHAPTER ONE: POSITIONING AUDIENCES AS ROLE-TO-PLAYERS .......... 60 Exploring and Problematizing the Diversity of Audience Ontologies ....................... 62 The Role-to-Player Ontology ...................................................................................... 73 Situating ‘Role-to-Player’ in Practice through the Context of The Man from Beyond ... ..................................................................................................................................... 81 CHAPTER TWO: UNDERSTANDING BOUNDARIES AND SAFETY THROUGH GOAL-DRIVEN BEHAVIOR ................................................................. 90 Broken and Breakable Boundaries.............................................................................. 92 Facilitating Blurred Boundaries via Shaping the Choreographic Landscape ....... 94 Faulty Perceptions of Boundaries: Errant Immersion and Mis-takes ................... 98 Inherent Risk in Immersive Theatre ......................................................................... 102 Improving Boundaries and Understanding Role-to-Player Behavior through Game Studies ....................................................................................................................... 106 The Goal-driven Behavior of Role-to-Players .................................................... 109 Indicating No Reward and Using Negative Feedback to Redirect Role-to-Players ............................................................................................................................. 114 Limiting Intensity through Activity, Proximity, and Realness ........................... 120 Summary: Balancing Boundaries, Risk, and Role-to-Player Agency ...................... 124 vii CHAPTER THREE: EXPANDING IMMERSION THROUGH CONSENSUAL EXPERIENCE .............................................................................................................. 126 Why Consent Is Imperative to The Immersive State ................................................ 127 How Consent Expands Experience Rather Than Detracting from It ........................ 129 Addressing Issues of Consent in Immersive Theatre ................................................ 134 Integrating Consent ..................................................................................................