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Sleep No More, arguably the premier immersive theater experience in New York, closed its doors after a 14-year run at the McKittrick Hotel in Manhattan back in January…but the show's successor is already in the works.
Viola's Room, another immersive theatrical experience, will kick off an 18-week Off Broadway engagement starting June 17 at the Shed through October 19. The show first ran in London back in 2024.
The new production was conceived and directed by Punchdrunk founder Felix Barrett, who was also responsible for the success of Sleep No More. In a nod to the rising popularity of celebrity-led theater offerings, award winning actress Helena Bonham Carter will narrate the entire piece, "an audio-driven adventure that reimagines Barry Pain's 1901 gothic short story The Moon-Slave for a modern audience," according to Playbill.
“Ever since we opened Sleep No More back in 2011, New York has been our second home, so I’m elated that Viola’s Room will have its international premiere at the Shed this year,” said Barrett in an official statement. “It’s the most intimate and distilled form of a Punchdrunk experience we’ve created: an invitation to step inside a teenage daydream and surrender to the unknown. In a non-stop world of screens and tech this is an invitation to succumb to a live, tactile and fully sensory journey.”
During the 50-minute experience, ticket holders will be asked to walk barefoot in groups of up to six people through the "maze-like installation" set up in the theater's Level 4 Gallery. Everyone will be wearing their own set of headphones, with the narrator guiding them through the journey.
Given the roster of shows that have already been mounted at the Shed, the cultural center in Hudson Yards that opened back in 2019, we can't think of a better space for Viola's Room, a production that seems to require the scale of space and potential for interdisciplinary arts more than ever before.
Luna Luna, the giant carnival-like art exhibit that called for audience participation, set up shop in the space late last year, for example, to great success. KAGAMI by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Tin Drum, a mixed-reality production presented at the venue in 2023, also highly benefited from the characteristics of the space as a whole. We're sure that Viola's Room will similarly thrive in this dynamic environment, making the most of the Shed's ability to blend visual arts, theater and technology in a way few other venues can.
Tickets for Viola's Room will start at $49 and will be available to the general public beginning April 17 right here.