Pittsburgh, PA – What if your ability to make personal connections helped you unlock a bigger story? Mingled, Uncumber Theatrics’ newest experimental immersive work, invites audiences to discover hidden connections and add their own stories to the mix.
Participants will be asked to “dress to impress” as they assume the role of speed-daters in this interactive experience mimicking the conventions of a speed-dating event. Patrons will be guided to form deeper connections with friends and strangers through intimate one-on-one interactions and challenging “ice-breaker” questions. Participants may not know at first which of their fellow minglers are actors and which are audience members like themselves. But as the evening progresses, the perceptive will notice that not everybody is who they seem. And while they attempt to uncover these secrets, patrons may discover few of their own.
Building off of the Stony Brook University study that developed 36 questions designed to foster deeper intimacy in dating couples, Mingled melds these bonding techniques with cold-reading and gamification elements in order to bring audience members into a story. Part improvisation and part mentalism, this highly experimental micro-theater experience will change night after night, influenced by the information and interactions supplied by patrons. While some participants who openly engage in the unfolding story will be rewarded, others may only brush the surface of the underlying narrative.
“Only open hearts can unlock this mystery,” says Creative Director and Story Creator Ayne Terceira, whose other immersive work includes serving as a cast member of immersive experience STRATA (Bricolage) and creative contributor to fear experience The Basement (ScareHouse), as well as Uncumber’s previous fully sold-out runs Her Things (Uncumber) and Prof. Eldritch’s Asylum for Uncanny & Extraordinary Women (Uncumber with Devious Maid Productions) . “Mingled invites everyone to form real connections with both actors and audience members alike. If you walk away with the sense you engaged deeply with a stranger, that is enough. But if you are brave enough to take hold of our outstretched hand, we will take you on a ride.”
Because of the intimate nature of this production, a limited number of tickets are available for each performance. Mingled will open on July 31st at 8pm at ModernFormations Gallery in Bloomfield. The run will feature five performances: July 31st at 8pm, August 1st at 3pm & 8pm and August 2nd at 3pm & 8pm. Tickets can be purchased online at the Uncumber Theatrics website (www.uncumbertheatrics.com). Depending on online sales, tickets may be available at the door for $20. In light each of the previous Uncumber Theatrics shows selling out, reservations are encouraged. Shows will be open to the public and are suitable for adults ages 21+.
Mingled is the third production of Uncumber Theatrics, under the creative direction of Ayne Terceira and the technical direction of Aaron Tarnow (whose experience in innovative, site-specific theatre includes two seasons as the Technical Director of Quantum Theatre). Uncumber Theatrics’ mission is to push the limits of improvisational actors and improvisational techniques to create new and innovative staged theatrical work. The cast therefore is drawn heavily from Pittsburgh’s booming improvisational community.
Intriguing