It was obvious from the beginning of my conversation with Jason Davidson, co-creator of Nocturnal Fandango, the challenges he and his colleagues face.
“I have folks who have seen 65 or 66 of our 68 shows. When we talk raving fans, we’ve got raving fans. They don’t promote us because they are afraid their space will be compromised too much and they don’t want to miss out on a ticket,” he says.
That they have done 68 shows stunned me. I hadn’t heard of them until a few weeks ago. But being a new convert to the joys of Nocturnal  Fandango, I find myself reluctant to write this. My hope is that more exposure provides them greater resources to share the joy and wonder of their shows with a broader audience.
The creative team for Nocturnal Fandango is Jason, his husband, Kevin Davidson and Chelsea Morgan. They’ve been doing their unique brand of immersive theatre for several years now.
And what are their shows? I attended two different thirty-minute shows that were part of Dr. Rocket’s Twilight Carnival in August. In each one I was the sole audience member. But I was also a participant in each story  – to the level that I was comfortable. If you are thinking this is your own private Black Mirror, Davidson doesn’t share the comparison.
“I have to say not really,” he quickly responds during our recent phone conversation. “As a writer I’m fascinated by magical realism. I’m a poet first and foremost and in this setting we’re telling really gritty stories that I feel need to be told about important social justice issues and stories that matter. But we’re also turning them on their head and placing them in these imaginary worlds where anything can happen. That allows folks to play while also undergoing and experiencing really difficult stories that are hard to deal with.”
The shows I attended were called Shenandoah’s Mockingbird Garden and The Last Spacecake Planetarium. Don’t be fooled into thinking that either the title or the descriptions of their shows on their website will give you any idea of what you will experience. They do not.
To attend one of their shows, every audience member fills out a survey in advance which asks them to define personal boundaries in the areas of verbal aggression, physical intensity, issues of personal trauma and even your comfort with personal nudity. That seems ripe for troubles for Nocturnal Fandango‘s cast.
“Nope,” comes the equally quick response from Davidson as if to imply this is something he gets asked regularly. “We spend so much time talking about and studying with and problem solving through why we are telling the stories and why the scenes are constructed the way they are that our team goes in with so much confidence. They are ready to meet the audience where they are at.”
In my experience I felt very comfortable being who I wanted to be in the situations as much, if not more so, than who I really am.
“You chose a specific way to play, but you got the same story,” Davidson says of my two shows. [The company talks after each performance to assess the way the show went and how the attendee responded.] “The tone and what the audience member walks with is up to them. We believe folks know what’s best for them.”
If knowing they take stock of your participation and comfort level after each performance sounds invasive, it actually serves a purpose – particularly if you plan to see more shows. (I do. I have booked five performances in the coming months.)
“When you come in for the first time we give you the baseline way to play it. If someone is okay with nudity and aggression, but we don’t know you, we’ll play it at the baseline. But if we see you ten times or eighty times, we’ve learned about you and can change those.”
As they will for their upcoming Take Me in mid-October which is being held in a location TBD (you don’t find out until a couple days before the show). This will be a two-hour solo experience, but with staggered start times so they can get multiple through in a night. When I mentioned that two colleagues were going the same night as I was Davidson assured me we would all have very different experiences.
“We do so much customization. We could have one team playing five different scenes. We call it our audience master board for the show. There might be four distinct scenes that fit into that space. We’re going to figure out which goes with which audience member.”
Factor in how well they might know you plus your comfort level and that adds up to hundreds of ways for each scene to ultimately play out.
Hopefully this gives you a taste of what Nocturnal Fandango offers, even if I haven’t given you specific storylines. This is about the experience. Next week we’ll talk more about the themes built into the shows and you’ll discover the one question I asked that Jason Davidson paused for over a minute before answering.
To read part two of our interview, please go here.
The first weekend of Take Me is sold out. There are a few remaining tickets for the second weekend available here.
November 15th, 16th and 17th Dr. Rocket’s Twilight  Carnival returns with a mix of new and  returning 30-minute shows. Tickets are available here.
Main photo: “The World’s Last Spacecake Planetarium” Â with Maxwell Robinson and Megan DeHart.
All photos by Chelsea Morgan/Courtesy of Nocturnal Fandango.
Update: Prompted by an anonymous comment posted on a Cultural Attaché story about Nocturnal Fandango, I called Jason Davidson to get a comment and clarification. He told me that Nocturnal Fandango has ceased operation.