In 2020, like many theatre departments, NC State’s University Theatre faced huge challenges in determining how to continue to engage students in safe and meaningful ways. Its response was “The Institute”. “The Institute” was a series of site-specific immersive locations, tasks, and events created to allow Participants to uncover a single narrative story spread across campus throughout the entire spring semester of 2022. The premise: What if there was a secret department on campus studying time travel… and students have gone missing? Development began in 2020 and introduced students, as both creators and participants, to site specific, interactive, and immersive storytelling experiences.

For this project I served as one of two Creative Directors, alongside Jayme Mellema. Over the course of the 2020-2021 academic year, Jayme, the students, and I developed the story, over summer 2022 we wrote the story, Fall 2022 we built the spaces and puzzles, and The total participant experience consisted of eleven different experiences over the course of November 2021- April 2022.

This was by far the most complex and complicated experience I have ever created. This was also one of the most satisfying and fulfilling.

The complete participant experience can be read through at: www.redthreadbulletin.com

What Was The Story?