Audience Participation Dinner Theatre

Escape into another Time and Place:
into a Fantasy World of Adventure,
Mystery, and Intrigue ...

PALLADIAN Interactive Theatre extends the traditional dinner theatre concept to include not only the dinner and the theatre, but also an opportunity for the audience to participate as performers.

It's more like stepping through a time machine than attending a conventional theatre.

There are no lines to memorize, and each drama never ends the same twice - because participants improvise their lines while attempting to achieve the goals outlined in their role packets.

Playwright Robert Cook sums it up. "We've gotten to know the characters so well, and yet they always surprise us. Every group of guests plays it completely different."

The dramas are based on the assumption that there is a little actor in everyone, and we have been proved right time-after-time! Our audience/actor participants have included ordinary people, mayors, top corporate executives, U.S. Senators, Congressmen, and a Governor or two, which goes to show that anyone can be an actor.

"In traditional theater, the audience assumes a reactive role, responding to the performance in a passive fashion," said Jeff Wirth, author of Interactive Acting: Acting, Improvisation, and Interacting for Audience Participatory Theatre. "Interactive Theatre expands the experience of the audience by offering them a proactive role, in which they are invited to join as a collaborator in the creation of the performance.

"Interactive Theatre combines the richness of rehearsed material, the spontaneity of improvisation, and the empowerment of participation," said Wirth. "It draws on acting and improvisation techniques, as well as techniques unique to the interactive form."

 

 

Creative Team-Bonding Fun

In addition to being a unique and beguiling form of entertainment, Interactive Drama also has the potential to provide corporate America with the negotiating skills, creative thinking, and cultural experience needed to succeed in the modern international marketplace, according to Dr. Jeffrey L. Bradford, Chairman of the Marketing Department at Drake University.

"American business is realizing that critical thinking, characterized by linear, sequential, and analytical thought processes, does not provide the competency necessary to solve problems in dynamic, complex and unstructured situations," said Bradford. "As these business situations have become the norm, corporate America is embracing the need for creativity and innovation."

"Our new shows incorporate social and business customs from other cultures which may be unfamiliar to American businessmen. It's a lot better to make cultural faux-pas at one of our interactive dramas and learn from your experience than to learn the hard way at the negotiation table in real life," said Alan Lance Andersen, Director of PALLADIAN Interactive Theatre.

"Interactive Drama is the coming thing for stimulating creative thinking. It's also great for team-bonding. There's something about it. People may come as perfect stranger, and for or five hours later they're like old friends."

INTERACTIVE VERSUS TRADITIONAL MURDER MYSTERIES

Most commercial "murder mystery companies" operate on a format where actors mingle with the audience members and stage a murder, after which the audience tries to solve it. Some of the audience gets involved, but a lot of them end up confused, and just sit around watching and trying to figure out what's going on.

At a PALLADIAN Interactive Theatre event, on the other hand, the audience members play all the parts (and sometimes kill each other) - and our staff ends up trying to figure out what's going on!

TREASURE HUNTS

For dramas that feature a treasure hunt, the company has gathered real treasure from around the world - including coins from shipwrecks and ancient Roman and Hindu coins. The cash value of the major treasure may be up to three or four times what participants pay for the entire trip, and may consist of gold, silver, banknotes, jewels, stocks, bonds, or other valuables. In some cases, it may be a specially designed work of art.

Any treasure may contain items of greater or lesser value - part of the challenge is to determine which things are really valuable and which are not. Gold coins are obviously worth more than copper pennies, but the distinction is not always so obvious.

PALLADIAN Interactive Theatre lets you explore the actor within you.

Who knows - you might knock 'em dead ...


For more information on booking a Mystery Dinner Drama
please contact your nearest Interactive Drama Representative:

The PALLADIAN Interactive Theatre, Inc.

1684 Northwest Drive
Des Moines, Iowa 50310

Phone (515) 388-5573

 


 

 

 

TESTIMONIALS

"A terrific personal experience, giving participants a truly stimulating involvement in theatre."

Martin Limbird, Iowa State University

 

"A delightful and stimulating intellectual exercise."

Raymond A. Cornell, Licensed Private Investigator

 

"This is not the stuff of the couch potato ..."

Finn Bullers, The Ames Daily Tribune

 

"The plot's more twisted than da cobwebs in an old lady's attic ..."

Lori Nilles, The Daily Freenam-Journal

 

"Oh, the pageantry of it all !"

Cindy Gabbert, SCCLP