Farewell to Sleep No More NYC
We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when
The McKittrick Hotel’s final performance of Sleep No More is taking place right now as I write this, about a year from its original finale date and after nineteen (!) extensions.
To say that the show has had a remarkable influence on the modern immersive art & entertainment industry would be, frankly, an understatement, having an effect on everything from Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser to The Under Presents (and even Alan Wake 2). At the Immersive Design Summit in 2018, Punchdrunk’s Colin Nightingale was searching for folks whose first immersive experience was not Sleep No More and, in a room full of immersive creators, I believe he only found one. What a legacy.
For many people, its format, concept, and design is synonymous with “immersive theatre.” They may not know who Punchdrunk or Emursive are but they recognize the iconic bauta mask from the show. Sleep No More’s unusual longevity is also remarkable, having served two million guests at the time of the original closure announcement. I am sure many more flocked to see it after the closure announcement in November 2023. And let’s not forget the alternate reality game created for its launch or the MIT Media Lab experiments or the April Fool’s joke that it was an actual abandoned hotel.
A lynchpin of the NYC immersive scene, Sleep No More will be dearly missed. Meanwhile, Sleep No More Shanghai has also announced it will take its final bows in March, though what is to become of the venue is a bit up in the air; there’s also a new version of the show shaping up in Seoul, most likely opening later this year.
In remembrance of a show that has meant so much to me and so much to so many others, a recap of my first visit in May 2011, below.
(Originally published here in 2019.)
Somehow, I’ve spent nearly 15 years following immersive art & entertainment. It began as a tiny spark on the outskirts of Chelsea, a pinpoint of heat that fanned into bigger and bigger flames. I’ve traveled up and down the East Coast, looking for pockets of immersive, and continue to do so on the West Coast and beyond. I’ve re-routed road trips through St. Louis to see City Museum and Santa Fe to see Meow Wolf. And as a critic, I’m always looking for that indescribable, otherworldly, and transcendent moment: the very thing which makes up what we sometimes call capital “I” immersive. And the pursuit — quite literally — has changed my life.
I don’t know where I’d be right now if I hadn’t found immersive theatre, hadn’t found Zay, hadn’t found NoPro, hadn’t found Noah, hadn’t found this community. For the uninitiated, we may seem like we’re lost souls wandering the desert, chasing a mirage.
But for those of us who have found each other, and realized we all speak the same secret language, it’s like coming home for the first time.
It’s May 2011. It’s my first time at Sleep No More. It’s only been open two months. I know very little about it. And I can’t find my husband. The elevator operator makes sure of that, after he drops me off on the fifth floor and refuses to let any others follow me. His arm blocks the door as he hits the close button. As for me, I am unaware of any of this. So when I turn around to look for my companion, I find only darkness.
Masked, lost, and alone, I wander from room to room, taking in the strange environment and occasionally spotting a dancer or two. I am at odds with what to do next, in this strange show where it’s oh so dark and you must wear a mask and can’t speak and can’t use your phone.
A man in a taxidermy jacket finds me staring at the glass case full of oddities. He takes my hand. He tells me, “It’s time to meet her.” And he leads me through a dark passageway into her ruined, bloody nightclub, with several others following us. He is practically sprinting towards her. Already, the bass is pumping and the witches’ ritual is about to begin. Soon, Macbeth enters with a crowd following him. The woman in the red dress makes a sound that’s the unholy union of a scream and a cackle, piercing through the static; she’s looking right at me as she does so. The taxidermist is still behind me, heaving with excitement. (Of course, you’re all probably familiar with what happens next.)
Me? I feel disoriented but exhilarated. I am winded, sweaty, and my legs ache from climbing flights of stairs and walking in circles. And I can’t wait to return.
I immediately conscript four of my friends to come back with me while also feverishly comparing notes with other fans. Have you gone yet? becomes a familiar refrain among the NYC art cognoscenti. Did you get a private scene? No, what’s that? I check back into the McKittrick Hotel, again and again, until I know the streets of Gallow Green like the back of my hand; I memorize the hotel’s portals and hallways, its nooks and crannies, from the dances in the lost luggage room to the best vantage points in the speakeasy to the secrets of the wildlife in the forest. I take friends to see it; I take family to see it. I meet some of my best friends in the world through our shared love for the show. They go on to make their own art. One night, I am sent on a quest to deliver something from Hecate to the Porter, and I do; she rewards me with a second one-on-one. I am fed candy by the Sexy Witch. I see Nurse Shaw cough up a nail in a tiny room. And I end up on the sixth floor. This all happens within the span of a few hours. My brain feels like it’s melting. I never truly recover.
Eventually, my fever for all things Sleep No More subsides, just a tiny bit, but not my passion for all things immersive.
Until we meet again, Sleep No More. Until we meet again.
