The Story of Lost Immersive, 2020-2021
2020 No Proscenium Award Winner- Special Recognition For Community Impact
In a strange twist of events during the pandemic, a group of thirteen fans of the New York City-based immersive production Sleep No More turned the tables and came together to form Lost Immersive, an all-volunteer group creating large fundraisers and online events to support the performers and staff of our beloved immersive theater community.
Six months, weekly meetings, three spectacular productions, and endless volunteer hours later, we’ve raised over $100,000 in mutual aid for New York City’s immersive arts workers and fostered a connected community between fans and creatives of the immersive theater scene.
The Lost Immersive team grew from a group of friends and acquaintances who knew each other from the NYC Sleep No More fandom. With live theater shut down all over the world, we began hanging out on Zoom after the online immersive show, Chorus Production’s Eschaton. As summer turned to fall and it became clear there was no chance of theaters reopening anytime soon, two members of the group–KaeLyn Rich & Zack Waffle–had the idea to elevate the usual Zoom hangout to a fundraiser for immersive arts workers. We felt it was our responsibility to rally other fans to support the cast and crew of NYC’s immersive shows. Collectively, we decided to put on a small online Halloween fundraiser and show, aptly titled The Lost Halloween. Then, it got a little out of hand.
We are an eclectic group spread across the U.S from a variety of backgrounds, including professional theater, fundraising, event management, arts administration, journalism and writing arts, the tech industry, education, and the visual arts. The Lost team had never worked together on an event or staged an online production and the majority of us have no professional experience working in the performing arts. We had no idea what would happen when we initially reached out to some immersive performers in the hopes that a few would say “yes.”
To our astonishment, 33 artists committed to provide performances for The Lost Halloween. The rest is history. We created a fund for immersive arts workers, raised money through an art auction and traditional fundraising appeals, put on an incredible virtual showcase event that brought together over 400 people, and easily surpassed our original goal of $20,000 to raise over $45,000 for 87 arts workers. Of those who requested funds from The Lost Halloween, 42 were performers and 45 worked in various roles including costume and makeup artists, lighting designers, music directors, stage managers, stewards, bartenders, front-of-house staff, carpenters, electricians, and more. The love and care of theater fans reached all corners of the immersive arts worker community. Since then, we’ve staged a 25-hour show reaching over 1,000 people around the world with The Lost New Year’s and beat our own goals by raising over $50,000 for immersive workers at The Lost Garden.
The Lost Immersive story is a story of fans standing together to raise $100,000 in mutual aid for the artists who gave us hope, who helped us connect to our deeper truths, and who, as cliché as it sounds, changed our lives. Ours is a story of fans and immersive workers coming together as a united front in our collective year without the arts, a story of creativity, connection, survival, and deep love that lives far beyond the closing of the red velvet theater curtains.
