Latest news with #FelixBarrett
Time Out
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Paranormal Activity
Horror and the West End have a mixed recent history: The Woman in Black had a very good innings, and Inside Number 9's Stage/Fright worked a treat. 2.22 – A Ghost Story was a nice idea that ended up being done to death. The Enfield Haunting was unspeakably awful. It's with some trepadition, then, that we approach Paranormal Activity, a theatrical adaptation of the 2007 sleeper screen hit. Found footage horror isn't the obvious genre to put on stage by a long shot. But this adaptation has a real USP: it's directed by Felix Barrett, aka the brains behind immersive theatre legends Punchdrunk, his first non-Punchdrunk theatre show in over a decade. If anyone can inject some menace and atmophere into a show that is nominally about two people buying a house, it's him. And he's got a pretty good writer too: playwright Levi Holloway isn't much known over here, but he sounds eminently qulified having scored a Broadway hit recently with the spooky drama Grey House. His adaptation of the film sounds pretty 'free': rather than a stage retelling of the misadventures of the original film's demon-haunted San Diego couple Micah and Katie, this once concerns James and Lou, a couple who quit Chicago for London in the hope they can escape their past (spoiler alert: they can't).
Time Out
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
A stage adaptation of horror classic ‘Paranormal Activity' is coming to London's West End
Found footage horror classic Paranormal Activity isn't necessarily the most obvious candidate for a stage adaptation: Oren Peli's film is famously based upon largely static camera shots as it traces the calamitous misadventures of a couple who move in together only to have their should-be domestic idyll disrupted by some sort of demonic presence. But if there's anyone who can make this sort of thing work in the theatre it's Felix Barrett, who as the driving force behind immersive theatre gods Punchdrunk has specialised in making impossible possible in a very creepy way for almost a quarter century now. Written by US playwright Levi Holloway – who scored a solid Broadway hit with the similarly spooky Grey House – it's a heavily reimagined version of the story, that sees Chicago couple James and Lou move to London only to discover that something dark has followed them. The show premiered in Leeds last summer: press weren't invited but word of mouth for the run seems strong, and it'll have an autumn tour of the US before settling into the West End for a 12-week limited season, where it'll replace the shutting Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Horror doesn't always work in the West End – it wasn't so long ago that the Ambassadors Theatre played host to the execrable Catherine Tate vehicle The Enfield Haunting – but the signs are there that this should be satisfyingly chilling.
Perth Now
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Paranormal Activity stage show is coming to London's West End
The stage adaptation of Paranormal Activity is coming to London's West End. The critically acclaimed production will run at The Ambassadors Theatre for a 12-week season and the new story inspired by the supernatural horror film franchise will be directed by immersive theatre pioneer and Punchdrunk's Founder and Artistic Director Felix Barrett. It has been written by playwright Levi Holloway, whose previous work includes Broadway play Grey House. The show's story follows James and Lou who move from Chicago to London to escape their past, but they soon discover that places aren't haunted, people are. Director Barrett cannot wait to bring the show to London following its run at Leeds Playhouse last summer. Barrett said: "I'm so thrilled that Paranormal will have a chance to ensnare and unnerve audiences in London later this year. From seeing the advertising campaign of the film 20 years ago, where you watched cinema audiences leap out of their chairs in horror, I have long wondered how you could recreate that visceral reaction in a theatre setting. How do you bring one of the most frightening films to life? How do you break the inherent safety that a plush West End theatre offers? It's been an incredible challenge, and we cannot wait to see how London audiences respond!" Playwright Holloway added: 'Collaborating with Felix Barrett to create an actual nightmare has been nothing short of a dream. Relishing in a shared language of dread, we've conspired to create something impossible, mixing the familiar with the uncanny, heart with horror. London audiences have a nose for honesty on stage and little patience for anything else. They'll find it here, right alongside all the mischief we've made to trouble their sleep.' The Paranormal Activity stage show will also undertake a North American tour this autumn, visiting the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre; Center Theatre Group, Ahmanson Theatre, Los Angeles; Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington DC and American Conservatory Theatre, San Francisco, ahead of opening in London this December. Barrett is the founder and Artistic Director of Punchdrunk. He has conceived all of Punchdrunk's shows, including Viola's Room, which has just opened at The Shed in New York, The Burnt City, The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable, The Borough (Aldeburgh Music), The Crash Of The Elysium (MIF and 2012 Cultural Olympiad), The Duchess Of Malfi (English National Opera), It Felt Like A Kiss - a collaboration with Adam Curtis, Damon Albarn for Manchester International Festival - The Masque Of The Red Death, Faust and The Firebird Ball. Felix also directed the company's award-winning Sleep No More. First experienced by audiences in London in 2003, it has since travelled to Boston, New York, where it ran for 14 years, Shanghai, where it has become the longest running show in the city's history, and will open in Seoul in Summer 2025. In 2020, Felix worked with writer Dennis Kelly to create The Third Day. The series included The Third Day: Autumn - a 12-hour episode, recorded as-live in one continuous take, which received the 2021 RTS Award for a Live Event, and was nominated for a BAFTA in the Live Event category. Levi Holloway is a Chicago-based artist. As a playwright, world premieres include Pinocchio at Chicago Children's Theatre, Haven Place, Grey House and most recently, Turret at A Red Orchid Theatre, with which he is an ensemble member. His play Grey House ran on Broadway in 2023. Levi is the co-founder of Neverbird Project, a youth-based Deaf and hearing theatre company. He spent a decade devising theatre with the Sign/Voice theatre program at Chicago's Bell Elementary, one of the country's oldest and most prolific Deaf and hearing integrated schools, founded in 1917. The creative team behind the Paranormal Activity stage show also includes Fly Davis as Set and Costume Designer, Illusions by Chris Fisher, Anna Watson as Lighting Designer, Gareth Fry as Sound Designer, Video Design by Luke Halls and Casting Direction by Stuart Burt CDG and Ginny Schiller CDG. Released by Paramount Pictures in 2009, the original Paranormal Activity has been praised as a master class in psychological terror. Reimagining the found footage genre for a new generation, the film became a global sensation, grossing nearly $200 million worldwide and kicking off a blockbuster franchise spanning seven feature films. Performances will begin on Friday 5 December, 2025. Tickets go on sale Wednesday 9 July at noon at
Fast Company
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Fast Company
Inside the making of Punchdrunk's new immersive ‘gothic fairytale'
'Shhhh,' Helena Bonham Carter is whispering in my ear. 'Let me tell you a story, from long, long ago.' I am lying on a mattress in a wallpapered bedroom that seems plucked from the 1990s. There are Keith Haring drawings, Tori Amos posters, and a shelf-full of teddy bears. Bonham Carter's voice, coming in through a headset, is talking about a princess named Viola. Her voice—spectral, beguiling—is about to guide me through a dizzying dreamscape of mazes and dark corridors, and it's all part of a spectacular new show by Punchdrunk. Until now, the British theater company has been known for its highly immersive productions like Sleep No More and The Burnt City. A Punchdrunk performance typically encourages spectators to roam freely and interact with masked actors who might whisk you into a cupboard or slip a note into your hand. But Viola's Room, staged inside The Shed in New York City, marks a departure from this model: There is only one prescribed path. And instead of interacting with masked actors, you are the actor. 'What Punchdrunk is all about is a physical activation of the body. It's about putting the audience at the center,' Punchdrunk's founder, Felix Barrett, told me. 'If you're stood up, and you are having to make decisions, or you're having to deal with a perceived threat, suddenly the flood of adrenaline sends all your blood to your skin.' 'Follow the light' Viola's Room was adapted from a 1901 gothic mystery story by the English horror writer Barry Pain. The Punchdrunk version was written by Booker Prize short-listed author Daisy Johnson, and it follows the story of Princess Viola, who leaves the safety of her home and ventures into a shadowy dream world where her sense of self begins to dissolve. Of all the stories Punchdrunk has crafted, this one is Barrett's favorite. 'There's something about it, where the atmosphere is so thick, and it's because it's so controlled,' he says. Barrett staged an early version of Viola's Room back in 2000. Then called The Moon Slave, it took place inside a 13-acre walled garden, where spectators were guided by staff holding burning torches. When the team revived the show (it first ran in London in 2024), they had to rethink how to replicate the concept indoors. Barrett wanted something ephemeral, 'like the ghost of Helena taking you by the hand,' he says, and he eventually landed on fiber-optic lights the size of a grain of barley. (Standard LEDs were too bright.) Spectators are now guided through the space by a synchronized mix of Bonham Carter's voice and more than 1,500 individual light fixtures concealed inside woolly gray clusters designed to resemble tiny, stormy clouds. Every light is an invitation to move forward through the sinuous set: If a lamp lights up, you walk toward it. If it doesn't, you stay put. At times, I found myself in complete darkness, without so much as an exit sign lurking in a corner. Barrett says enough visitors in London got spooked that they decided to assure people at The Shed that there are no jump scares. To further amp the senses, visitors are invited to experience the show barefoot, and every room is bathed in a custom scent. 'When you're light-deprived, all other senses kick in,' says Alex Poots, the artistic director and CEO of The Shed. These moments of pitch black called for special permission from local authorities, as total darkness goes against U.S. fire codes. Poots says Viola's Room is one of a few shows in America that's gotten permission to go complete black, and he notes that a team backstage monitors spectators via a bevy of infrared cameras and can intervene within a minute of a fire alarm sounding. A fairytale in Manhattan Viola's Room is an intimate affair designed for a maximum of six people. (People with wheelchairs can book private visits to experience the show, which is fully ADA accessible.) I visited on a clammy Tuesday evening. Outside, Manhattan was gearing up for happy hour. People were sipping Aperol spritzes, and tourists were traipsing up and down the High Line. Inside, I felt like I'd stepped into a fairytale gone wrong. The set design, by Barrett and Casey Jay Andrews, contributed to the realism. Barrett started by drawing the 'shape of the show' on a piece of paper—a line, a square, a line, a square—before adding layers of texture, a bit like a painting. To visualize the whole thing, he then worked with a team of model makers who spent months making copies of each room, then lighting them from within. For Viola's teenage bedroom, Barrett drew inspiration from his younger brother's bedroom and stuffed it with '90s ephemera he sourced from vintage shops and markets around London. Elsewhere, corridors narrowed under flickering lights. Closets opened into secret rooms. A miniature tree encased in jelly later came back as a giant tree towering over an entire room. With nowhere else to go but straight, the experience doesn't allow for any meandering, but the curious mind will be rewarded with 'treats' or easter eggs the team peppered throughout the show. (The jelly-encased tree is one of them). 'I'm a real believer that as long as one person finds it, it's absolutely valid,' Barrett says. 'In fact, if one person finds something that no one else does, then it's their gift. It's their discovery.' The show is on view through October 19.
Vogue
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
I Survived ‘Viola's Room,' a Spooky New Immersive Show Narrated by Helena Bonham Carter
The real world is plenty scary right now. Forget turning on some gruesome horror movie: reading the daily headlines is enough to make just about anyone scream. All the same, I couldn't resist doubling down on the fear factor and checking out an eerie, immersive new art experience that opened in New York City this week. On through October at The Shed, the show, titled Viola's Room, is directed by Felix Barrett and produced by Punchdrunk, the award-winning theater company behind Sleep No More. An interactive, hour-long journey, it has guests weave barefoot through a labyrinth of darkened rooms and halls (by designer Casey Jay Andrews), while a delightfully spooky Helena Bonham Carter narrates a fable, based on the 1901 story The Moon Slave by Barry Pain, through provided headphones. Even with no live actors or jump scares, it makes for an intensely effective—even somewhat poetic—haunted-house experience. Guests walk through Viola's Room. Photo: Marc J. Franklin When I arrived for my prescribed time slot, I was surprised to find that there was only one other brave soul in my group. (Viola's Room is designed to be experienced by no more than six people at a time.) Our instructions were simple enough: do not lose sight of each other, and follow the flickering lights from space to space. (I was more than happy to let my partner lead the way.) In the first space—a teenage girl's bedroom, its walls adorned with Tori Amos and Buffy the Vampire Slayer posters—Carter instructs us to lie down as she begins to tell the gothic tale of a princess who disappears from her castle, abandons her prince, and mysteriously journeys into the night. In time, the room around us was plunged into darkness, the only light coming from inside a blanketed fort in the corner. When, skeptically, we crawled into that fort, we immediately entered into a brand-new space: a maze of hallways lined with ghostly, draped white sheets. As Carter's narration goes on, she describes the princess's descent into an enchanted and ominous forest—just as we, too, were taken through ever more otherworldly settings. Walking barefoot, we traversed terrains that felt alternately grassy, sandy, and like concrete, our surroundings ranging from a forest landscape to a high-ceilinged chapel featuring stained-glass windows suffused with a foggy light. Another room with a giant dinner table had balloons lining the ceiling, though in the darkness their strings felt more like vines, or even spiderwebs.
