The Challenge...
The Emlen Physick Estate wanted to be able to hold events in their 19th Century mansion in the fall of 2020. The challenge presented was that the event had to take place in several different rooms of the estate as well as be able to safely enact COVID protocols. Small groups had to be moved through the action simultaneously yet separately, encountering performers in various rooms in the mansion. Since contact between the actors and guests had to be minimal, we would need to create new methods of telling the story and engaging the audience.
Our Solution...
We developed a series events that allowed the guests to tour the mansion, while meeting suspects and discovering clues during their tour. Our productions of "The Gloomy Apparition" and "The Gloomy Apparition 2: A Gloomier Apparition" told the stories of four spirits spending eternity together as unlikely roommates, while "A Dickens of a Murder" asked our detectives to solve the untimely murder of Tiny Tim. Our team produced:
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A full murder mystery script performed in several different spaces in the mansion.
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Four professional actors in custom designed costumes.
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Videos played at the top and bottom of the shows that laid out the mystery to be solved and then provided the solution.
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"Engagement cards:" suggestions for questions to be asked of the performers as a means of gathering more evidence.
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QR codes that opened additional clues during the performance, all of which had been specifically designed to mimic the look of documents from the time period.
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Lighting design for each of the spaces to coincide with the characters.
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Advertising assets, including graphics, promotional videos, and photography.
The Result...
On a crisp fall evening, a crowd gathered on the porch of The Emlen Physick Estate in Cape May, safely distanced from each other and masked, and were introduced for the first time to Helen Kittridge. Helen was an authoress visiting from Philadelphia who had a conundrum to solve, and it was up to the guests she greeted to help her solve it. From that moment on, Helen was very busy welcoming guests until Halloween, for an event that was fully sold out by the second week of its run.
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"The Gloomy Apparition" was so successful for the Estate that they asked us to create a holiday experience for December and invited us back for "A Gloomy Apparition 2" in 2021.