Overview

Enveloping Worlds is a collection of essays that analyzes the phenomenon of immersive, participatory performance as it has developed in the US. As this collection demonstrates, immersive performance offers three-dimensional multisensory experiences, inviting audience members to be participants in the unfolding of the story, and challenging pre-existing ideas about the function of performance and entertainment. Enveloping Worlds questions audience agency and choice, the space and boundaries of performance, modes of immersion, empathy and engagement, and ethical considerations through fifteen essays. Case studies in the volume include the Choctaw Cultural Center in Oklahoma and Choctaw sovereignty; a Black artist’s autoethnographic performance challenging White audiences’ entitlement to full inclusion; Immersive Van Gogh experiences and their scenographers; telephone performance during the COVID-19 lockdowns; Diane Paulus’s The Donkey Show; the Battle of Atlanta panorama; an antebellum-themed department store display from the 1920s; escape rooms at Disney Parks; remotely staged plays about aging and dementia; tiki bars; anachronistic costuming at Renaissance Festivals; the technologies that shape the boundaries of immersive worlds; and tabletop role-playing games. Taken together, these essays contribute a rich discussion of immersive performance across radically different contexts, offering analytical models and terminology with which to clarify and advance this emergent discourse.

Full Product Details

Author:   E.B. Hunter ,  Scott Magelssen
Publisher:   The University of Michigan Press
Imprint:   The University of Michigan Press
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9780472077403

ISBN 10:   0472077406
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   29 April 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order  
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Preface and Acknowledgements Editors’ Introduction Part I: Life 1. Building Nʋnih Waiya: Creating an Immersive Chahta World Bethany Hughes 2. The Other Side of the Plexiglass Wall: Fear, Terror, and Defining the Rules of Engagement in a Solo Autoethnographic Performance Tragedy Michelle Cowin Gibbs 3. Immersive Van Gogh: A Scenographic Analysis Christin Essin 4. “The Telelibrary is Here for You”: A Theatre of Service During a Time of Crisis Lauren R. Beck 5. Farewell, Fond Pageant: Remount and Representational Space in The Donkey Show E.B. Hunter Part II: Liberty 6. The Immersive Archive: Restoring the All-Embracing View of Nineteenth-Century Painted Panoramas in Museum Display Susan Tenneriello 7. Encountering the Old South in “Atlanta’s Most Modern Department Store” Laura Ferdinand 8. Playing Attention in an Escape Room: Strange Bird Immersive’s The Man From Beyond James R. Ball III 9. Why Be a Bad Guy? Immersive Performance and Transgression at the Disney Theme Park Jennifer A. Kokai, and Tom Robson 10. Remembrance Revisited: Insider/Outsider Perspectives on Immersivity Cindy Rosenthal Part III: The Pursuit of Happiness 11. Stepping Back into Your Own Timeline: Meaning, Yearning, and Immersive Simulations of The Recent Past Scott Magelssen 12. The Immersivity of American Tiki Bars Chloë Rae Edmonson 13. Time Traveler Day at the Renaissance Festival Michelle Liu Carriger 14. Introduction, Invitation, and Integration in Immersive Performance Sean Bartley 15. Turgin’ the Dragon!: Dramaturgical Immersivity and the Tabletop Roleplaying Game Michael M. Chemers and Mike Sell Contributors Index

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Author Information

E. B. Hunter is Assistant Professor of Drama at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of Acting the Part: Audience Participation in Performance. Scott Magelssen is Professor of Theatre History and Performance Studies at the University of Washington. He is the author of Performing Flight: From The Barnstormers to Space Tourism, Simming: Participatory Performance and the Making of Meaning, and co-editor of Theater Historiography: Critical Interventions.

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