Get us in your inbox

Search
Jessica Hern as Jordan Baker in The Great Gatsby
Photograph: Courtesy Mark SeniorThe Great Gatsby

The best immersive theater in New York right now

Put yourself in the middle of the action at immersive plays and interactive theater experiences beyond Broadway

Adam Feldman
Written by
Adam Feldman
Advertising

When it comes to theater, who says you have to just sit and watch? Immersive theater in New York City puts you right in the middle of the action, and often draws you in to participate. Whereas most Broadway shows still follow the traditional proscenium-arch model, some some immersive Off Broadway and Off-Off Broadway productions even dispense with the idea of a stage entirely, letting you follow your own paths through unconventional spaces. To help you navigate the maze of options, here is our list of the city's best immersive and interactive shows.

RECOMMENDED: Best Broadway shows

Immersive Theater in NYC

  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • Theater
  • Interactive
  • Chelsea

A multitude of searing sights crowd the spectator's gaze at the bedazzling and uncanny theater installation Sleep No More. Your sense of space is blurred as you wend through more than 90 discrete spaces, ranging from a cloistral chapel to a vast ballroom floor: a purgatorial maze that blends images from Macbeth with ones derived from Hitchcock movies—all liberally doused in a distinctly Stanley Kubrick eau de dislocated menace.—David Cote 

  • Theater
  • Circuses & magic
  • Bushwick

Austin McCormick and his outré dance-burlesque troupe, Company XIV, pull new tricks out of their elaborate sleeves at an intimate spinoff venue located near the group's principal space in Bushwick. Cabaret chanteuses, sexy dancers, circus performers and fancy cocktails complement the prestidigitation in a cozy speakeasy environment.

Advertising
  • Theater
  • Drama
  • Midtown WestOpen run

Set your boats against the current and prepare to be borne back into the Jazz Age as the U.K.'s Guild of Misrule brings its long-running immersive adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's quintessentially American novel to New York City. The show, directed by Alexander Wright, unfolds interactively in a ballroom space at the ritzy old Park Central Hotel that has been retro-renovated to evoke Jay Gatsby's West Egg mansion. Audience members are encouraged (but not obliged) to dress up in 1920s finery. Dance a charleston, raise a glass and watch the American dream collapse under its own bejeweled weight.

Advertising
  • Things to do
  • Quirky events
  • Open run

Tom and Betsy Salamon’s unique adventure—part interactive theater, part scavenger hunt, part walking tour—draws participants into an amusing web of puzzles and intrigue. The three-hour Village tour travels through quirky Greenwich Village on Saturday afternoon. Groups of as many as 11 are booked every half hour. 

Recommended
    You may also like
    You may also like
    Advertising