Recently, I decided that everyone deep down wants an adventure. For years I have been asking people who book theatre parties and tour groups, “What is the worst thing that has happened on one of your trips?” About 95% say, “It was the time that I lost someone.”
There are all sorts of wanderers. There is the student who wandered away at Mount Vernon. The V.P. who tried an interesting door in restaurant and was locked outside in the alley. The older woman who took the wrong path on the nature walk. Tour organizer tells me about mobilizing people to search and whether or not they called the police and then I ask, “Were they frightened? Was the lost person frightened?” Invariably the response is, “No. We were scared to death but the lost person thought we over reacted.”
Of course they weren’t frightened. They were having an adventure…something different and new. Lately at every tourism marketing conference that I attend, the experts tell me that everyone wants experiential trips. I think that means they want fun experiences but of course I am not a marketing person. I have tried to figure out how to make attending the theatre more “experiential.” But I think that I “got it” last week at an event for FUERZA BRUTA. This is the show that will both excite the senses and satisfy any cravings for wanderlust.
People will enter the grand lobby of the Auditorium Theatre which will be re-imagined as a bar/club and then head up onstage for show that will happen around, above, in front, behind them. When I first saw this amazing production from Argentina I was blown away. I watched videos and read reviews but I was still unprepared for how much fun I had. I felt like I was part of the show but not like one of those audience participation things where they bring you up and ask you where you are from. Things happened so fast I didn’t know where to look or move – thank goodness FUERZA BRUTA has unobtrusive wranglers who gently escorted us this way and that. I loved the music, swimmers in the pool above my head, the women who flew like butterflies high up on the walls, running man…everything.
And like the lady on the nature walk in the Grand Canyon, I had an adventure but the Park Service didn’t have to bring in search teams.
-Gemma
