Room Escape Artist

The winner for the 2025 Black Immersive Creators Grant is Taj Rauch, an immersive game developer, theater maker, and filmmaker whose work focuses on centering the audience as the protagonist of every story.

His selected project, All Heathens Go to Heaven, is a darkly comic immersive theater piece that places its audience in quiet control of a fabricated reality.

About the Project

All Heathens Go to Heaven is a darkly comic immersive theater piece that places its audience in quiet control of a fabricated reality. Two young men believe they’ve returned home to rest after receiving neural implants in a corporate medical trial. But the living room isn’t real. It’s a stage within a stage, monitored from every angle by an audience that hasn’t yet realized that they too, play a role in this story.

About the Artist

Taj Rauch is an immersive game developer, theater maker and filmmaker whose work focuses on centering the audience as the protagonist of every story. His stories push the envelope of immersive world-building to ask: in a myriad of worlds, would you still find yourself to be you?

His work has been featured in the IceBox Project Space, exhibited in the PAFA Museum, and played at the VGTVG Conference. Taj is the recipient of a 2024 Residency with the Tony Award Winning Wilma Theater, an awardee of the Niantic Developer Accelerator Fund, as well as a Barrymore nominated projection designer. 

About the Decision

Full Disclosure: David and I are members of the Board for the Black Immersive Creators Grant. It’s important to us that the immersive entertainment industry (including escape rooms) is welcoming to creators of all kinds, and that together we strive for more representation.

As a board members, we reviewed so many incredible applications! I was, once again, impressed by the scope of what immersive entertainment can be. I felt that the quality of applications really leveled up this year, from years past. As always, choosing just one winner was a tough decision.

I’m especially excited about All Heathens Go to Heaven, this year’s winning project, because it gives audience members a lot of agency. It uses interactivity and gameplay in the design… all to make the audience stop and think. It presents relatable, meaningful social commentary. I’m so excited that it will be produced.

About the Project

If you are interested in supporting this project, you can donate now in advance of the 2026 grant cycle.

If you are a black immersive creator interested in applying in 2026, you can learn more here.