Room Escape Artist

“Everything is in service to the audience”

You slip behind your mask and step into a world of decadence and mystery. As you’re led through a lavish world inspired by The Phantom of the Opera, Broadway stars are singing their hearts out mere feet away, and iconic scenes unfold all around you. This is Masquerade.

Masquerade is a blockbuster immersive theater production in New York City that filled the vacuum left behind by Sleep No More and Life & Trust. As David Spira notes in his review of Masquerade, “The actors were incredible… the show staff curated the experience for every audience member… and it was an impressive feat of logistics.”

Executive Producer and Creative Director of Masquerade Asher Young joins us on REPOD to chat about this fresh approach to a Broadway classic. Asher takes us behind the scenes of this enormous production, from transforming Lee’s Art Shop, an iconic building in NYC, to designing around audience flow. I appreciated Asher’s view on the importance of audience care, especially the discussion about the show’s staff. Masquerade has “butlers” who ensure that everyone in the audience has a good view, even repositioning audience members for the best sightlines.

Asher spent half his childhood learning magic from a vaudeville magician, and he spent the other half building haunted houses. It’s little wonder that he ended up creating mysterious, shocking, and intimate experiences on a large scale.

At the end of the episode, Asher recounts a little magical moment from a rooftop scene. Here’s the photo of a mysterious Phantom that appeared and disappeared… without a trace.

Thank You to Our Sponsors

We are immensely grateful to our sponsors this season: Buzzshot Bookings, Ubisoft VR Escape Games, and Immersif. We truly appreciate your support of our mission to promote and improve the immersive gaming community.

Topics Discussed in this Episode

• 01:14 What Is Masquerade?
• 02:07 Promenade on Rails
• 03:37 Dress Code and Masks
• 06:48 Phantom Perspective Shift
• 08:26 Asher Joins the Project
• 09:42 Transforming Lee’s Art Shop
• 11:21 Escalators and Space Design
• 15:38 Sponsor Break: Buzzshot
• 18:04 Audience Care and Butlers
• 21:50 Broadway Meets Immersive
• 24:05 Pulses, Cast, and Logistics
• 26:36 Sleep No More Comparisons
• 29:28 Running the Swiss Watch
• 31:52 Sound Design Wizardry
• 32:36 Pulse Structure Origins
• 34:40 Sponsor Break: Ubisoft
• 37:00 Hidden Art Treasures
• 38:19 Asher’s Origin Story
• 40:50 Building Performer Trust
• 43:42 Culture and Operations
• 45:59 Sponsor Break: Immersif
• 48:57 Unique Marketing
• 51:25 What’s Next
• 56:28 Credits
• 59:29 Roof Surprise

Leave a Voicemail

Got a question or thought for the podcast? You can submit a voice recording by calling the Room Escape Artist not-so-hotline that always goes straight to voicemail (551-227-7273).

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Asher Young
• Asher Young Studio
• Masquerade NYC
• Mischief Masks
• REA Review of Masquerade NYC

About Asher Young

Instagram:@asheryoung.studio

Asher Young is a creative director, producer, and artist. Growing up in New York City, he designed theatrical haunted houses instead of going trick-or-treating, trained with a vaudeville magician, and worked music concerts and festivals.

Young’s current work spans immersive theater, music, fashion, and art and media installations. He has put A$AP Rocky through physical and psychological tests on the sales floor of Sotheby’s; tied up 40 audience members in shibari ropes and served them tuna after an aerial duet; developed a three-dimensional hologram to represent memory and physicalize lost loved ones; brought together 30 artists and researchers to project onto Yale’s rare book and manuscript library; and woven 33,000 milliwatts of light through a garden of trees to represent mycorrhizal networks. Collaborators include Dior, Sotheby’s, Yale, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Big Apple Circus, Double Chicken Please, The Valentine Museum, Virgin Voyages, and Korean music collective DPR, in addition to real-estate and cultural development partners around the world.

Most recently, he served as Executive Producer and Creative Director of Masquerade, an immersive version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera. Young studied Computing and the Arts at Yale University, where he received the Susan J. Smith Arts Prize. He has also been recognized with the LIT Award for his piece Living Memory.

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