“The Most Intimate Piece of Theatre I’ve Been Part Of…”
Today “people want more, more, more,” says Justin Fix, creator of The Wil- lows, the murder mystery that might result if, say, horror auteur Ari Aster. (Hereditary, Midsommar) directed a reboot of Clue. Coproducer JT Swierczek describes it as a “decon- structed haunted house,” where family members lead guests to unnerving one-on-ones in the recesses of a gorgeously sinister circa-1918 Los Angeles mansion. “You ring the doorbell, a butler answers the door, and you’re literally in the show,” Swierczek says. “We don’t take people out of the world. Our ‘maid’ has to be able to pour wine.” She might also have a nervous breakdown in the dining room.
Just as a recent production of “The Willows” was starting to reveal its intentions around a dinner table, the immersive theater endeavor ripped me away from the action. I was being scolded by the matriarch of the house, and the butler was quick to order me out of my seat. My offense? Resting my elbows on a dinner table. I didn’t even have time to nod a goodbye to my partner as I was instructed to stand, leave the dining room and sit alone in a cramped, red-lit closet.
The first thing that caught my eye was a crumpled paper, which read, “I’m bad because I put elbows on the table.” While I wasn’t asked to write a confession, such a clever detail made it clear that I was now part of a lineage of poorly mannered guests at this haunted house.
There isn’t really any way to spoil The Willows, an ambitious new immersive theater experience set in a sprawling mansion in the Country Club Park neighborhood of L.A.
Produced by Justin Fix and his Just Fix It Productions team, the masterminds behind the annual haunted house CreepLA — which has drawn the likes of Anna Kendrick, James Franco, Billie Lourd, and Vanessa Hudgens — The Willows couches itself within the whodunit mystery dinner theater (Clue, for instance) and the sinister family secret horror microgenre. The gang’s all here: the domineering matriarch, the developmentally disabled youngster, the lewd uncle, etc.
We don’t know your family.
We only hope your meals together are less dysfunctionally enjoyable than this one.
You’re cordially invited to the Willows, a fully immersive, fully creepy dinner party with light scares, major psychological weirdness and sufficient bourbon. Tickets for July’s dates will go live and go fast starting Wednesday. Slideshow time.
It’s an interactive experience from Creep LA, who typically materialize in October to freak everybody out with strong productions. This one’s different, played out over a night of dining, drinking and mingling with a peculiar clan in their beautiful Hancock Park home.
It's 9:30 on a warm summer night and I'm standing at the corner of Olympic and Fourth Street in Koreatown. There's a shadowy figure down the sidewalk, lit by a lantern. I greet him and am met with a monotonal "Name?" He checks me off a list and tells me to join a small group of strangers standing nearby. Moments later, a passenger van pulls up and we are blindfolded and told not to speak. During our short journey, we receive instructions for our dinner with The Willows, an immersive theatrical experience running through July.
Let me make this very clear right off the bat; you need to see The Willows.
Over the weekend, I was invited to check out a dress rehearsal for this brand new show from the twisted minds that brought us Creep Los Angeles the past two years. Despite the fact that it was called a ‘dress rehearsal’ and that the crew constantly said it was not at 100% completion yet, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that The Willows is going to blow your mind and change the way you see and experience immersive theater...