When the immersive play “Then She Fell” premiered in 2012 at Arts@Renaissance, a former Greenpoint hospital, critics were outdoing themselves in their praises. The show was named as one of the “Top Ten Shows of the 2012” by The New York Times; one of the best theater experiences of 2013 by Vogue Magazine, and won a Bessie award in 2013.
The creators of “Then She Fell,” Third Rail Projects are now coming to Bushwick with a brand-new immersive play titled “The Grand Paradise.” The play is a fully immersive, multi-sensory experience in which the visitors travel to a tropical paradise:
Set in those hazy and culturally liminal years of the late 1970s becoming the 1980s, the experience begins as you are handed a vintage plane ticket by a polyester-clad airline attendant. You and other
guests find yourselves transported to The Grand Paradise, a tropical resort that purports to be the home of the original, genuine Fountain of Youth. Greeted with a tropical drink, a garland of flowers, and an overly-cheerful Activities Director, visitors encounter the resort’s resident population, characters who embody the era’s shifting and blurring values — a rogue’s gallery of eccentrics, hustlers, eternal youths, gods, monsters, disco queens, and con men. Ultimately, The Grand Paradise offers a pas de deux of desire and death, a midlife crisis, a coming of age, and search for the revitalizing waters of the Fountain of Youth at the resort of the eternally broken-hearted.
Performances will be starting on December 10 Tuesday through Sunday at 7 pm (with an occasional 10:30 pm show) at The Grand Paradise, a custom renovated venue for the production at 383 Troutman Street (we’re intrigued!) in Bushwick. The tickets go on sale on November 10 and $95 – $150, and will be available online.