‘Sleep No More’ closes in January

After more than ten years of performances, “Sleep no more” – the stirring, Hitchcockian riff on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” – will close the doors of the freight elevator for good when it plays its final performance on January 28.

Rising production costs prompted the decision to close, said producer Jonathan Hochwald, who also cited his unwillingness to increase ticket prices accordingly. “It’s a huge company with hundreds of employees,” he said.

Created by the English theater company Punchdrunk, “Sleep No More” had a short run in London in 2003 and a longer run in Brookline, Massachusetts, in 2009, in association with the American Repertory Theater. The success of that outing encouraged the newly formed commercial production company Emursive to bring it to New York. Emursive found an ideal space: adjacent warehouses in Chelsea that previously housed nightclubs such as Twilo, Home and Bed. The 100,000 square feet was redesigned as the McKittrick Hotel. “Sleep No More” began performances there in March 2011, paused due to the pandemic, and reopened two years later, with the sold-out performances fueled by word of mouth.

Ben Brantley reviewed the show for The New York Times in 2011, describing it as a “moveable orgy” and “a voyeur’s delight, with all the creepy, embarrassing pleasures that entails.”

“None of us ever thought we’d be here talking about the show in 2023 — the show was originally only on sale for six weeks,” said Felix Barrett, artistic director of Punchdrunk and co-creator of “Sleep No More.” on Wednesday. “It was mainly the audience in New York that embraced our show and made it a success.”

While hardly New York’s longest-running immersive theater event (that honor most likely belongs to “Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding”), “Sleep No More” has helped change and expand the landscape of immersive theater in New York, thus encouraging new possibilities. for design, environment and participation.

Moody, dark and decadent, the wordless show attracted a legion of superfans, some of whom saw it dozens of times. Not all those masked fans behaved properly. Buzzfeed was published in 2018 an exposé in which performers and staffers detailed multiple cases of sexual misconduct. The post-pandemic iteration addressed this, advising attendees to “please give your fellow visitors and residents a little breathing room and maintain a respectful distance.”

When it closes in January, the show will have played 5,000 performances in its New York City incarnation, serving two million audiences, Hochwald and his production partner Arthur Karpati estimate. For now, producers plan to continue McKittrick’s other late-night shows and the bars will remain open, but they are unsure if they will host another major show.

“Above all, we want to finish strong and leave a great legacy,” said Hochwald.