Follow Your Dreams, Puzzles, and Nightmares in The Shape of Night

In a small, dark room, a woman dressed in shining chainmail taps a paper on the desk in front of me. “Question Three,” she says, “you are falling. You will never stop falling. Falling and falling forever. For how long will you scream?”

I am a nervous laugher, so the pen shakes while I scrawl 1 minute onto the paper. This is not the right answer. With a big red marker, she crosses out my answer, laughing “Oh! Oh no! Not even close!” before crumpling up my test and tossing it away. The lights in the room change color, I feel completely uprooted. But that’s not all: just minutes ago, a hooded, shadowy figure with a big, creepy grin got on one knee in front of me. With a soft touch, they wordlessly and kindly offered me a handful of pearly white teeth before walking off like nothing had happened.

A place to assemble clues? Or part of your unintelligible dream?

The Evergreen Echo

It feels like a reoccurring dream. Even years and years out of high school, I still have dreams of stressful exams and my teeth falling out. But the strangest part of all of this is that it isn’t a dream. This is The Shape of the Night, an interactive performance and puzzle created by All of Them Witches (AOTW), a team of eight experimental artists bringing new and delightful twists to interactive performance art.

Created by Eva Anderson, Derek Bishé, Mali Elfman, Eric Hoff, Tommy Honton, and E3W Productions (Aaron Keeling, Austin Keeling, Natalie Jones), AOTW is a completely new flavor of production. The focus of AOTW is to create a deeper relationship between art and its participants, and the entrancing world of The Shape of the Night is completely enrapturing, entangling you in the story, performance, and atmosphere. The Shape of the Night is an art gallery, an escape room, a drag show, a play, and a magical realm. In fact, it would probably be easier to tell you what the performance isn’t. In AOTW’s own words:

“We blend traditional production methods with innovative techniques;

We create experiences that feature elements of horror;

We focus on stories that wrestle with social change;

We foster meaningful relationships between characters and participants;

We generate interactive opportunities that impact our narratives.”

The Shape of the Night is, at its core, a dream world brought to life. With each art installation stranger and more surreal than the last, the space opens into a place where anything can happen. The production is located at the historical Georgetown Steam Plant, but while the outside of the building may look like a classic, abandoned factory, the inside is completely unrecognizable. Although the performances of the actors and guides were legendary, I was the most astounded by the transformation of the space.

The building glowed with lights of every color, reflective objects scattering beams across walls and floors. In each nook and cranny of the factory (which you are encouraged to openly explore at your own pace), there was a new delightful installation to explore. Whether it be an old office room, a graveyard, or a room of mannequin heads, each new part of the building opened into something completely and utterly different, just like a dream.

As an interactive experience, you can explore and engage in any way you wish: enjoy the main gallery with a cocktail (or mocktail!) in-hand, follow specific characters to watch their stories play out, or solve a series of challenging puzzles that lead you deeper into the lore of the performance. There are also a series of interactive performances that you must seek out, or that seem to find you. You can do a Pop Quiz nightmare, follow a dream visitor into a tent, or accept a magician’s blessing. There are dozens of experiences that make the night unique and special, and no two people will experience it the same way.

Pop Quiz!!! area

The Evergreen Echo

I cannot recommend the show enough; it’s the full experience, with interactive performances, puzzles, and dozens of dreams to explore. One can also enjoy a stunning view of the interior as it glows with dreamy light, and you’ll fully slip into the lucid dream space.

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The Shape of the Night will run until May 11, with performances Thursday through Sunday. The show is designed for 18+ and sadly, due to the historical nature of the Georgetown Steam Plant, it is not completely accessible.