Murder Ballad

This weekend, BW put on it's spring co-op program with Playhouse Square (I don't know what it's officially called, but something like that). The actors are all from BW, the arts management students do all the business stuff, and it's one big conglomeration of Baldwin Wallace working with our theater district.

Murder Ballad is immersive theater, which I had never heard of before (it's also the first time it had come to Cleveland). The stage was set as a bar but the audience members sat at tables in the bar rather than in a traditional theater setting (although there were seats available that were not immersive). The four cast members would run through audience and so depending where you sat, you could get a different experience just based on which character's face you saw. During the show the actors would be texting each other (as their characters) and would throw their phone on the table, and you could pick up their phone and look at the texts or see that one was calling another. It was very cool. The bar tender at one point made a drink and gave it to one audience member in the bar...you get it.

My video isn't embedding again, so here's a link to the creative team explaining more about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb0NA2K8tPs

I absolutely LOVED it. The story was basic (love triangle shenanigans) but it was edgy in the right ways without getting too ridiculous. It ended campy, which I always prefer over pretentious, and it was really short-- only 75 minutes (it's a rock ballad, so you can listen to the whole show on spotify if you want to experience a third of what I did).

I believe in taking advantage of cool opportunities.