by Awl Sponsors

This is the first in a three-part series about the history of interactive theater, presented by Heineken. We’ll be rolling out the second and third installments next week right here on The Awl. Make sure to check in next Monday and Friday for more content to satisfy your historical curiosity.

Last month Heineken pulled off an epic experience for some unsuspecting New Yorkers when they invited them to an interactive theater production, “The Guest of Honor,” that invited them to become stars of the show. Check this video out to see how it went down.

Cool, huh? As it happens, this groundbreaking form of entertainment has a rich history. In this series brought to you by Heineken, we’re exploring a burgeoning art form that encourages audiences to be actors, not spectators. In this installment we’re learning about the early roots of interactive theater.

The delineation between audience and performer has been blurry since the dawn of entertainment, with early man’s shamans reaching heightened states of consciousness alongside an audience of actors. Evidence of this activity has been discovered all over the world, in every tribe and tongue, which says something about the universality of participatory theater.

Typically a shaman would go into a trance or some other divine mode of being, providing them with a unique link to an alternate world. The audience asks for rain, for a harvest, a healing or a birth. The shaman interacts with the spirit world, and in turn the shaman interacts with the audience. The entire village was more than just spectators in these proceedings — they were also actors. It was a way for a tribe to come together to experience something as one.

Here we have the origins of call-and-response, a musical form wherein a leader calls out a command or asks a question and an audience replies with an affirmation or a contradiction. This ancient form of entertainment draws the spectator in and asks him or her to play a role in the performance. We see call and response throughout history in the drum circles and tribal religions across the globe. Throughout the modern era we see call-and-response in military formations, line dances, and the spirituals of the American South. Each of these forms put a new spin on interactive theater, which brings us up to the 20th Century.

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In our next installment, we discover how murder mystery dinner theaters, haunted houses, video games and choose your own adventure books paved the way for the kind of interactive theater that we’re seeing in the 21st Century.

“When I was young, my mother had a feverish conversion and started a church in our living room. I’d always been a tiny bit anxious that I might one day follow suit, hear the calling myself, start roaming the streets, preaching salvation. A committed but fearful agnostic, I’d never intended to tempt fate by visiting the Holy Land.”
 — Awl pal Maud Newton tempts fate by visiting the Holy Land.

Man, declared Jean-Paul Sartre, is in anguish: the anguish that comes from the freedom to choose. “When a man commits himself to anything, fully realizing that he is not only choosing what he will be, but is thereby at the same time a legislator deciding for the whole of mankind — in such a moment a man cannot escape from the sense of complete and profound responsibility. There are many, indeed, who show no such anxiety. But we affirm that they are merely disguising their anguish or are in flight from it. Certainly, many people think that in what they are doing they commit no one but themselves to anything: and if you ask them, ‘What would happen if everyone did so?’ they shrug their shoulders and reply, ‘Everyone does not do so.’ But in truth, one ought always to ask oneself what would happen if everyone did as one is doing; nor can one escape from that disturbing thought except by a kind of self-deception. The man who lies in self-excuse, by saying ‘Everyone will not do it’ must be ill at ease in his conscience, for the act of lying implies the universal value which it denies. By its very disguise his anguish reveals itself.” On the other hand, actress Kaley Cuoco “calls getting her boobs done ‘the best decision I ever made,’” so who’s to say?

There’s all sorts of information on the inspiration for this video here, but watch and listen first before you go fill yourself in. It’s pretty incredible on its own, even if you don’t get the reference at first. (I know because I didn’t. I’m ignorant, sorry.) Anyway, give it a go.

Symbolic gestures make sense when there are no pragmatic alternatives, like the things Eich was working on. You shot one of the good guys.

— Dave Winer ☮ (@davewiner) April 4, 2014

If you care about the open web, please help de-politicize Mozilla http://t.co/8n3d8QHCwv

— Ben Moskowitz (@benrito) April 4, 2014

Mozilla, if you don’t know it, is a much-respected nonprofit with a business nestled inside it that, among other things, makes Firefox. They elevated Brendan Eich, one of their cofounders, to CEO. Eich was a Prop 8 donor; people objected. Three board members resigned when he was given the job, including two who were former CEOs. (The organization says those board members were planning on leaving, but their departure leaves the Mozilla Corporation board with three whole members.) Employees asked Eich to step down. Eich made a commitment to help Mozilla ensure its place as an ally to the gays. And then Eich resigned, and resigned from the board of the foundation itself, which now has just five members.

And now the gays are being blamed for their pesky “interference” in this important company. And we’re getting straightsplained about how we “politicized” Mozilla. Why did we do this terrible thing! Why did we “shoot” one of “the good ones,” in the classic language of Dave Winer? Yes, and why did we make those board members go away? How can we want to live in a society where people with despicable views won’t defend them long enough to make the situation better, and instead, huff off, quit their jobs and apparently delete their Twitter accounts? One minute Eich was blogging about how he’d show everyone that he could deal with a complicated situation, celebrate diversity and the company, and ensure that everyone could trust in his leadership. Eight days later, his willingness to see that process through had apparently evaporated. Mozilla politicized Mozilla. And the gays didn’t make Eich quit. He didn’t want to do the actual work. He flounced.

Left: Dodger Stadium. Right: Michael Jordan’s house.

Dodger Stadium
56000
Los Angeles Dodgers
Square footage of Michael Jordan’s house

Coors Field
50480
Colorado Rockies
Prison inmates in the state of Ohio

Yankee Stadium
50291
New York Yankees
Population of Welland, Ontario, according to this sign

Turner Field
49586
Atlanta Braves
Number of people able to use Squaw Valley’s lift system per hour

Rogers Centre
49282
Toronto Blue Jays
2014’s quota, in pounds, of walleye sport anglers can catch in 2014 (two per person per day, please)

Chase Field
48633
Arizona Diamondbacks
Number of hourly workers employed by automaker GM

Globe Life Park in Arlington
48114
Texas Rangers
Number of newborn deaths per year

Safeco Field
47476
Seattle Mariners
Lowball estimate of runners in this year’s NYC marathon

Oriole Park at Camden Yards
45971
Baltimore Orioles
Number of displaced persons in Somalia in a recent three-week period

Angel Stadium of Anaheim
45483
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Tons of sand dumped of beaches in the state of Delaware to restore what Hurricane Sandy eroded away

https://giphy.com/gifs/IboGgisFIjvHi

Busch Stadium
43975
St. Louis Cardinals
Number of attendees at the Women’s World Curling Championship in Saint John, New Brunswick

@repcorygardner @Sebelius Remember in 2011 when you tried to redefine “rape” as “forcible rape”(which would exclude statutory rape or other)

— Momscience (@momscience) March 30, 2014

Citizens Bank Park
43651
Philadelphia Phillies
Number of Google results for “Cory Gardner” and “rising star,” according to some guy at MSNBC

Petco Park
42524
San Diego Padres
Number of tickets issued by Chicago speed cameras since they went up last August

Great American Ball Park
42319
Cincinnati Reds
Number of concealed carry permits applied for in the state of Illinois this year

Progressive Field
42241
Cleveland Indians
Bales of Australian wool offered up at auction in a single week this month

Minute Maid Park
42060
Houston Astros
Pounds of honey spilled in Southern California on March 24 when a truck overturned

Citi Field
41922
New York Mets
Pounds of ketchup *not* spilled in Indiana on March 23 even though the truck carrying it rammed into an overpass

AT&T; Park
41915
San Francisco Giants
Net population loss in Bulgaria in 2012

Miller Park
41900
Milwaukee Brewers
Number of people who have liked the Tasmania Police Facebook page

Nationals Park
41418
Washington Nationals
Number of day-old pheasant chicks distributed to qualified applicants in New York State last year

Comerica Park
41255
Detroit Tigers
Downloads of Skrillex’s latest album in its first week of sales (compared to 6000 hard copies sold*) (* which is the average attendance of a Major League Lacrosse game)

Wrigley Field
41019
Chicago Cubs
Number of people employed by the shipping industry in Scotland

U.S. Cellular Field
40615
Chicago White Sox
Number of wild horses on BLM-managed lands

Target Field
39021
Minnesota Twins
Tons of coal ash spilled into North Carolina’s Dan River by Duke Energy this February

PNC Park
38362
Pittsburgh Pirates
Number of U.S. suicides in 2010

Kauffman Stadium
37903
Kansas City Royals
Speed in miles per hour of a meteor that hit the moon earlier this year, visible with the naked eye from Earth

Fenway Park
37499
Boston Red Sox
Number of times a marathon runner’s feet strike the ground in a race

Marlins Park
36742
Miami Marlins
Sale price, in U.S. dollars, of a giant tuna

O.co Coliseum
35067
Oakland Athletics
Sale price of the Indiana Demon House

Tropicana Field
34078
Tampa Bay Rays
Gallons of crude oil spilled in North Dakota last week following a pipeline burst

Previously

: NFL Attendance Explained

Victoria Johnson is a cartographer by trade.

★★ Not at all bitter, but still devoid of the least bit of sweetness. A dark gray morning passed through a listlessly rainy midday into a bright, clear afternoon and evening, but none of it made a difference. Even in the stifling height of summer, when the trash-rot hangs on the sodden air, who will long for this endless unwarmth? The children came home from the Park, happy enough, scattering sand from their shoes, carrying sand somehow into the middle of the bedclothes in the furthest part of the apartment. The late light was soft and lovely, and so what?

“Is a Footprint the Right Metaphor for Ecological Impact?”

If you know the right places to go it’s always 2002 somewhere. (Cf.) [Via]

If the first thing you think when you hear the word “yakuza” is “missing pinky,” the photo that accompanies this article about how the yakuza is turning to the Internet in a bid to grow its membership will not disappoint you.