On an afternoon from Monday to recent Friday, I found myself in a romantic position for which I received zero training: a quotation coach. However, there was, in an East Hollywood bar, listening and analyzing a conversation between two possible partners. The couple had already debated the local hiking places, however, when one said he leaned to Homebody and the other night favored, our apprentices needed help.
A sudden pause in the chat caused panic, and a coach for the other team asked for a pause. “It's time for a sidebar,” he said, while we all curl around our dating cadets for a quick evaluation and to provide tips to direct the course of the conversation.
The clock was working. This was a quick appointment configuration, and our apprentices only had a few minutes to reach some important conversations. Quotes with intention and commitment was important for the single that I and another had the task of managing, so we decided to have the objects of great image directly. It worked, more or less. Ask questions about the future caused the other party to hesitate and stumble. A red flag?
This is the “Love game”, a new interactive work of the last Call Theater Company organized in The Virgil, a live music bar and music near the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Virgil Avenue. We, as members of the audience, play a pairing in this 21 -year -old and more show. And in our role, we are working for a researcher who believes he has deciphered the formula for love.
Most of the actors play applicants for daters. Bets gradually increase throughout production. With only a handful of singles available, the desire to match my assigned actor increased as the show progressed. He did not want to fail them causing the program to end them without facts.
Wait curved balls: some can launch polyamor, causing an almost existential crisis in a single that longs for a fairy tale romance with an individual. And prepare for debates about what makes the best long -term association: where are we committed and is even healthy to yearn for romance above all others in life? Is love to some indefinable equation that simply happens, or can we approach appointments such as science, mix and combine personality traits until we have created an infallible pairing?
The main theme of the “love game,” says director Michael Dinardo, is personal overcoming.
“I think that when many people who go out or look for a couple for life, they are looking for a lot of affirmation and validation of external sources,” says Dinardo, 29. “But all these characters, those who are dating the program and are outside the program's dating experiment, have aspects about themselves that need self -reflection.”
“Love Game” is Last Call's eighth show in approximately three years, a relatively rapid production rhythm that has helped establish the young company as serious players at the Los Angeles immersive theater scene. In any last presentation of calls, the stories are strongly improvised, there are multiple finals and the members of the audience can expect to interact with the actors in exaggerated environments. In the past, the team has created shows influenced by an IKEA type environment, “The Showroom” of 2023, and in a pirate ship, “Pirates Wanced” last year, which was organized at the Maritime Institute of Los Angeles de San Pedro .
“We put power in the hands of the audience,” says Ashley Busenlener, executive director of Last Call.
“They have the agency to affect and change the story,” Busenlener continues. “If there was no audience, there would be no show. The actions they take and how they interact with the characters change it every night. You can change a character's mind about something. You can change the full plot of the show. There is a structure and there are different endings, but the public is the protagonist of the story. “
Maria Sole Quintili as Noemi in “Love Game” as the actor talks with the members of the audience.
(Charly Charney Cohen)
Created by a team raised in video and table games, the programs of the last call take Games that identifies those people not controlled by the player. Busenlener, 27, is an avid player of “Dungoons & Dragons”, and the fantasy role -playing game has influenced the latest call productions, specifically in the creation of elaborate characters that delineate for the interests, background and background and background and Motivation of someone's actor.
“Individual background stories and the construction of the world is something that happens in the essay process with the actors,” says Busenlener. “That is something that I have received a lot of practice [in] 'D & d'. We write magazines in characters and different exercises such as lyrics and things. When you are in these programs, a audience member can really ask you anything, and you must have an answer for it. As, 'How is your relationship with your mother?' And you say: 'I know the answer because in our second essay I wrote a letter to my mother' “.
However, what really distinguishes the last call is your desire to experiment with shows of shows and topics in the immersive space. The company's seeds come back when they look and Dinardo were USC students. Both fell in love with the immersive format due to their interactivity: Busenlener after seeing a production of “The Gratsby: The Immerse Show” while studying abroad in London, and Dinardo after experiencing a handful of local and intimate shows that allowed the Actors talk with the guests.
In Los Angeles in particular, the immersive scene tends to be more active in September and October near the Halloween season. The shows are often built around a mystery or the exploration of a haunted environment. A production like “Love Game”, a timed romantic comedy for Valentine's Day and equally influenced by reality television video games and the quotation simulator, is relatively rare.
Peyton Wray, on the left, Kylie Buckles-Hall and Caitlyn Gorman such as Austin, Lenora and Brooklyn in “Love Game”, a theater production theater themed around romance.
(Charly Charney Cohen)
“What we can do is touch all the different genres and kingdoms of the worlds where you can play, whether it has been of science fiction or post -political, or fantasy with pirates, or more modern with the 'love game',” says Dinardo . “There is a way to deepen and see how this format works in any genre. In this way, we can open opportunities for the members of the audience who could be great fans of science fiction but have friends who are more interested in reality shows. ”
Busenlener adds: “I love Halloween season in Los Angeles because there are many great things, but I also love being able to go to funny fun things outside that season.”
And now, with “Love Game”, it has a show for the Valentine's season.
Let's say I was not the most successful of the pairings, but “Love Game” offers numerous missions: we can try to increase flirting between the actors establishing Karaoke sessions or we can choose to chat with an internal waiter, receiving, receiving a love analysis less scientist. At one point, I found myself trying to steal research documents in an attempt to obtain more information about the singles in the program.
All of that is equal to another last call feature, that is, to wait for a sense of humor. “With this type of structure, when you bring such a great stranger of the audience, and who knows what ideas they will bring and how they will want Please “.
And what, after all, would be a series of first quotes without some exaggeration?
