Piracy, as evidenced by centuries and one of the best walks in the theme park, has fascinated for a long time. Marine people and sword struggle involve adventure. Dice games? Farolante and strategy. And if you are very lucky, you may find a siren.
Hearing members seen during a production of “Pirates Wanhed”, an interactive production of Last Call Theater.
(Gabriella Angotti-Jones/The Los Angeles Times)
Last Call Theater, a local acting group focused on the interactive, has found a way to give us a sample of breaking, without the annoying consequences of being captured by the Royal Navy or succumbing to a liver disease induced by Ron.
During one more weekend in Long Beach, theater attendees can live a mini merodeter fantasy on a real boat in “Pirates Wanhed”, a limited resurgence of the company's 2024 show. It is a theater, but it is also an adventure style game, one with branched narratives, multiple finals and even life lessons.
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The show is established aboard the American Pride Tall ship docked in Pine Avenue Lost Beach, a 130 -feet schooner that is mainly used as a ship focused on education. Stop still and feel the thin boat gently rock in the waves. But you will rarely be parked in the heavy wooden ship. With a cast of 14 and a audience capacity of 55, “Pirates Wanhed” explores the complete upper cover of the ship, which can be accessed through a small portable ladder.
The configuration: as members of the audience, we must be trained as pirates in England of the seventeenth century, with much of the cast with exaggerated accents. The drama: our captain's previous ship was abandoned in suspicious circumstances. To complicate things, a lost brother a long time ago, also a pirate with his own problematic story, is here to judge the bravery of the crew. The show begins with a speech by Captain Souvanna (Bonnie-Lynn Montaño), who severely demands a vocal vocal audience as the basic rules are presented. Following them, Souvanna warns, or risks to be thrown into the port.
Captain Souvanna (Bonnie-Lynn Montaño) and Captain Draken (Shelby Ryan Lee) share a moment during the immersive theater production “Pirates Wanted”.
At times, we are free to wander and link with several crew members for our piracy lessons. The so -called “treasures of the seas” will not be looted without our help, and soon I find myself improvating the sea shacks and participating in a game of dice of liars. I stumble upon learning how to build a knot, important, they tell me, in case they throw me in the vold and need to quickly walk me to a raft, but I have better luck imitating a figure 8 with my sword. We have tasks to complete, or games to play, rather, that they are ultimately an excuse for conversation.
Ask a roaming bard about the fate of the previous ship and a large number of stories begin to crumble and reveal themselves: love affairs, hidden secrets, lost maps and the discontent required between the strength of the ship. What would be a pirate narrative without speaking, for example, of mutiny?
Oats Weetle (Mads Durbin) uploads a mast during a dramatic scene in “Pirates Wanhed”.
“Pirates Wanhed” is very active, and one will not discover all the narrative paths of the program. Walk, for example, to a compartment in the arch of the ship, and can hear conspiracy whispers. Hang on the stern, and you can talk about a siren on board. I saw others with treasures maps, and only caught murmurs of the romantic soap operas that developed between the crew. The love letters were lost and recovered, and at one point they took me away, a pirate whispered me to ask if there was an illicit adventure on board between a crew member and the British Navy.
The members of the audience take “searched pirates.”
Like all Last Call programs, there are multiple ways of seeing, or playing. One can choose to be a relatively passive observer who tries to listen to conversations and discover the various stories. But it is advised to lean, jump from one character to another armed with questions and the will to continue the assigned missions. Here, the latter depends largely on gossip. At first, I was commissioned, for example, asking the various pirates about their feelings to lose their last ship, only that they told me not to use the word “sensation” in my line of questions (after all, one must deceive a pirate in vulnerability).
At all times, “Pirates Wanted” explore how to navigate complicated family drama and romantic relationships when value systems, you know, looting and looting versus no, do not align. There are metaphors if you look for them, specifically in having to live much of life in the closet, but “Pirates Want” also puts a great emphasis on nonsense.
The last call in the last three years has been established as one of the most prolific companies in the immersive theatrical scene of the city, regularly organizing two or three shows per year. The company has already announced a winter travel production, “The Butterfly Effect,” will debut on November 8 in Stella Coffee near Beverly Hills. “Pirates Wanhed” last year became one of Last Call's best reviewed productions.
Throughout the members of the “Pirates Wanhed” audience they will have the task of missions, sometimes they look for hidden elements.
“It was definitely our most critical and financial show that we organized,” says Ashley Busenlener, Executive Director of Last Call. “Who doesn't like pirates on a real ship?”
“Pirates Wanhed” leans Campy, a vision of the lifestyle more informed by the Disneyland Caribbean pirates than any historical fiction. It also addresses the theme that is often seen in pirate stories, such as the feelings of being misunderstood and the struggle to be the real self.
“One of the things that I often notice about pirate media is the great part of the time you see pirates and most of the time are white men,” says Busenlener. “That is not who I think are the pirates. We were very intentional … when creating a cast that we feel representing what piracy should be.”
In turn, many of the actors are women, queer and come from various origins. The goal, says Busenlener, was to show that anyone can be a pirate.
“Pirates are the people who were out of society,” says Busenlener. “They were violating rules and laws and taking power in their own hands. That is something we wanted to reflect.”
There are multiple stories clues in a “Pirates Wanhed”. In one, Captain Souvanna (Bonnie-Lynn Montaño) can face a riot.
And it is represented in one of the most affected narrative branches of the program, one in which one half siren spent their life presenting only as a human out of fear. It is an intimate drama full of mysticism, an adult issue that is finally handled with a touch of lightness for this family show.
It also reaches the heart of the last ambitious call with “Pirates Wanhed.” Come for swashbuckling, and the opportunity to learn some sword combat movements, but stay for emotional adventure. Do not be surprised if you leave the dock suddenly talking with a false British accent.
High ship The American Pride in Long Beach, home for one more weekend for the immersive theater show “Pirates Wanted”.
