Washington, D.C., has an abundance of theaters, powerhouses like Shakespeare Theatre, Signature Theatre, and Arena Stage, but also dozens of small companies that together make D.C. one of the largest theater towns in the nation.

With so many companies, it's hard to get attention.

One theater is differentiating itself by challenging the notion of what visual storytelling can be.

In downtown D.C., Rorschach Theatre is starting a play within the audience.

It's a style known as immersive theater.

[People talking and laughing indistinctly] Hi.

Hello.

Hi.

Hi.

Well, um...

This might be too forward, but before I do anything, I have to ask, um, what are you doing here?

By that, I mean, um... what are you hoping to get?

"Immersive theater" is a huge word, and it can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different companies.

For us, it means surrounding the audience with the world of the play.

letting them step inside of it, I ask because, in full transparency, uh, I am out of mirrors.

I don't have any left.

Usually when people come to see me, that is what they're hoping to find.

But all the glass has been bought and sold and resold again and again.

So if you came here for a mirror, just go somewhere else!

Immersive theater has been going on since the beginning of time.

The theater that preceded Shakespeare was done in the streets, on carts, on caravans.

♪ It would be a true sort of community event, not like theater as we know it, where everybody sits in nice and tidy seats, doesn't eat anything, and behaves very well.

Once upon a time, there was a king who loved figs.

Baker: Doug Robinson's "The Figs" is this beautifully chaotic fairy tale.

He loved figs more than any other food.

He'd eat them for breakfast.

He'd eat them... Baker: It's very sort of street theater.

Woman: There was one tiny issue with his love for figs.

King: Figs?

Woman: Pay attention!

King: Bring me 6 figs!

Baker: The actors perform around everybody.

It's very rough and fun and very sort of presentational.

Man: I never intended for this play to be immersive.

So, when Randy and Jenny approached me about doing it in this immersive way, my mind was--was blown.

I never thought to have the audience situated within the world itself.

Frederick: We think about how to engage the audience in a more visceral experience and to just really allow audiences to be connected to the experience in a deeper way.

We are named Rorschach Theatre for the inkblot test invented by Hermann Rorschach.

♪ We loved the metaphor that what you see onstage speaks to who you are as a person, and everyone's gonna see something a little bit different, and that tells you something about yourself.

We really want you to come into the space and take away what you see from that and think about things yourself.

Woman: The wind carrying the message.

Baker: We approached theater in a way that what we're creating was an event, and we used spaces that lent themselves to sort of a total experience.

Woman: Follow me!

Baker: And we used what's essential about the architecture of the space to tell the story.

For this show, "The Figs," of the architectural elements that we use, the stairs are a big one.

There comes a moment where the audience actually follows something from the story.

♪ The idea that as you're descending down the stairs, you're descending deeper into the story, using a space in a way that would deepen the experience.

It allows an audience to be really invested in what's happening on the stage and to really hear and feel the story in a way that is different, and to think about their own journeys, think about what connects to their own world.

Curry: When Rorschach was founded in 1999, D.C. already had scores of theaters.

We really felt like we could set ourselves apart as a company by going into spaces that were unusual and that people didn't expect to be in or hadn't been in, and it let them see those spaces in a new way.

We have to bring in all the sound and all the lights and the chairs and the risers, and all of those pieces have to come in, but that does give us a huge amount of flexibility.

We staged a play in the greenhouse of the old Hechinger building in Tenleytown.

The greenhouse was a very hot place to make theater, we learned.

We were in an old firehouse up at the parks at Walter Reed.

We took over an office building in Southwest.

We were in 2 floors of this 4-story building that we moved up and down the elevator throughout the show.

Some of that began as a journey of necessity, right?

Because theater spaces are expensive and they're hard to get and they're often booked.

And part of it came out of like, "Where can we find a space?

"Where can we do something that's "a little bit interesting and different and how do we give people that experience?"

So, we are in a men's clothing store right now.

♪ It's an 8,000-square-foot, 2-level space that used to be a Rochester Men's Big & Tall shop.

This space we walked in, and it immediately just had so much character.

We use the upstairs as a lobby.

In this case, it's part of the performance experience.

There's lots of spaces downstairs for storage and building sets and having dressing rooms.

And also this huge back wall that had been for men's shirts, we use it as the back of our bar now, and it's also part of the show.

So, it was a space that had character and had things for us to work with and explore, as opposed to some of the more blank slate spaces.

This space was...perfect.

There are columns all over the space.

We turned the columns into trees, and we've used them as a feature rather than something that's just in the way.

Woman: If you hear the somber cries of a child, it could be Naomi's spirit out to wear your skin, to feel human again.

♪ Robinson: When it came time to think about what's the home for this play in D.C., a theater town that I love.

When Jenny and Randy reached out, I was like, "This makes sense."

I wasn't fully aware that they were in this found, converted storefront, but it was exciting when they pitched this idea that, "This is a play and when stories get deeper and deeper.

"And so we are going to stage it in a way that the audience gets to move deeper and deeper into the story."

It was an opportunity to learn about my play, seeing what it can be beyond what I thought it could be.

Curry: Rorschach's performance is in a neighborhood represented by the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District, BID for short.

Man: BIDs exist kind of as a bridge between the public sector and the private sector.

We've been working to reimagine downtown Washington.

We exist to provide a safe, vibrant, and welcoming environment for the people that live, work, and play in this neighborhood.

This part of town has been primarily office for a very long time.

When COVID hit, the neighborhood really took a hit, as well.

No one was coming to the office, which obviously impacted the businesses, the restaurant, and retailers.

We were left with a very high number of vacant ground floor retail spaces, and so we started to think about and reimagine what we could do with those spaces.

We look for interesting ideas that will attract people to the neighborhood, and we are focusing a lot of our efforts on arts and culture.

If you're going out for an arts-related event, chances are you're probably gonna get something to eat before or after.

Maybe you'll pop into a shop and buy something.

So, there's an economic engine associated with the arts, in addition to the revenue that the arts produce on their own.

It takes a special kind of theater company to be willing to come into a space-- in this case, a former men's big and tall store-- and say, "I'm gonna turn this into a theater, and I'm gonna charge people to come in here and see a show."

King, sobbing: Bring me figs!

Huff: Rorschach Theatre has not only done it, they've done it successfully.

King: Seize the fig bearer!

Huff: They make it work.

Baker: So, you're talking about the idea that you think you know how it's gonna end, and then you turn to them and you're like, "I didn't expect this."

Robinson: What I love about D.C. is the artists who are here and local in the corners, making the work at the smaller theaters, taking the risks and to be around them.

I think it's literally coming out, seeing her.

[Snaps fingers] Boom.

The movement ends, and then you go back there.

Woman: OK!

Do you know how many young actors are in this show?

It's like a big deal for them.

...to sort of like... Robinson: That is a gift for me, because I was once a young actor in a show at a theater of this size.

It's a way to, like, I don't, give back, support, do unto others.

For once in your life, be useful, June, and tell John that he missed!

Woman: This is my first professional production, actually, so everything's new to me.

[All cheering] But it's been lovely and really fun.

It's really encouraging, I think, to see that the audience is, like, going with the flow and doing what we hoped they would do.

What if I flew off this roof and out into the world?

Honk.

Not fly.

Woman: This is my second immersive show, and this company's ability to tell stories in such unconventional ways, and to get the audience to just climb on board and go along for the ride, it's really fun, and it's a great acting challenge, yeah.

I hope you got what you came for.

And more than that, I hope you got something you didn't expect.

Woman: It's very different to be, like, talking directly to the crowd of people than talking over the heads of the crowd of people.

All: Mm-hmm.

I just ate mud?

Oh!

[Indistinct].

Robinson: Because Rorschach is a playful company, they take risks.

Funny thing, stories.

People assume that the tellers know how they will end, but that is not true.

Robinson: A theater company in D.C. that took a chance on me before I had that degree matters.

It matters because it says, "There's space here for artists."

Some of you may invite that story that nestled so snugly between your head and your heart to the tip of your tongue so that it may be shared again, making you a storyteller.

[All snap fingers] ♪ Man: I like the integration of the play area with the area that we are allowed to be with as an audience.

Like, the bar in the play suddenly becomes a bar we can go and get a drink from.

They conjure magic out of nothing, it feels like, and it makes it even more meaningful and intimate in a space like this.

Huff: We had 100 people in a vacant storefront that would have otherwise been quiet, with tumbleweeds blowing through it on a Friday night in downtown, and instead you had 100 people paying to see art.

Frederick: We tell stories that have heightened reality, and everyone needs that in their life.

Everyone needs to be able to walk outside and see things in a way that makes you think about what's possible and not what is and what could be.

Baker: In some ways, a truly immersive play isn't even theater anymore.

It's something between a gallery visit and a punk rock show and theater.

It's something exciting, and I think it's something that everyone should--should do.

♪ Curry: Currently, Rorschach is running a self-guided urban adventure called "Vox Populi," a psychogeographies project.

It culminates in a performance in August.

Go to Rorschachtheatre.com for details.