Immersive Sci-Fi Satire LIFE PLAN Premieres at Fringe

Matthew Latkiewicz has notebooks full of short stories about near-future dystopian conundrums, including what people would be willing to sacrifice for an ideal life in a bleak setting. An acting student turned philosophy major, he also spent a number of years living and working in Silicon Valley's tech industry before moving to Los Angeles to work in entertainment.

Now, Latkiewicz has combined these passions and experiences into Life Plan, or How to Life Your Best Life in a Collapsing World!, making its world premiere at studio/stage this June as part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival.

In Life Plan, it is 2068 and the world (unsurprisingly) has gone to shit. America lies in ruins following Civil War II, and climate change has made a large swath of the Earth uninhabitable. For the mass of people facing uncertain and dangerous futures, Life Plan offers a solution: Join Life Plan and live your dream life in your real life! Life Plan is immersive satirical sci-fi-the audience is live at a timeshare sales pitch from our dystopian future. Over the course of the show, the audience learns about Life Plan, its tech guru founder, and meets people living their dream on the platform right now. But things are not exactly what they seem, and the audience must reckon with what Life Plan is truly offering them.

"The reason it became a show and not a short story is because I saw some very impressive and impactful immersive theatre pieces over the past few years," he said. "That got me thinking about how much more interesting it would be if Life Plan wasn't just a story about a company selling this dream life, but was actually the company trying to sell it to the audience. It makes the choice at the center of it-what would I give up for my dream life?-so much more real for the audience."

Latkiewicz is a writer/performer/comic who created the truTV show You Can Do Better, which was based on a humor book he wrote called You Suck at Drinking. To help him with Life Plan, he brought on his friend Brian Janosch as a co-writer. Janosch has written for Esquire and Vulture before taking over as managing director for The Onion for four years and then spearheading a digital comedy project for Adult Swim. To direct, they brought on Paul Hogan, a motion designer who gained some notoriety with string viral movie trailer as well as how work producing and directing a number of commercials and social media content for everyone from E! Online to CBS Films to Playboy.

Beyond the subject matter, what really sets Life Plan apart from other Fringe shows is the format. The experience is like being inside a live Black Mirror episode. It is mildly interactive, and fully immersive: audience members receive Life Plan literature, watch testimonial videos, and receive their own individualized Life Plan offer to take home with them. It is very dark, very frank, and very funny, said Latkiewicz.

"I hope they get freaked out by it (in a fun way) and go straight to a bar afterward to talk it over with their friends," he said. "Like the art I love best, the show asks some crazy questions that don't seem that crazy the more you think about them."

FOR TICKETS AND MORE INFORMATION:

https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/5773

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