Interview: Justin & Melissa Meyer Discuss the Setup & Scares in Immersive HOUSE OF SPIRITS Soirée

What do you get when you combine immersive theater and vaudeville variety show with a haunted house and a trendy bar scene? 

The House of Spirits Haunted Cocktail Soirée. 

Created by Meyer2Meyer Entertainment in collaboration with the events promotion company Fever, the sixth annual Halloween season cocktail party will run at Glendale’s Nocturne Theatre from October 4 through November 2.  

BroadwayWorld sat down with its creators, husband and wife duo Justin and Melissa Meyer, about what it takes to throw the epic Halloween party—and how they now manage to produce similar Soirées in four cities nationwide. 

First of all, I just want to say that I went to the first House of Spirits five or six years ago when you had it at a mansion just south of the 10 Freeway. It was amazing. 

Melissa: That was probably the first one in 2019 at the old Beckett mansion. 

How did the event go from that— to where it is now, with Haunted Soirees in four cities (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, and Seattle) nationwide?

Melissa: So, Fever is our marketing partner, and a lot of their strategy is growth—so the more you can produce, the better. 

When did you move it to The Nocturne Theater? 

Melissa: Last year when we purchased the theater. We had been producing quite a few events and renting other people's spaces. And the economics started to make sense for us to find our own home.  

OK, so the Nocturne is amazing. You must have fallen in love with it when you first saw it. 

Melissa: Yeah. We walked through it and the second we got confused as to where we were in the space, it reminded me of the Magic Castle, which is my absolute favorite experience. We really wanted to turn it into the Magic Castle of immersive theater. 

So what is the House of Spirits, exactly? Is it live theater? Cocktail party? Haunted house? 

Melissa: It's a solid mix between those three things. And the reason behind that was that we wanted to introduce theater in a new way because we both believe immersive theater is the future of theater. It's exciting to see what's happening on Broadway with Cabaret. There's the potential for Phantom of the Opera immersive show coming out, and I think that that's going to help really legitimize the immersive elements of theater. But at the same time, we realized that people just want to go and enjoy a cocktail party. They want to just go and have some fun. So we’ve made it a blend between immersive theater meets the cocktail soiree meets old Vaudevillian variety show where you get to see magic and burlesque.

Why did you choose to do it like that? 

Justin: A lot of modern audiences, their attention span is not very long: We are a sound bite. We are memes. We are social media. So from a creative standpoint, keeping the content revolving helps quite a bit to keep the audience engaged.

Melissa: And allowing the audience to choose where to spend their time is key.  If you're not really into magic, you can move on over and watch the live music group. 

Justin: I'd say, in the end, the show is mostly a variety show cocktail party. And there’s an element of a story that goes along with that if you really want to dive deeper and start talking to the characters. 

So how is it set up?  

Melissa: We kind of follow a formula in all the markets we have. Generally speaking, we have one giant area that we consider our main stage. That's where you'll see either a big performance or a band will play.  Then we have breakout rooms, and in each of those breakout rooms, you would go in and experience other attractions. 

Did you take out all the seats in the theater, or is it a sit-down event? r

Melissa: There will be some seats, but generally speaking, this is not a sit-down event. 

And how many performers are there? 

Justin: In LA, there are about 30 to 35. We focus on getting a lot of improv actors who will work through their characters and the script behind them.  We have a very loose script, but that way, they can really respond and not sound like robots. 

Is it scary?  

Melissa: It can be. But I don’t love the cheap jump scare, so we designed it around not trying to be the scariest thing. 

Justin: Some of the rooms have a little more scare factor to them because we've broken the rooms into different zones. But you can choose if you want to go into those areas and experience something a little bit heavier, a little bit jumpier, a little bit scarier. Our focus is less on trying to be the scariest thing and more towards being more creative. . . . We put a big focus on creature and character design, so all of our costumes are larger-than-life, strange, incredible designs by our Costume Designer, Tanya Cyr. She did all the designs for our costumes at the theater. 

What else should people know about the event? 

Justin: We encourage the guests to also dress up for the occasion so they feel like they're a part of this world-scaping that we’re doing. That way, you don't just feel like you’re in the jump scare zone at Universal Studios. You feel like you’re a part of this haunted cocktail party where the ghosts come out to play with you.  

So you have the Haunted Soiree in three other cities?

Melissa: Mm -hmm. We were in seven cities last year.

What do you think is fueling the popularity of this show?  

Justin: I think people are always looking for a new way to experience something. We are a stuck-on-our-cell-phones kind of community now, and breaking the fourth wall and being able to actually put the phone down and engage with people is something people really want to do. 

How much goes into putting it on? 

Melissa: It's a team of 70 people actively working the event— from the event staff to the actors to the bar staff. We usually come in on a Sunday and start removing furniture and setting up the venue the way that we need to, and on Monday, we start training actors. . . Friday, we open.

So you start training the actors on Monday, and you open on Friday? They learn their whole parts in just a week? 

Justin: Well, they get some of it beforehand, but because a lot of this is improv, they just basically need to know who they are and how they fit into the story. And then the rest is up to the talent. We pick performers who are skilled in that way that they can pick this stuff up and kind of run with it. 

When it comes to the actors that have to do that improv, who are you looking for? Are they stage actors? Are they scare actors? Are they actors who are used to doing things like Halloween Horror Nights? 

Justin: It’s a combo of all those things. And comedians—people who are just good at talking on their feet. We do a little interview audition process to see where they're at and look at their resumes and figure out what they've done in the past and if they'll fit. Interestingly, a lot of them are Shakespearian actors. A lot of folks want to do this because it's such a unique experience for an actor.

The House of Spirits Haunted Cocktail Soirée will run October 4 through November 2 at the Nocturne Theatre. Ages 21 and over. Tickets start at $55 and include miniature craft cocktails. See Houseofspiritssoiree.com for more details and to buy tickets. 

All images courtesy Meyer2Meyer Entertainment

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