Immersive Theatrical Experience THE WANDERING Extends to June 30

The Wandering, an immersive theatrical experience inspired by the music of Franz Schubert, will extend to June 30. Part visual album, part queer drama, and part communal live experience, The Wandering, which opened on April 15, transports participants into a wonderous environment that unfolds both online and via physical tasks and ephemera shipped directly to audiences. At its heart, The Wandering uses a queer lens to examine the love and pain that divided Schubert while taking guests on a journey that radically reshapes how classical music can be presented. The Wandering is created by newcomers Calista Small and Jeremy Weiss with film direction by Lara Panah-Izadi. Key collaborators include designer Charlotte McCurdy, writer/animator Zach Bell, theater artist Christine Shaw, graphic and print designer Irina Wang, web designer TanTan Wang, and executive producer Max Sauberman.

"What the world does need is something like The Wandering," declared Steven Jude Tietjen in Opera News. "An innovative, engrossing, and boundary-shattering look at the human need for connection, self-expression, and self-transfiguration that reaches out to the listener in their homes and invites them to introspection." Tietjen added, "The Wandering describes itself as "part queer drama," and it's this queerness that makes it a vital and wholly original work. Over a year into a pandemic, The Wandering uses queerness and the queer experience to break away from what has become the staid, conventional Zoom performance and offers the world something that cuts deeper and lingers longer." Adrienne Sowers in The Reviews Hub wrote, "For audiences craving something unusual and memorable, The Wandering is a rich opportunity to experience both."

Each of the four episodes that make up The Wandering contains a short film, an interactive object, an online experience, and an opportunity to connect with other audience members. Participants follow "The Wanderer," an enigmatic character ostensibly based on Schubert that is played by Weiss, a trained opera singer. In the films, original recordings of Schubert songs featuring baritone Weiss and pianist Marika Yasuda are set against a sparse and expansive midwestern landscape with indoor scenes shot on location at the historic Wright in Kankakee home and the 1928 Tivoli Theatre in Downers Grove, IL. Complementing this visual narrative are physical experiences with augmented reality, outdoor excursions, and online interactions.

"The ambiguity of Schubert's sexuality gave us license to imagine a future where his queerness was seen as wondrous and not strange," said Weiss. "We began to ask ourselves, 'Why is it difficult to find wonder and beauty in what we find different?' It's also known that Schubert and his friends performed art songs in their living rooms. So, too, are we inviting audiences to experience his music at home, while also transforming it, and queering it, for our digital reality."

Having sold-out its initial 750 print run, a new limited supply of fully immersive experiences, containing objects and tasks, are currently on sale for $29.99 at https://experiencethewandering.com/. Pending availability, packages will remain in-stock through June 30. Please allow 14 days for processing and shipping. A digital-only experience is also available for $24.99.

In addition to Weiss, the cast of The Wandering includes Bambi Banks Couleé as The Performer, Ethan Kirschbaum as The Doppelgänger, and Daria Harper as The Crow. The additional creative team for The Wandering includes Sahil Gupta and spase.io (augmented reality developer), Jared O'Brian (Sound Designer/Engineer), Brian Gill (Album Producer), Frank Sun (Director of Photography), and Craig Black (Choreographer).

The development of The Wandering has been supported by The Schwarzman Center at Yale University and the Innovation in Art Song Summit at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. The Wandering was made possible by a grant from the Puffin Foundation.

Please visit https://experiencethewandering.com/ for more information.

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