La Jolla Playhouse Announces World-Premiere Digital WITHOUT WALLS Series

La Jolla Playhouse has announced a new series of imaginative, digitally-delivered productions as part of its Without Walls (WOW) program. From intimate, one-on-one experiences to collective events, these brand new virtual WOW offerings bring world-class artists directly into patrons' homes, helping to create social contact during this isolating time.

The Playhouse is launching the series with four favorite WOW collaborators, including UK-based artist Brian Lobel (2013 WOW Festival's Carpe Minuta Prima), San Diego-based artists Mike Sears and Lisa Berger (2019 WOW Festival's How High the Moon) and Blindspot Collective (2019 WOW Festival's Hall Pass); as well as internationally-renowned designer and Playhouse 2020/21 Artist-in-Residence David Israel Reynoso and his company Optika Moderna (WOW Festival's Las Quinceañeras and Waking La Llorona; Off-Broadway's Sleep No More).

The works by Blindspot Collective, Sears and Berger, and Reynoso/Optika Moderna are all world-premiere La Jolla Playhouse commissions. Tickets for these four projects will range from free to $25. Dates and ticket information to be announced shortly.

"Our WOW series is extraordinarily well suited to this unprecedented moment when we're all sheltering in place, offering groundbreaking theatre that re-imagines the relationship between artist, audience and story in a virtual space," said Christopher Ashley, The Rich Family Artistic Director of La Jolla Playhouse. "Each of these innovative works is essentially about human connection. At a time when we're physically unable to be together, they address how art can help people feel bonded in moving, inventive and deeply humane ways."

The virtual WOW series will feature BINGE, a one-on-one performance piece created by renowned artist Brian Lobel & Friends that takes the solitary experience of binge-watching television shows and transforms it into an opportunity to find comfort in the lives of fictional characters. Tailor-made to fit the life of each individual audience member, the performance offers a live Zoom session with a personal artist companion, resulting in the prescription of a classic television episode to provide a little bit of solace at home. Leave your own drama behind, and insert yourself into a world where whatever the drama, it'll probably be solved in under 30 minutes.

Blindspot Collective, led by Co-Directors Blake McCarty and Catherine Hanna Schrock, is developing a new WOW piece entitled Walks of Life, an original, Playhouse-commissioned work of auditory theatre featuring short scenes by playwrights and composers from across the country. In the midst of a pandemic that fractures and isolates our communities, this aural experience offers the opportunity to safely and imaginatively reconnect with each other by bearing witness to life's intimate moments captured entirely in sound. Participants experience the piece while walking independently through their own neighborhoods, and over the course of three 30-minute parts, they are introduced to characters and stories that might be unfolding in the homes around them.

Blindspot Collective has also been named the Playhouse's 2020/2021 Resident Theatre Company. Spearheaded by Ashley, the Playhouse's Resident Theatre Program aims to encourage the artistic development of local performing arts organizations, while advancing and contributing to the San Diego theatre scene as a whole. The program provides a temporary home each year to a local company without a permanent venue, including performance space, lighting and sound support, as well as marketing and development assistance.

Local artists Mike Sears and Lisa Berger are creating Ancient, a Playhouse-commissioned video installation that explores the relationship between repetition and meditation, the routine and the ancient. With an original score composed by Shawn Rohlf for cello, piano and guitar, text by Rainer Maria Rilke, and a company of nine actors, Ancient invites the audience to observe an unfolding of day-to-day tasks that have been in play for centuries. An opportunity to experience nothing happening -- and everything happening. A reminder that we have been here before and that somehow, we go on.

David Israel Reynoso/Optika Moderna is creating a one-of-a-kind Without Walls experience that takes audiences members on an inventive, multi-sensory virtual journey without ever leaving their living room. Following a set of clues, guests will unlock an online secret portal and meet Optika Moderna's mysterious opticians who will reveal their latest procedure: Proyecto: Portaleza. This kinetoscopic wormhole expedition will engage audiences' senses in unexpected ways. This world premiere will evoke all the visual lushness, theatrical surprise and one-on-one connection of Optika Moderna's acclaimed WOW pieces Las Quinceañeras and Waking La Llorona, re-envisioned through the lens of a digital space.

Since its inception in 2011, Without Walls (WOW) has become one of San Diego's most popular and acclaimed performance programs. This signature Playhouse initiative is designed to break the barriers of traditional theatre, offering immersive, site-inspired and digital works that venture beyond the physical confines of the Playhouse facilities. Over the last decade, the Playhouse has been commissioning and presenting a series of immersive and site-based productions at locations throughout the San Diego community, including Susurrus (2011) at the San Diego Botanical Garden, The Car Plays: San Diego (2012) in the Playhouse parking lot, Sam Bendrix at the Bon Soir (2012) at Martinis Above Fourth, Accomplice: San Diego (2013) in Little Italy, El Henry (2014) at SILO in Maker's Quarter, The Grift at the Lafayette Hotel (2015) in North Park, The Bitter Game (2016) at Writerz Blok, What Happens Next at the Challenged Athletes Foundation (2018), as well as four biennial WOW Festivals in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019.

The virtual WOW series joins the Playhouse's previously-announced series of online content, including LJP Vault, a series of posts by staff members and artists sharing favorite Playhouse memories; Artist Alley, a collection of exciting artist-driven content, such as live master classes and rarely-heard cut songs from Playhouse musicals; and Create & Learn educational tools and fun at-home activities for educators, students and families. This digital content is available on the Playhouse website at LaJollaPlayhouse.org, as well as on social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.