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Lessons from the Murder Mystery Company (with Scott Cramton) · The Daily Writer

0:09
SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, welcome to episode 103 of the Born to Create Podcast.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Kent Sanders, and this is the show where we explore the mindset, habits, and skills to help you make a bigger impact in your life and creative work.
0:23
SPEAKER_01: When I was in high school, I was heavily involved in school plays and musicals.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: And even though I don't talk about it a lot here on the show, I've always loved theater because that art form brings together so many other types of art into one type of performance.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean if you think about it, whenever you see a musical in particular, I mean plays are really the same thing, uh except of course musicals are plays that have music.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: But a musical brings together music and writing and acting and costume design and set design and so many cool things into one really amazing package.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: So that's why I'm thrilled today to bring you a conversation with somebody who has had lots of success in theater.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: His name is Scott Crampton, and he is the CEO of the Murder Mystery Company, which is the largest theatrical company in the country, employing over 1,800 people.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: In 2018, they performed at 6,316 shows, which they estimate to have reached over 600,000 guests with their immersive theatrical murder mystery style.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: Now those are some amazing numbers.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: In our conversation, you'll learn about the challenges that Scott faced as a child and how those challenges motivated him to become an actor.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: You'll also learn all about the murder mystery company, what's unique about their events, and how their whole process worked.
1:43
SPEAKER_01: This is a very fun interview, and even if you're not a big fan of the theater, I think you will be after this episode.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: You can check out the show notes at KentSanders.net slash 103.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: All right, let's get to the conversation with Scott Crampton.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: Scott, welcome to the uh Born2Create podcast.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you making time to do the show.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh, thanks.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Kent.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: So let's take a few minutes.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: If you can can walk us through for a few moments your journey into acting, starting with the unique challenges that you faced as a kid with your speech.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: I I was really intrigued by what you said on um on the Murder Mystery Company website as to kind of your journey in in just your speech and in speaking as a child.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: I thought that was a really fascinating story.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, so um I was born with a cleft palate, a fairly severe cleft palate.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: And um the journey is kind of crazy because it's 20 years, but I'll try to synopse it in uh about a minute and a half.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: Um so I was born uh when I was born by um they told my parents that I'd never be able to even like talk on the phone because uh it was too severe, and even speech therapy isn't gonna help, and the surgeries that they have there aren't gonna help.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: And I got really, really lucky.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Um there was this guy, it sounds made up, but they called him the man with the golden fingers, and he was an incredible surgeon.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh surgeon, and he would go through and he would do like maybe 10 surgeries of one thing, and then they would kind of study his work, how people could get better, and then he'd do 10 more surgeries of another thing.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: But he was just an insane surgeon.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: I got picked as one of his people.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: Later on, he died in a plane crash.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: So growing up, um, you know, as a kid, I was constantly in like doctor's office, and a bunch of medical students would come in.
3:35
SPEAKER_00: So usually when I was in the doctor's office, there'd be like 20 people in the room.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: So flash forward, I'd done speech therapy, seven surgeries, and I was starting to talk kind of normal.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: I got to fourth grade, and I can always remember this moment when there was important moments and angry moments in my life because I'd worked so hard.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: Um my speech therapist was having one of those sit-downs with my parents where they kind of talk about you like you're not even in the room.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: And um what he ended up doing is what she ended up doing is she said, uh, well, you know, he could do anything.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: This is amazing.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: It's like uh a man with a club foot running in the Olympics.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And then she laughed and she said, I mean, anything except like public speaking.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I always remember that moment, and it was that moment that I completely changed like what I wanted, what I was good at, because I never wanted to act or had any interest in at that point in time.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: But I'm like, I'm gonna show her.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: And I started going into it.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I can public speak.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I did, and I ended up going into a theater program in high school and um kept up with speech therapy until I was like 19, which is probably longer than I needed to do, but to go into public speaking, that's kind of what happened.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm in acting because of spite.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, I love that story because you you took something that that could have been a major liability, and you just decided to go for it and run in the direction that was probably completely the opposite of what everybody expected you to do.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely the opposite of what people expected.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: And I got lucky quite a bit around the way, and I ended up kind of cheating a little bit.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: I built my own company um called the American Immersion Theater, and we do like murder mysteries and princess parties and superhero events.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: But I've acted um in over 1,000 murder mystery shows.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: So I kind of made it.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: So tell us about now your company.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: Is it called the Murder Mystery Company?
5:38
SPEAKER_01: Did I get that correct?
5:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh so yeah, what basically um we're the largest immersion uh, also known as experiential theater in the world.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: We're the largest theater um by volume in the world, too.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: We did 6,500 shows just last year.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: Um so we do a tremendous amount of volume shows, and we have five different companies.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: So it's a little confusing, but the five different companies are all based on kind of the experiential theater, the immersion theater process where you're really part of it, where you leave a story, something about you.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: The biggest is the murder mystery company.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we then have uh Princess Party Company, which is princesses to you and basically um superheroes to you as well.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: So we do we have two different companies there.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: And um then we have Famous for a Day, which is a company that people really like.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: We actually just had a YouTuber do it.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: Um uh and essentially what it is is just imagine let's say it's like your your bachelor party, right, Kent, and uh one of your friends says, Hey, let's do something special.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: And normally you're just bar hopping, and this time you come out of the bar and you're swarmed by paparazzi.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: And they're all like, Kent, Kent, and we provide like a fake bodyguard and a fake publicist, and people on the street think you're famous, so they'll run up to you and get your photo and stuff like that.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: So it's like famous for a day, the idea of like, why can't you be a Kardashian if not even for like 30 minutes or two hours?
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: We even do like a rental limo service, and the other thing we do is um um atmospheric entertainment, and that's basically like uh like if you have an idea that you want for acting, but you can't think of how to do it, like so.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: For example, recently somebody wanted on April Fool's Day to have wedding crashers at their wedding.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and so they had these crazy kinds of uh, you know, they wanted us to go as crazy as we could.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: So like they were fake selling cocaine, one of them the girl wore a wedding dress, uh, the guy gave uh gave a speech right after the best man speech, so just trying to completely ruin their wedding, and that's what she wanted.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: And then at the end she's like April Fools.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, and that's basically the those are the five companies of what we do.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: Again, the majority is murder mystery.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Um, but we still do thousands of uh more like a thousand of the other shows.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: So, how does uh the murder mystery work?
8:07
SPEAKER_01: Is that a situation where let's say a company hires you to come and do a production at their facility or at a local theater or something, and and you kind of just go where they hire you to go?
8:18
SPEAKER_00: So both are true.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Um we do private events, we're uh definitely the largest private event company uh for theater in America.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: And essentially what we um what we do there is yes, from like grandma's birthday party with like eight to fifteen people, um, all the way up to we just did Star Wars celebration um on Saturday for 700 people.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Um we do all that, and then we do have public shows.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: So we'll do about five to eight hundred public shows, and we're in 25 different states.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: So we are doing public shows pretty consistently and highly likely within like 30 miles of you.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: So let's say for Star Wars celebration, for example, we're recording this on a Monday.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: Star Wars celebration was just over the last few days in Chicago.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: Is that a situation where Lucasfilm hires you to come in and do something for their audience?
9:13
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, that is the that is the scenario.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: It was a conjoined Lucasfilm thing where like some of the workers, but yes, though they call us and they want a special event.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh in this case, it was a custom show, obviously Star Wars themed.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, obviously.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: And we went back and forth with them and we had to get a professional makeup artist in there.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it was pretty amazing.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: They provide you us with like eight stormtroopers for the lead guy uh to kind of instruct and you know, frisk the audience when something went awry and uh make sure that people had their passes on them um to get in and you know, just general stormtrooper hassling that is so fun and popular.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, yeah, so we do you know the private events, but we also do smaller ones, you know, 15-person birthdays and stuff, and not just for the super rich.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: That's one of our big keys.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, I grew up um very poor and I wanted to make sure that it was a theater company that'd be accessible for you know everybody.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: So how do you recruit your actors, directors, and other people who are involved in uh in all of your all of your events?
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Oh, sure, absolutely.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: So um we do a tremendous amount of postings, obviously.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: That's a big, big function.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: If you're ever interested, if you're listening to this right now and you're like, I've wanted to act my whole life and I never have.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, one of the most inclusive acting troops you could be a part of.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: Again, you don't get cast in a show, you get cast as a member of a troop.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: So this can be a lifetime thing.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: People have done 700.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have quite a few people that are nearing the thousand show mark right now.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: And you can always go to ait.careers.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: That's ait.careers.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: That's a cheap plug right there.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: But if you are interested in that, you definitely can do that.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: So, how do you write scripts for your shows?
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Do you have people who are specifically dedicated to writing scripts, I assume?
11:08
SPEAKER_00: So um I do uh at least at the very, very least, co-write all the scripts.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of them are definitely me.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, I we have a guy named Adam Mack who writes all the scripts for us as well, like for custom shows or like when somebody just kind of wants a one-off.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: And then if we're doing it like thousands of times, then I really get into it.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh Michael Hare has also uh been with me for 15 years now, and we've written quite a few things, uh, some plays before all of this started, uh, that were uh at least mildly produced in Michigan.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, so I have two different people that kind of help us with the writing process.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh to give you a scope, we're in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: We have a 30,000 square foot building.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: We have around 50 people that work for us, okay.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: Including a call center, we have a video area with a full cyclorama green screen, um, and then all the different things you would have in a normal office, like an accounting uh production is probably the biggest one because it controls the 25 different directors that we have, um, and stuff like that.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: And the people who who you work with, specifically actors, do you have people any people who uh like transition from let's say doing the type of acting with your companies, but then maybe they go to film or television or Broadway?
12:25
SPEAKER_01: Or yeah.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so they they kind of do a lot of different types of acting.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: They are subcontractors, but um, yeah, it's a great place to get your improv chops in.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: It's a great place to start understanding the audience.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: We do a very, very rigorous training process.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we've had a lot of people uh that are in commercials.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Um Mike Spelman's one of our more famous people.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: He just got done with Hawaii 5 0.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: He was in a commercial with Sam Jackson.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Um we did uh one of our people literally, he was on our baseball team in Chicago, and he ended up being the main lead in training day of the TV show.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, their actor died uh uh passed away, who was a really nice guy, uh Bill Paxton.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: So um that ended up going after one season.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, we have we have a dozens, if not hundreds, of stories of people moving on to film, TV, and a lot of times jumping back and forth.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: One of the things about acting that's so hard is you don't have that stable place.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: You get something big and then that thing is done.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, our LA director, for example, she took something, uh theater show from LA Fringe, she did video games, the musical, and she took it from LA Fringe all the way to um the comic convention scene to just off Broadway, like real just off Broadway, not like you know, in the boroughs, but like the actual official quote unquote just off Broadway.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, and she was the lead in that.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: So people do that stuff all the time, and then when that was over, this is still here for her.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, so she has that kind of stability where she can always call and request shows or just go into her uh we call it Dr.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Watson, and you can just request shows and stuff like that.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: So something I was really intrigued about on your website is that you talk about what's called the fair play murder mystery method.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: And I'm wondering if you can tell us what that is and why that's important.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, this is crazy.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: And thank you.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: Nobody has ever asked me about this.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Really?
14:30
SPEAKER_00: And it's one of the most absurd things that we do.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like it's the most common thing.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: However, nobody does it.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Like nobody does fair play murder mystery.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: So if you were to go to not our show, and I'm not trying to put all of our competitors on blast by any means, but this is just the truth of how most of them work.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: It is incredibly hard to get an ending right.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: It takes, you have to do such a volume of these shows, and you have to train your actors to such a degree to get the ending correct for an audience that's ever changing, it's very hard.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, Kent, let me just say, let's say there's a hundred people in the room, and let's say 90 people get the correct answer to a show.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: What you would say that murder mystery is too what?
15:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh too easy?
15:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, right.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: Everybody, you'd be like, oh, what, oh, it's that person, yeah.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's then the whole thing is ruined.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: Now, same hundred people, nobody gets it, four people get it.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: That murder mystery was too Yeah, too difficult.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that but it's the same murder mystery just depends on the crowd.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter, it's just what kind of organically came out.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: We're doing a you know live, free-flowing show.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: This isn't just a stage show, this is a show where Kent, you would play a suspect, or you would play a detective, or you would be handcuffed to the table, or the old one would be hitting on you all night.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Like there's something that's really happening to you.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: So what most people do is called magician's choice.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: So basically, they kind of look at the they have four different endings, and whichever one fits into that nice 20% is correct uh ratio, they say that's the killer, and they have a reason for that's the killer.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: However, it could have easily been any of the other people.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: So it's not actually fair play, it's not a real game, it's just something that is happening and you think you could win.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: We do what's called fair play, and a fair play mystery means that the ending is actually fixed.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: You can solve this crime.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: If you put in the work, you can get it, you can win.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're able to work with the audience in a different way because we have people that are so trained in the psychology of uh the audience, that's our biggest focus.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have people that are uh you know really listening, and certain clues are hit harder if we feel like people are not getting it, and certain clues are hit much less hard if we feel like everybody's getting it.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay or we push a little bit of red herrings, but the clues and the information is always out there, it's a fair game that you can play.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: I remember going to these and I'm one of those super fans.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm the guy that brings the notebook and is really, really into that, right?
17:15
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, I remember being like, what any of them could have done it?
17:20
SPEAKER_00: And they're I remember one of the times I've laughed the hardest was I was at one, and they said, uh, well, every one of these people had both motivation and opportunity to have committed the crime.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, then it wasn't a game at all.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't really what I think if all of them could have done it, then then it's random.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: I just spent two and a half hours like playing Monopoly, and then right at the end, you flip over the board and just do eyebrows.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Like what it so it's so frustrating.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh so I and it takes, and I want to be clear, it takes just months.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're in testing right now for our new uh 80 show, and from start to finish, it took me three years to write the script, uh, and then it took me uh obviously not nonstop, um, but then it took me um you know two, three months in testing right now.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: We're going to our final round of testing because we have to see it with audience after audience after audience, and we have to have these like incredible actors there to like make sure the show is still really good for people uh without it being or feeling like a test run, you know.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: So it takes a long time to do a fair play murder mystery, but it's it's what I think is right and what you should do for your customer.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, and and doesn't it just come down to conceiving something that's really strong, you know.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: If you look at it in terms of story, it's almost like breaking your ending first or making sure that everything makes sense and constructing something that is really solid story-wise.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: But what's crazy is because it's like live, because again, Kent, you really could have been the killer in this.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: You're playing another character, of course, but what you bring into it, and sometimes they bring something into it that you just don't expect.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: And other times, and this has been true, somebody will be like, oh, it could have been this person, and then they have they write it out, and I'm like, they're right.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, it could have been.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: I I hadn't thought about that, but yes, indeed, they should be mad that this person did this thing to them, and technically that was a double cross, and I never looked at it that way.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: So then you have to nuance the writing a little differently and take maybe take that double cross out.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, because we're dealing with what every person could imagine.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: What's nice, of course, what's the blessing for us is because we do you know 6,500 shows, um, when a show goes into rotation, um, it's about it costs about$10,000 full printing.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then it's usually about$5,000 reprinting the stuff that you know, like taking this out, pacing it out, but like we get it in such a high volume, we're doing it hundreds of times that by the time there's shows like uh Crime and Punishment, for example, that have been performed well over like 25,000 times.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: So if you find a hole in that show, you're probably just wrong at this point in time because we've dealt for like 10 years at crime and punishment, and that show is indeed, it might not be what you view as a perfect show, but from a can this show work?
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's perfect.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Like the crime itself is perfect, so to speak.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: The mystery of it.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: So this is a podcast about the creative process and about the mindset and habits of success for creative entrepreneurs.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: What are some things that you have learned over the years about being a creative leader and a CEO from your experience with your companies?
20:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, I had a business consultant um tell me that sometimes it's just not your time.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: And I did at times just force things because you get into this schedule where you're like, oh my gosh, I I only have like, you know, you'll have like 10 meetings, and you'll have in that 10 meetings, you'll have like this hour block for writing or half hour block for writing.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, You're not a machine.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: You can't just be like, you know, and then a thing moves, it has to be in my head.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: So um a lot of times now, if I'm really going into a thing, I'll leave my space entirely and actually give me the space to truly, truly do that.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a book called The E Myth.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, E Mith Revisit, I love that book.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he talks a lot about the pie shop, right?
21:50
SPEAKER_00: And he says the first thing you need to know is if you love making pies and you want to make a lot of pies, you can't run a pie shop.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Because you're not making pies anymore.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: You're running a pie shop.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: That is a full-time job.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't know that going in.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, I thought I'd be like, oh, I'm going to write all the time.
22:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be acting.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, this happened very organically.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: Like we never took a loan.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: We got very lucky.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: It grew very organically from just customer demand.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: But like I thought, my God, I'm getting all these shows.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: I'll be able to act all the time.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: And now the truth is I don't act much at all.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: I act probably, you know, 30, 40 shows a year tops, uh, because I'm being a CEO.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: But when you're doing the creative stuff, you just have to say, like, that can take this whole day.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: That's like the whole day.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, or sometimes it's just better to go somewhere else, be out of the space of when you're a CEO, when you're a boss, quote unquote, and just take that time to be creative in a different space.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: I also write stuff down constantly.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that saved my butt.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm constantly like, oh, there's a good idea.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: And I only have like one good idea per week, you know, but uh um normally I'm a fast writer too.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: I did say I do eight uh that 80 show took me three years, and honestly, if you want to hear like my creative thing on that, I kept writing it and we kept saying like we'd have these characters called like uh like Cindy Leapier as opposed to Cindy Glopper, right?
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and every time I would read the show over that I wrote, I'd be like, I hate this, I absolutely hate this.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: And we've been doing like 80 shows, and it just and it occurred to me right at the like this year, like January is when I really hit my like creative pace with this and finally broke through.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: I hate the fake characters so much.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: It's the 80s, and why can't we just impersonate real 80s people?
23:50
SPEAKER_00: So we in the new show we have David Paiche, who is the lead singer of Toto, and he's a playable character.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: And we have um we have Rick Astley, and you can play you know, never gonna give you up Rick Astley.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we have these real characters like put into the show, and now it suddenly feels right, and it feels authentic and it feels fun.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: And before, I think we just were thinking like, oh man, we can't do that with our rights.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: You absolutely can.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: They're public figures, and we're doing a parody, and it's a murder mystery.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Unless it's believable that Rick Astley likely was involved in a murder mystery, then it's definitely considered parody.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't know why we were changing all the character names to be like uh Pat Minotaur or something like that, because it just didn't make sense to me.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that's a little bit of a question.
24:43
SPEAKER_01: If you had to pick one habit or practice that has contributed to your success over the years, what would it be?
24:50
SPEAKER_00: Um there was a great speech.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm forgetting his name.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: I think his name's Charlie.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: He's from his only sonny in Philadelphia.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not sure if we're allowed to swear here, but uh in low-key swear.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: But he says the key to my success is I truly, truly don't give a shit.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: I don't care about the failure aspect of it.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: I will fail so hard, so unbelievably hard, uh, that I will make everybody else's failures look pathetic compared to my grand, grand failure.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: Um that kind of concept has always been with me.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: I fail so much.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: I try new things.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: We have written on the wall, it's a quote that we live by in the company.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: It says, if you're not in over your head, you're not trying hard enough.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: That feeling that you're you know, you're drowning, right?
25:50
SPEAKER_00: The feeling that you're like, I have no idea how I'm going to pull this off.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: If you're not challenging yourself in that way, then what are you doing?
26:02
unknown: Exactly.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Why are you trying?
26:04
SPEAKER_00: What's the point?
26:05
SPEAKER_00: That Star Wars show was one of the hardest shows we've ever done, ever.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: And I will tell you why.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you like some brief behind the scenes that we've I've never talked about before.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: So they called us and they said, we want Star Wars characters that everybody knows with professional actors playing them from episode four and five, like in between that kind of block of time.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, okay.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: And we wrote something down, we had like three uh three months, and we kind of told them on a price standpoint, well, we will need you guys to help provide costumes because uh, you know, they want they're like, we want Darth Vader.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that costume is 20 grand.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for a good costume.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: For a good costume, and you have to have a good costume.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: It's Star Wars celebration, you can't go in with like the worst costume, and there's a dude literally sitting in the audience with a better Darth Vader costume than you.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: So they said, absolutely.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: And then Lucasfilms reviewed that, which they always take like you know, a month, and I'm not saying anything bad about that.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: It's just they're big, they have a big process, and they're like, You absolutely cannot do characters from Star Wars at all.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: You need to make up your own characters and you can put it in the Star Wars universe, but it cannot be canon.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, and anybody who's playing a recognizable Star Wars character, and by that they mean like just a generic like stormtrooper or a generic Jedi, they can't be paid and they have to be part of the 501st Legion.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: And they said this to us two weeks before the show.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: That's crazy.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: And they cannot provide costumes.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: So in the last two weeks, we did a whole new show.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: We were terrified beyond belief.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: It's for 700 people, all of which are rabid Star Wars fans.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we were in overhead.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people were.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Our logistics manager, Anessa, hadn't even watched Star Wars before.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: And now for the last like week and a half, she goes home at night, watches Star Wars, and like tries to build costumes from like we're lucky we have like probably 30,000 costumes.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: But um, she tries to piece together, build costumes.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: We hire makeup artists, we're like getting stuff rush shipped to us at the time you absolutely cannot get your hands on Star Wars stuff because it's a Star Wars celebration.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Everybody has already done this, so we're begging, barb and pleading, it's our whole life.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: And but I and I think like what what we had the speech was was most people would cancel.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think that that change is the exact opposite.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: We had already spent a long time putting together the other show, um, and it's debatably even profitable at this point in time.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: But it you know what?
28:48
SPEAKER_00: We were in overhead, but what that's when we knew we could do something special, and I think we really did there.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think we got to do something special uh that a lot of people remember, and it was fully interactive.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: And what do you want more at summer celebration than to be truly in the world?
29:06
SPEAKER_00: And you were, you know, you were frisked by stormtroopers walking in.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, you were solving a case that happened um, you know, in the land of Star Wars.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: So those kind of things are what we really do.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: We have a big event coming up, it's it's colossal, and it's us doing it.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: It's the first time we've ever done something like this.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: We rented out on 919, we rented out Houdini's estate.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: And um, it's insane.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: It's exactly if you get a chance, look up Houdini's estate.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: And we're doing the most immersive murder mystery ever.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like when somebody dies, there's going to be an ambulance.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Like it's going to be extreme.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: And it's for like 50 to 75 people, um, mainly influencers.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: You can't buy tickets, it's an only win experience.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: And I can tell you, um, I've been working on this now for like five months, and I am in way over my head.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: But I'm going to keep pressing because I want to do something even much more special.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: I never want to just rest on what we've done or what we could do.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: I want to take that, you know, farther.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: What would it be like to investigate a true crime scene room?
30:16
SPEAKER_00: What would it be like to actually dust for prints?
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Those kind of things.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, what would it be like to not worry about money on a show, which is kind of what we're doing there?
30:26
SPEAKER_00: What would be the like this is like my playhouse here?
30:29
SPEAKER_00: This is like uh everything.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: We're just doing it one night only.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, and there will be stuff on that for like how you can win tickets and things like that.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's uh just influencers.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're going to be recreating the Houdini metamorphosis uh with a professional magician.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of stuff there um that's all going to happen inside this incredibly elaborate murder mystery realm that we're setting like old Hollywood 1930s.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: So it's after Houdini's death, but really looks like when the place was built.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: And the place is in such amazing state.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, yeah, those are kind of the things that we do to kind of embody that statement.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's really cool.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so Scott, as we begin to wind this down, I've got three quick questions.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: This is what I call my my lightning round.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's like a cheesy 80s game show throwback or something.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: So what can I say?
31:22
SPEAKER_01: I grew up I grew up on the Prices Ride and Plinko and all that stuff.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: So I'll be disappointing if slime doesn't fall on me right now.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: So question number one is what is your favorite movie?
31:32
SPEAKER_00: My all-time favorite movie is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory by a sizable margin.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: I uh have a I have a film degree, I wrote my thesis on Willy Wonka.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, I've met Charlie Bucket.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: I have an actual poster of Willy Wonka, like, and which is interesting.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: I could I could do 10 podcasts in Willy Wonka, but Willy Wonka didn't have a premiere.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: Um have you ever heard the Augusta Skaloop story?
31:58
SPEAKER_00: No.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay, alright, it's really fast.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: But so Augusta Skaloop spoke uh it was shot in Munich, Germany.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh Augusta Skaloop, the character who plays him, has never spoken any English.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: And that's why he sounds so weird when he's on camera, right?
32:12
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Okay, Wonka's gonna pay me a fortune in cuts.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: He's just mouthing words that he doesn't know what they meant.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: And he was only there for like three days.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: So on the 30th anniversary of the film, they tried to get the kids back, four of them immediately, and they're like, Where's Augustus?
32:27
SPEAKER_00: And everybody's like, We don't know.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: He was only on set for three days.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: So they end up running an ad in a Munich paper with a picture of Augustus Kloop saying, Have you seen this boy?
32:38
SPEAKER_00: And they ran it for a month, and eventually somebody says, I think that's my accountant, and they find him, and he had no idea he was in the movie.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: He didn't know anything, he thought it was a commercial or something like that.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: He had only done that one acting role.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: He was wearing his own clothes, and he was like 10 years old.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: So, like, and he didn't speak any English, uh, he didn't speak any English, and nobody there really spoke German.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: So um, that was the so he had this one whirlwind thing where like he's like, oh my god, it's been a famous movie.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: He signed autographs for two weeks, they flew him out, flew him around to round thunderous applause, and they went back to his life in um doing that.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: So that's the Augustus Gloop story.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: He also still wears the exact costume, like he still walks around.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: He looks exactly like an old Augusta Gloop in the costume.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: Okay, uh favorite movie.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: What's your favorite music group or solo artist?
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh Churches.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: I just saw Avett Coachella.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: I love churches.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and finally, what's your favorite book?
33:39
SPEAKER_01: Either fiction or nonfiction.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: I actually stopped reading um fiction books.
33:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh I stopped doing that um when I kind of started this company.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: I said I had to stop something.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: So I only read um nonfiction books, and I think the one that spoke to me the most was the emyth.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: But um I absolutely love story branding right now.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: I love the power of moments, um, but they're all basically like business books.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to do that thing that Sergey did with Google, where you read like 150 business books.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm into like I'm 60 down, right?
34:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: Now, before we wrap this up, um you mentioned that you have your own podcast, correct?
34:20
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to ask about I do.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: So I have a podcast on acting.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh so if you're into acting at all um or into the soothing melody of my voice and just want to fall asleep to it, uh, you can search us on iTunes uh at the American Immersion Theater Podcast or just American Immersion Theater on acting.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: It's a big red logo and you can't miss it.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: Cool.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, Scott, this has been a lot of fun.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate you taking time to do this.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: I know you are a busy guy, so thank you so much.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Kent.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: It was absolutely fat uh fascinating.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I hope people got something out of it.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: I I love acting.
34:59
SPEAKER_01: Um I don't really act in anything anymore because I teach college and do writing and other stuff, but in high school I was very involved in theater and drama and and all that.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: So thank God they still teach it there.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Yes, just vaguely.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Like every other school teach it has a theater department, it seems like.
35:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I think it's important, you know.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's lots of good things that can come out of it and and uh helps kids build confidence and teaches them theater and drama, and it's allows you to publicly speak, which is kind of a big deal.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: Like that comes up quite a comes up a lot speaking to people you don't know.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: It's a functional thing.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: Uh so if our listeners want to connect with you, what's the best way they can do that?
35:38
SPEAKER_00: Um you can always uh go to uh you can always search the murder mystery company, you can search American Immersion Theater.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: And if you have questions for me just in general, um I can give you mine.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's Scott at American Immersion Theater.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh theater is spelled er, like movietheater uh dot com.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: So it's Scott at American Immersion Theater dot com.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: And you can always email me or something like that.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Uh I can give you tips on how to gracefully go bald or um getting uh cleft palate humor, stuff like that.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I got there like super early.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: I was there way I got uh I was like balding at like 20, it was sad.
36:20
SPEAKER_01: Hair's overrated, you know.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: It is.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: My dad used to say God made some heads perfect and the rest he put hair on.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: That's a great point.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks again.
36:28
SPEAKER_01: I'll have links to all this stuff in the show notes, and um yeah, this has been a lot of fun.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks a lot.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: Thanks everybody.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Scott.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: I learned a ton, and this conversation has rekindled my enthusiasm for the theater.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: And I hope it's done the same thing for you as well.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to hear what you think about this episode, and you can do that by heading over to Apple Podcast and leaving a rating and a review, or by leaving a comment on the episode at catstanders.net slash 103.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: Until next time, remember that you were born to create and decide to make a difference.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: What are you going to create today?