Latest / CINEMACTIVIST / S03E10 - Tethered Update
Transcript
- John C. Lyons: Hi everyone and welcome to Cinema Activists. My name is John Lyons, and I'm your host. In this episode, I'm going to catch you up on the latest developments for Tethered. I'm happy to report right off the top that Tethered's new experience, the lever, is happening this year. Thank you to our sponsors and funders thus far. We're still seeking sponsorship. And if you're interested, please reach out to us. At info at tethered immersive.com. All right, so the show's going to take place in October. We have eight dates. They're Fridays and Saturdays, the first four weeks of the month. So we're staying away from the Halloween weekend, but this is our biggest production that we've done thus far. As you may recall, in 2024, we did two nights. And then 2025, we did four nights. So this year for the lever, we're doing eight nights, we've got our venue locked down, which we're extremely happy about. It's the Davenport Galbraith Mansion, which is at 259 West Sixth Street in Erie, Pennsylvania. Yes, this is part of the 6th Street Historic District. Millionaires Row. This building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in 1892 The show is going to take place on the first two floors of the building. And yeah, we're designing the show as one does for immersive theater around this space, and we'll be bringing some of that history of the building into the show as well. The other news is that we held three open auditions for the cast of the lever. I'm very excited to announce that we've cast all 13 roles of the show, which is really cool. I actually just sent everyone their contracts last night. So I'm not going to announce the cast yet. But my plan is to have members of the casting crew on this podcast so that you can get to know them as will I over these days. it was great to see the talent pool that's out there. We had people travel from Pittsburgh and Cleveland areas as well, which is really exciting. I want to give a special shout to Erie Center for Arts and Technology, or ECAT, who were our hosts for the auditions. The space is beautiful there. we are in the community room and got a lot of compliments and Pass those along. So thank you so much to everyone at ECAT for your support and helping us out in this project. just to remind you, in 2026, we have two interconnected experiences that we're creating. We're doing the lever, which is the main live show, which is taking place at the mansion in October. But we also have an audio drama that's called Seized, which we're going to be starting work on soon as well, And I'll have more information on that once we get things rolling for that production. Another really exciting bit of news is that we have two new co-directors for Tethered this year. this time I'm Taking my first step into directing, and I'm very excited to have very experienced and talented co-director, Brooke Eknett, who is from the Pittsburgh region, specifically Vigilance Theater Group who does immersive theater in Pittsburgh. when we first were starting tethered, I was doing research about if there were any other groups in Pennsylvania that do this type of theater. And there's not a lot that I could find. But on the western half of the state, Vigilance was one of them in Pittsburgh, and another was in Franklin, Pennsylvania, called Wildcat. We'll get into Wildcat in future episodes. I hope to have their creative team on this show because I just met them in person. I took a trip down to the mansion. it's beautiful and the people are amazing. But back to Brooke. when I attended the Miami Immersive Intensive just two months ago now, I met Brooke We said we'd keep in touch and we have definitely kept in touch. We had a a couple of zooms and I expressed to her that, you know, I could I could use some help and some experience with what we're doing up here. And Brooke graciously accepted coming on to the team and helping us out. She's already been extremely helpful in the auditions and I Can't wait to work with her. And I think it's really going to help this show and really help everyone here in Erie, Pennsylvania, who have been working on these projects to kind of up our game. I will definitely try and coax Brooke into being on an episode here of Cinema Activist and get more into her background as well. But that's a huge, huge update and win for us. Our stage manager this year is going to be Jadlin Kirkfold, who I just met and is already diving in and doing a great job keeping us organized. Hopefully we'll have Jadlin on here too. Our assistant directors for the show will be Anna McJunkin, who's been involved in every year of Tethered. And wearing several hats, various hats. and Nisi Nicole from our writing team has expressed interest in directing as well. So Nisi will also be assistant director for this production. Our writing team will be staying on. That's Shaira Pettis and Marty Nwachukwu, in addition to Nisi and myself. to attend as many of the rehearsals as possible and further develop and refine these characters and the overarching story of the show. what else can I share? I mean, I'm recording this on Wednesday, the morning, the early morning of Wednesday, August 5th, and tomorrow is our first rehearsal. We're starting out with two rehearsals a week through the month of August, and then it increases to three and four days a week in September as we race to production. At the beginning of October. So yeah, it's really exciting. And I think Cinema Activist, the podcast, will now start. You know, we've started very film heavy to this point. That's my that's my comfort zone. Immersive theater is becoming more and more of my comfort zone. I think now that we are moving forward with production on these two interconnected shows. that we're probably going to shift quite a bit more into the immersive theater direction and have maybe some of the people that I met at the Miami Immersive Intensive on as guests. there's also some research that's been done by the immersive experience institute and nopristinium. That perhaps we we might dive into there and have some guests on. And then, of course, the casting crew of Tethered as well. So that's your catch-up. That's the episode this week. thank you for listening. Next week, we'll be back with part two of my interview with filmmaker Jacob Perrett. We have special guests on in that episode. We've got two members of the cast from his new film, Photo Negative. Carly Perrett, and Taylor Rhodes on as well. Carly is also a veteran of Tethered, was in our show last year, and maybe in our show this year. But that's it for today. Thanks for listening. We'll be back soon.