Play by British theatre company Punchdrunk From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sleep No More was the New York City production of an immersive theatre work created by the British theatre company Punchdrunk. It was based primarily on William Shakespeare's Macbeth, with additional inspiration taken from noir films (especially those of Alfred Hitchcock) and the 1697 Paisley witch trials.[1] Its title comes from Macbeth:[2][3]
Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more.
Macbeth does murder sleep'— Act II, Scene II, Lines 36–7
Sleep No More | |
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![]() One of the audience masks used in the production. | |
Written by | Punchdrunk |
Based on | Macbeth by William Shakespeare |
Directed by | Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle |
Choreography | Maxine Doyle |
Date premiered | March 7, 2011 |
Place premiered | McKittrick Hotel, 530 West 27th Street, New York City |
Original language | English (mostly mute) |
Original run | March 7, 2011 to January 5, 2025 |
Setting | McKittrick Hotel and environs, Gallow Green, Glamis, Forfar, Scotland |
Official site |
After incarnations in London in 2003 and Brookline, Massachusetts in 2009, Sleep No More was launched in New York City in collaboration with Emursive and began performances on March 7, 2011.[4][5] The production won the 2011 Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience[6] and won Punchdrunk special citations at the 2011 Obie Awards for design and choreography.[7][8]
Sleep No More adapted the story of Macbeth, deprived of nearly all spoken dialogue and set primarily in a dimly-lit, 1930s-era establishment called the McKittrick Hotel. Audience members moved throughout the performance space and interacted with props at their own pace; however, the actions of audience members were generally ignored by the performers and did not impact the story.
In November 2023, Emursive announced a final performance date of January 28, 2024,[9] but the production was subsequently extended throughout 2024.[10] In October 2024, a final performance date was announced along with a trio of farewell parties entitled APPARITIONS.[11][12] The final show took place on January 5, 2025.
Sleep No More was unlike most theatrical productions, in that the audience wandered at their own pace throughout a set populated by actors. As such, it can be categorized as immersive theatre, promenade theatre, and environmental theatre. It was not interactive theatre because the presence of audience members had no bearing on the story or the performers except in rare instances. Despite its aesthetics and theming, Sleep No More was not a haunted attraction, although it did feature dark and supernatural elements and audience members were warned that they might experience "intense psychological situations."[13] Its format has been compared to video games like BioShock and alternate reality games.[14][15]
Guests entered the performance space through large double-doors, unmarked except for a small plaque. After a coat check, they would "check-in" to the hotel at a themed reception desk and receive a playing card, which was used to determine when they would enter the show. Cell phones were locked in bags that blocked their service for the duration of the show. Guests would then proceed upstairs through a small, dimly-lit maze, symbolizing their journey back in time. At the other end was the Manderley, a themed hotel jazz bar, where they would wait until called to enter the show. Once guests were called, they were told a few rules, handed a mask, and escorted either onto an elevator or to a stairwell to begin their show experience.
Audience members were expected to wear the mask at all times during the performance. They were also forbidden to talk outside of the entry and exit point of the show, the Manderley.[14] Otherwise very little direction was given to audience members about what to expect or how they should interact with the show.
The play consisted of three "loops" of story. Each loop lasted an hour and loosely followed the story of Macbeth from the gathering of the witches in Act I, Scene I to the appearance of Banquo's ghost at the banquet in Act III, Scene IV. Many additional scenes were added and some scenes from Macbeth, notably the second set of prophecies in Act IV, Scene I, were referenced or included before the banquet. At the end of a loop, the characters would "reset" and start the story over, performing the same actions they did in the previous loop. This structure allowed audience members to view the story from multiple perspectives by choosing different characters to follow or rooms to explore in each loop.
Because audience members were released in groups staggered throughout the first hour of the performance, they were not able to view the entire first loop and typically began to enter during the ball that Lady Macbeth throws in Duncan's honor. Additionally, some actions that occurred in the few minutes after the banquet but before the loop reset, including Macbeth's murder of Lady Macduff, did not appear in the final loop due to the finale. Because the actor who played the Taxidermist helped escort guests into the show during the first loop, that character was not present in the first loop and characters who interacted with him performed a different scene instead.
Upon entering the show, audience members could wander through any of the five visitable floors, each of which were populated by the characters (referred to in the pre-show as "residents"). The actors playing these characters were typically dressed in 1930s period clothing and were distinguishable from audience members by their lack of mask. They rarely spoke, even when interacting with other actors, and communicated primarily through their acting, choreographed dances, and written notes. Many characters moved extensively throughout the set, sometimes bounding up several flights of stairs with audience members following along behind them.
Actors generally pretended that they couldn't see audience members and rarely acknowledged them. However, there were a few scripted moments where, upon making eye contact with a specific audience member of their choosing, an actor might give them a task, whisper in their ear, or lead them into a small, private encounter. These interactions have been dubbed "one-on-ones" or "1:1s" by frequent visitors.[5]
Staff members wearing black surgical masks were stationed at certain points throughout the set to assist audience members and actors if issues arose. They also prevented audience members from going to restricted locations and shepherded them out as the show ended.[3]
At the end of the third loop, all of the characters converged on the ballroom. The banquet was laid out as in the previous two loops, but in this one Malcom and Macduff kill Macbeth, symbolically breaking the loops and ending the performance. Audience members were guided back to the Manderley, where they were able to stay for a drink or depart past the gift shop and coat check.
As they were leaving, many actors would grab the hand of an audience member and pull them to the Manderley, where they would whisper a few words before departing. These were known among fans as "walkouts".
While many characters were adapted more or less directly from Macbeth, others were omitted, significantly altered, or invented for Sleep No More. Many character names were borrowed from the Paisley witch trials, while other character influences came from Psycho and Rebecca.
In the following list, a * next to the character name indicates that they are primarily based on a character from Macbeth.
Some characters appeared for only a limited time and were later retired.
Other characters referenced in Sleep No More but not appearing in it, including Grace Naismith and the owner of Paisley Sweets, appeared at some parties hosted at the McKittrick.
Sleep No More was set in the fictitious McKittrick Hotel, whose website claimed that it had been recently "restored"[18] but which was actually a block of warehouses. The McKittrick Hotel consisted of five audience-accessible floors, throughout which the action of Sleep No More took place simultaneously. Not all rooms or floors were related to the hotel theming. Various set elements established the setting as the fictitious town of Gallow Green, Glamis, Forfar, Scotland (named after the spot where witches were burned alive during the Paisley witch trials).
There was a small performance space on the sixth floor as well, but it was not open to guests unless they were selected by the Sixth Floor Nurse for a special one-on-one interaction.
All areas of the set were consistent with the 1930s theming and are generally detailed. Many of the residences contained letters between characters that audience members were welcome to read at their leisure; some of these were written on stationary from the McKittrick and include its logo and address. Books were included in many locations, such as Rebecca in Agnes Naismith's living room, a Bible in Fulton's shop, books on witchcraft and botany in the apothecary, and children's books in the Macduff residence. Trees, symbolizing the Birnam Wood prophecy in Macbeth, could be found in the ballroom, as a chess set in the hotel lobby, and in Malcolm's office. Other set details included:
There were also some items that audience members were allowed to take, namely the sweets in Paisley's Sweets and the various business cards available on the high street.
Music, specifically a film noir soundtrack found by creator Felix Barrett, was the origin point of the show.[19] Period and often diegetic music by artists such as the Ink Spots, Glenn Miller, and Peggy Lee played throughout the space, as did ambient music by sound designer Stephen Dobbie. Orchestral music was also played throughout and, in keeping with the inspiration from Vertigo and Rebecca, it came mostly from Bernard Herrmann's scores to Alfred Hitchcock films. Other sound effects, such as thunderclaps or bells, happened simultaneously on most floors as well, though with different volumes relative to the area of the performance where the sounds originated.
Notable songs include:
Sleep No More was first produced at the Beaufoy Building in London in 2003 and was later renewed in a 2009 collaboration with Boston's American Repertory Theatre at the Old Lincoln School in Brookline, Massachusetts.[8]
Its production in New York City was the first to collaborate with the production company Emursive and began on March 7, 2011.[20]
April Fool's Day in 2012 and 2024 featured special performances called Sleep No More: Remixed, in which all music usually accompanying the production was replaced.[21]
From May 14-19, 2012, MIT Media Lab ran an experiment where online participants were paired with audience members wearing special masks.[22] The online participants were able to enter text via a web portal and receive real-time audio and visual input from the audience member's mask.[23] Audience member participants were guided through a new storyline involving interactive props and character interactions. The experiment seems to have had numerous issues, including uncomfortable masks, technical problems, and participants missing cues to follow the intended story.[24][25]
Sleep No More was closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and returned on February 14, 2022.[26][27] Upon reopening, different masks were used to better accommodate KN95 surgical masks and certain show elements were altered.[28] Many of these changes, including the masks, were reverted to their pre-COVID state by the time of the show's closure in January 2025.
In November 2023, Emursive announced a final performance date of January 28, 2024, but the production was subsequently extended throughout 2024.[9][10] The final show took place on January 5, 2025.[11]
On July 13, 2016, Punchdrunk announced that Sleep No More would make its Asian premiere in Shanghai in December of the same year. This would be the first co-production between Punchdrunk International and Chinese company SMG Live.[29] The original creative team behind Punchdrunk's Sleep No More all worked on the Shanghai production, but the company is made up of long-term Punchdrunk collaborators as well as Chinese performers working with Punchdrunk for the first time.
The Shanghai production of Sleep No More is housed in a disused building five stories high, renamed the "McKinnon Hotel", in the Jing'an District of the city. It combines the original story from Macbeth with Chinese folk myths.[30]
A new production in Seoul at the Daehan Theater in partnership with the Miss Jackson production company was announced in 2024.[31][32]
The official program credits the following creative team at Punchdrunk:[33]
The Sleep No More cast typically played multiple roles so that actors could switch off between more physically demanding roles (like Macbeth and Lady Macbeth) and less strenuous ones (like Fulton and Matron Lang). The original cast list credits the following:
Critics have favorably compared the production to other works from a wide range of media, with New York Magazine's Scott Brown referencing BioShock, Lost, Inception, and M. C. Escher, and The New York Times’ Ben Brantley referencing Stanley Kubrick, Joseph Cornell, David Lynch and Disney's Haunted Mansion.[14] The production is mostly wordless, prompting The New Yorker's Hilton Als to write: "Because language is abandoned outside the lounge, we’re forced to imagine it, or to make narrative cohesion of events that are unfolding right before our eyes. We can only watch as the performers reduce theatre to its rudiments: bodies moving in space. Stripped of what we usually expect of a theatrical performance, we’re drawn more and more to the panic the piece incites, and the anxiety that keeps us moving from floor to floor."[34] Testimonials for Sleep No More have also been given by such celebrities as Neil Patrick Harris, Brendon Urie, Leslie Odom, Jr., Evan Rachel Wood, and Aaron Paul, all of whom have also appeared as guest characters in the production.[1][35][36]
The show has received positive reviews in several publications including, The New York Times,[37] New York Magazine,[14] The New York Post,[38] and Time Out New York,[39] as well as a critical essay in The New Yorker and the cover article of the August 2011 Vanity Fair.[40]
Robert Shaughnessy compared the immersion of Sleep No More to that of the Shakespeare's Globe theater in London, which stages Shakespeare's plays in a modern reconstruction of their original venue, the Globe Theatre.[41] Shakespeare scholar Thomas Cartelli has criticized the production's lack of focus on its principal source, claiming that the overarching structure based on Macbeth serves "only as an occasion around which so much that is decidedly not Macbeth circulates."[5] Critic and Shakespeare scholar W. B. Worthen notes Sleep No More's "complex duplicity of practice," in that it relies upon conventions of theater and traditional interpretations of Shakespeare while engaging in contemporary, experimental theatricality.[3]
As of March 2021, Sleep No More currently has an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars on Yelp, based on 1,284 reviews, with 70% of all reviews being 4 stars or above.[42] Similarly, on TripAdvisor, Sleep No More has garnered 1,625 customer reviews, with 77% being either 4 or 5 stars.[43] Many longtime fans of the show have also created dedicated blogs on sites such as Tumblr, where they share their experiences, reviews, and derivative fan works based on the show, story, characters, and cast.[44]
In 2018, Buzzfeed News reported that eight performers and staffers stated that they had been groped by audience members during the show.[45] Further reporting has found similar issues in other immersive shows,[46] although the anonymity provided by audience masks in Sleep No More may have inadvertently encouraged such behavior and made it harder to identify perpetrators.[47] Following this report, a line was added to the pre-show speech telling audience members to keep a respectful distance from actors and intimacy coordinators were hired in 2019.[28][48]
Sleep No More has also been engaged in lawsuits alleging unpaid rent and expired permits.[49][50]
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