Happy Hour

Interactive performance created by German theater company machina eX. Presented in partnership with the Goethe-Institut Washington.

Blending video games, live theater, and interactive installation, this English-language premiere of Happy Hour brings machina eX’s signature high-quality technology to Spooky Action Theater’s versatile and imaginative playing space. Designed for no more than 16 audience members at a time, this immersive experience creates an active exchange among the players (audience), and between the audience and the actors - the human avatars - in the other room.

Happy Hour, a hilarious and thought-provoking immersive theater performance, pits two small teams of audience members against one another in a race to solve a series of puzzles. Drinks in hand, the teams must help their human avatars escape the clutches of the evil mastermind holding them captive. A diabolical bartender gives each team the tools they need to communicate in this theatrical twist on the familiar Room Escape video game. As the avatars’ puzzles become increasingly complex, will either team find the keys, unlock the doors, and beat the clock to save the stranger they have been guiding on the other side of the screen?

machina eX is an emerging company of media and theatre artists from Germany designing computer games in real life environments. Blending theater performance with the power of digital gaming principles, machina eX enchants performers and players alike and turns theatrical stages into fantastic interactive worlds. Audiences plunge into the world of the game and find themselves in the midst of a story that they must guide to its conclusion. machina eX is returning to DC following a successful production of the award-winning 15’000 Gray at the 2014 Zeitgeist Festival.

Located in a historic church along Washington, DC’s U Street corridor, Spooky Action Theater (SAT) is a dynamic, young theater company that has been recharging the audience's imaginative, intuitive, emotional core by linking artists & audience in a collaborative enterprise.
  with: Carolyn Kashner, Matthew Marcus, Robert Bowen Smith, Stephanie Tomiko
Idea, Concept and Realisation: machina eX (Anna Fries, Laura Naumann, Laura Schäffer, Robin Krause, Yves Regenass, Lasse Marburg, Jan Philip Steimel) with Sabina Winkler, Lily-Pauline Koper, Mortimer Chen)
Co-Directors: Yves Regenass (machina eX) and Gillian Drake (Spooky Action Theater)
Scenic Design: Kim Sammis (Spooky Action Theater)
Technology Direction and Lighting Design: Gordon Nimmo-Smith (Spooky Action Theater)
Adaptation, Game and Interaction Design: Jan Philip Steimel (machina eX) und Lasse Marburg (machina eX)
Original Production: machina eX and Gessnerallee Zurich

”Why did we just do that?”, a girl in my group asks after we tried different combinations of commands in a collective power frenzy and forced the performer ... to do absurd and sometimes repetitive operations just like a puppet on a string. “Because it is fun,” another girl answers. - Andreas Tobler, Tagesanzeiger Zürich

“In a previously unseen way the group mixes two worlds which so far seemed incompatible. And they accomplish it with flying colors” - Jan Graber for 20 Minuten 

Happy Hour is Helen Hayes Awards Recommended©

Made possible with additional support from the German Federal Foreign Office and Friends of the Goethe-Institut Washington.

Please visit Spooky Action Theater’s website for ticket purchases.
All tickets are general admission. Our bar and gaming room seats 20 audience members per performance.  The two gaming tables can each seat 10 patrons. 
GROUP SALES: This interactive event will team up audience members with their fellow patrons. Groups of friends who wish to play together may contact the Box Office directly at info@spookyaction.org or (202) 248-0301 for group sales information and pricing.