Revelations (2025)

Revelations is an immersive theatre experience based on interviews with real disaster preppers. It fuses walkie talkies, gameplay and live performance in a customized disaster survival scenario, beginning innocuously as an escape room kit before growing into a full-fledged gameshow-inspired performance.

‍Revelations (2025) is an expanded version of our pandemic production. That production was purpose built for 2021 with a small number of interactive players. Its 2025 edition is a full theatrical offer: a two-act solo performance with two experience paths—one for interactive players and one for a non-participatory general audience.

It was created by Revelations Collective, and was first presented at Ottawa’s undercurrents festival in association with Outside the March and Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Theatre. See the undercurrents production page.

"A fantastic storytelling escapade," – Intermission Magazine

AUDIENCE EXPERIENCE

GENERAL AUDIENCE

For audience members preferring an experience closer to a typical night at the theatre, Revelations welcomes a spectating studio audience. They meet disaster preparedness expert and protagonist Mike at the theatre as he tells them his story of transformation from a bored insurance lawyer into an obsessive disaster expert and the creator of a survival preparedness game. Then past and present collide as the Players join the studio audience for the performance’s gameshow finale.

The General Audience experience is perfect for patrons who crave a satisfying, exhilarating night of narrative storytelling from the comfort of their seat.

PLAYER AUDIENCE

Simultaneously, each night Revelations welcomes five participating player parties—much like gameshow contestants. In the days leading up to the performance, they receive a visit from The Revelations^TM Consultant to their home or place of work for a walkie talkie tutorial. At showtime they and their Party members arrive at the theatre and are shown to a private room where they engage in an escape-room like experience as the spectating studio audience watches from a live feed.

Through puzzles and gameplay they make hard choices—then they join the studio audience in the theatre for the performance’s finale: they’re now a contestant in a technicolour gameshow complete with popping balloons, novelty dice—and death! The Player experience is interactive and perfect for audiences who favour a multi-disciplinary novel experience and are excited to fulfil their dream of being a contestant on a gameshow. Participating Player Parties often make a night of it, playing as a household or as a group of friends. 

WHY REVELATIONS

Revelations is driven by a provocation: that how we imagine the end of the world says less about the future than about how we think the world really works in the present.  

The experience is designed like an area-of-effect diagram or a walkie talkie range map: it starts zoomed-in on the individual and gradually expands to your neighbours—and your entire community—through a series of… well… revelations.

‍Revelations challenges our status quo, turning the myth of self-interest on its head and proving that when left to fend for ourselves we’re capable of generous, caring, collective action.

The show is welcoming, accessible and designed to cater to a range of theatre and game appetites. It gently challenges and ultimately celebrates its participatory audiences. It is mysterious; absurd; gripping; hopeful; and so much fun.

Photos by Erik Stolpmann.

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