Thighs Wide Shut

Sleep No More
The McKittrick Hotel
offical site | tickets
now thru June 25th

A woman hands you a playing card and tells you to walk up a set of stairs.  You follow her instruction, and after reaching the top, all light has disappeared and darkness surrounds you, as you continue to make your way somewhere, but have no clue where.  Things quickly become disorienting and possibly even a bit scary.  Fret not, you’ll soon (or eventually) find your way, even blindly, into the safe confines of the McKittrick Hotel’s red-lit bar, where you’ll soon embark on Sleep No More, an unforgettable one-of-a-kind journey and experience you won’t soon forgot, OR WANT TO!!

Once your card is called, yer briefed on the very brief set of rules – you have to wear a white Venetian/Eyes Wide Shut orgy-like mask at all times, you are not allowed to talk at all times, and everything else is pretty much ON limits, most importantly, touching stuff!  If something is off limits (no photography, OBVS!), someone in a black mask will let you know.  Wait, what the heck is this?  Nothing like anything we’ve or you’ve ever done did before!  So, sharpen those senses, shut yer yap and let the fun unfold, at your own pace!

You get to literally roam free, a true Choose Your Own Adventure, in the ‘hotel’ (named after a location in Vertigo)’s six floors and zillions of rooms.  The rooms are all over the cinematic map – one minute you’ll feel like you’re walking thru Norman Bates’ Victorian home (and hearing Bernard Herrmann’s score), the next, The Shining‘s Overlook hotel, and the next, the psycho wards of Jacob’s Ladder, and the next? Some other heeby-jeeby flick that’s made yer skin crawl

While yer exploring, a play is being staged (Shakespeare’s Macbeth… hence the title), but it’s up to you if you want to follow the story and characters (you can literally follow them as they run around the place), or juss dig through their actual drawers (or candy jars!).  We opted for the latter, but you can do whatever the funk you want.  That’s the beauty of this – it’s what you make of it.  So if you want to have a lame time, you will have one!  Probably not though, since the place/play is quite low on lame-ness

If yer in New York over the next two months, you have to do this.  It’s a piece of theater that’s worth the price of admission, cause it’s nothing like theater.  And please, go in with an open mind, wide set of eyes, a well rested body, and most importantly, someone you don’t want to talk to for 2-3 hours