The In-Between Space: Why Masquerade Works, and Why Immersive Theatre Is a Point of No Return
By Ricky Anderson
There are moments in the theatre when you can feel the art form stretching. Not snapping, not abandoning itself, but reaching toward something new.
That is the sensation you have walking through Masquerade, the immersive reimagining of The Phantom of the Opera now haunting Manhattan. Not because it rejects traditional theatre, but because it occupies a space many productions fear to enter: the in-between.
That phrase came from production designer James Fluhr, who described his own career as being built in “the in-between space”—between theatre and marketing, between attraction and storytelling, between installation and performance. It’s a useful phrase not only for Fluhr’s work, but for the current moment in live entertainment. Because immersive theatre has always existed there: between spectator and participant, between architecture and narrative, between Broadway polish and downtown experimentation.
For years, immersive work was often treated as adjacent to “real theatre.” A cousin, perhaps. An experiment. Something fun to do after dinner. But Masquerade makes a compelling case that the form has matured beyond novelty. It isn’t competing with traditional theatre. It’s expanding the map.
We’ve Been Here Before—Just by Different Names
Immersive theatre did not begin with masks in Chelsea warehouses or audiences wandering through candlelit corridors. It has roots in environmental theatre, promenade productions, theme park design, haunted attractions, installation art, and ritual itself.
The great modern New York benchmark, of course, was Sleep No More, which taught a generation of audiences how thrilling it could be to chase a story instead of receive one. Its anonymity, mystery, and nonlinear storytelling turned spectators into hunters.
But Masquerade feels interested in something different. Less dream logic, more narrative propulsion. Less fragmentation, more emotional clarity.
As Fluhr noted, this version of immersive storytelling allows audiences to “actually follow a plot… be a part of the story… and experience all the music of it.” He described it not as a challenge to Broadway, but “another canvas that’s been invented.”
That distinction matters.
Traditional theatre asks us to sit still and imagine. Immersive theatre asks us to move and feel. One is not superior to the other. They are different instruments.
The Disney Principle
Fluhr openly credits Disney Imagineering as an influence: the use of “beacons and apertures,” visual cues that guide audiences without making them feel guided.
Anyone who has waited in line for a Disney attraction understands this instinctively. The story begins before the ride begins. In the queue. In the signage. In the anticipation.
Fluhr said the same philosophy applies here: “You were invited to the Phantom’s Masquerade. You need to dress for the occasion. That starts the story before you even showed up at our doors.”
That is sophisticated audience design.
And Masquerade uses it artfully. A violinist lures you inward. Instructions arrive like ritual. Movement becomes choreography before the actual choreography begins. You are gently persuaded to surrender the logic of the sidewalk and enter another set of rules.
That transition is where many immersive productions fail. They ask too much too quickly, or confuse chaos with atmosphere. Masquerade understands seduction.
The Machine Behind the Mask
What makes the production especially impressive is not only its aesthetic ambition, but its operational scale.
General Manager Evan Bernardin shared that the production occupies approximately 35,000 square feet, required two years of pre-production beginning in 2023, and employs over 100 full-time staff operating the show on any given night, alongside 43 cast members.
Those numbers are not trivia. They are evidence.
They signal that immersive theatre has entered a new phase: industrialized sophistication. This is no fringe pop-up stitched together with atmosphere and goodwill. This is large-scale entertainment infrastructure.
Fluhr described the nightly operation as a “Swiss watch,” with scenic resets happening in as little as 30 seconds between audience waves. A chandelier rises and falls repeatedly across six cycles. Props must travel floors in exact timing windows. Entire rooms reset before the next group arrives.
That level of precision rivals any Broadway automation system, perhaps exceeds some of them.
The difference is that here, the audience is moving through the machine while it runs.
Why This One Connects
Immersive productions often face two common criticisms: they can feel emotionally shallow, or narratively incoherent.
Masquerade avoids both by anchoring itself in one of the most beloved scores in modern theatre history and one of the most durable fan communities in entertainment.
Fluhr was blunt about the power of fandom: audiences crave the chance to step inside worlds they already love. “There’s a desire to step into and experience it, like, for real.”
He’s right.
The contemporary audience does not simply want to watch stories anymore. They cosplay them. Stream them. Debate them. Build identity through them. Why wouldn’t they want to physically inhabit them?
That is the genius of choosing Phantom. It already lives in memory as architecture: candles, lake, chandelier, mask, lair, velvet, obsession. It was waiting to become spatial.
And when it works, it works viscerally. A Phantom belting inches from your face while sprinting multiple floors. Fog swallowing hallways. Music arriving from somewhere behind you. The sudden recognition that you are not watching tension—you are standing inside it.
The Future Is Not Either/Or
There is a tendency in theatre discourse to frame innovation as replacement. If immersive rises, Broadway falls. If audiences stand, seated theatre dies. If younger crowds want participation, tradition becomes obsolete.
That is lazy thinking.
Cabaret’s recent transformation of the August Wilson Theatre into the Kit Kat Club proved that even conventional houses are hungry for altered relationships between audience and space. London’s Guys and Dolls has embraced promenade staging. Productions across the UK are increasingly experimenting with permeability.
These are not signs of collapse. They are signs of curiosity.
People need multiple entry points into theatre. Some will always want the velvet seat and overture. Others need a mask, a hallway, and permission to roam.
Both audiences count.
The In-Between Space Is the Future
What Masquerade demonstrates most clearly is that the future may belong less to rigid categories and more to hybrids.
Not theatre or attraction.
Not Broadway or experience.
Not spectator or participant.
But something between.
That in-between space is where new audiences are found. It is where old stories get oxygen. It is where producers can take legacy intellectual property and make it tactile again. It is where theatre stops asking people to come to it on inherited terms and instead meets them in the language of now.
And if Masquerade is any indication, audiences are more than ready to RSVP to the music of the night.
@memphiscowboy @masqueradenyc @evan_bernardin
Ricky Anderson
STAGELIGHT // stagelightmagazine.com | @stagelightmag | @rickypresents