RaveVlog

“The Stacks,” a new immersive theater piece created by QC actor/director Ben Gougeon, will hold its world premiere Feb. 22-March 2, 2024 and will be hosted by Sound Conservatory in downtown Moline.

The show will take place in the old library stacks of the newly relocated music academy at the former Carnegie Library, 504 17th St., Moline.

Based around a fictional unsolved murder, “The Stacks” invites audiences to the night of Sept. 25, 1957, when the body of Sam Hawkins is found in the stacks of a small Catholic college library, according to a Friday release.

The play takes place simultaneously on multiple floors and in multiple rooms, and as the story unfurls, audience members can decide where to go and what to see, ensuring that everyone’s journey is unique, and each visit is different.

Each character has a specific track and tells a different perspective of the story. Guests can choose to follow one actor or move around to different scenes in an attempt to answer the question, “Who killed Sam Hawkins?”

Having been involved in several immersive projects during his time in New York City, Gougeon (who works as events coordinator for Quad City Arts) has been searching for a space to create an immersive piece since moving to the QCA in 2019, and the empty library stacks at Sound Conservatory were the perfect fit.

“From the minute I saw those old library stacks, I knew it was the space we needed to create a show in, and this story sprung to life fairly quickly,” Gougeon said Friday. The stacks were remnants of the building’s former use as the Moline Public Library, originally built in 1903.

Sound Conservatory – a music school, store, and event space – moved from downtown Rock Island and had its ribbon-cutting at the new Moline location Nov. 17, 2023.

Sound Conservatory’s owner Andrzej Kozlowski was thrilled that their new home could be of service to the creative community.

“Ben came to me at our ribbon cutting, and said he wanted to do a show in the old library stacks. We’re excited to help bring this play to life and to showcase both the talent of the creators and the beauty of this building,” he said in Friday’s release. “We love this space as our new home, and are proud to be part of the creative hub in downtown Moline.”

Immersive theater differentiates itself from traditional theater by removing the stage and immersing audiences within the performance itself.

This can be accomplished by using a site-specific location, allowing audiences to interact with their surroundings, and giving the audience agency in how they choose to follow the show, Gougeon said. It transforms the audience from passive recipients to active participants and encourages engagement in a more intimate, active way.

The best-known example is Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More, a retelling of Shakespeare’s Scottish tragedy (“Macbeth”) that takes place over five stories of the McKittrick Hotel in New York City, Gougeon said.

“I originally got involved with immersive theatre with a group in NYC called Witness Immersive. We did multiple sold out runs of a show called ‘The Visitation,’ which took place in Brooklyn’s historic Wyckoff House,” he said later Friday morning.

“Since then, I’ve had several ideas that have been brewing, but immersive theatre is really dependent on the space you’re in. None of the spaces I had looked at around the Quad Cities really fit the ideas I was working on, unless you had the funds to do massive renovations,” Gougeon said, noting the old Carnegie library as inspiration.

“But as soon as I saw those stacks, I fell in love with the space and knew I had to do a show there,” he said. “The play isn’t actually one that had been in the hopper, but the space was so inspiring that it all came together over the course of the last few weeks.”

The Stacks: An Immersive Mystery will perform at Sound Conservatory’s downtown Moline location on Feb. 22, 23, 24, 29 and March 1 & 2. All performances begin at 7:30 p.m.

Advanced reservations (for $10-$75) are highly encouraged as capacity is limited. Tickets and details can be found by visiting The Stacks: An Immersive Mystery on Facebook and Instagram (@thestacksqc).

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