Immersive storytelling doesn’t require a berm and a billion-dollar budget. Sometimes all it takes is a shoebox. In Burbank, a small team of theme park designers has spent their off hours building The Shoebox Museum, a pop-up immersive theater experience that trades thrill rides for something far more personal.
Have you ever felt heartbreak? Looked at the leftovers from your past relationship and wondered what’s next? What to keep? Throw away? The intrinsic value of these things often clings hard to the heart. The Shoebox Museum explores the little things we hang onto through a series of interactive vignettes.
Drowned Out Productions, the same folks who put together the interesting little piece of immersive theater I visited last Halloween, People in the Dark, has chosen to focus on something more intimate this time. The new experience accommodates a maximum of two people at a time. The corridors of memories that make up the museum are tight, winding, yet somehow a little cozy. Considering the subject matter, it’s more accessible compared to the previous horror offering and great for couples on a date night.
The Shoebox Museum revolves around an abstract exhibit showcasing items from the romantic relationship of Josh and Connor. The curator offers you a shoebox and instructs you to collect items in it. Each item, complete with asset tags, triggers (through light and sound) a memory that chronicles a part of the story. The designer describes the experience as a real-life narrative video game; I was immediately reminded of games like Life is Strange, What Remains of Edith Finch, or any title from Telltale Games like The Walking Dead.
Part of the allure of the experience is what is missing. Some items are lost in the Museum’s archives. The bulk of the experience happens there, where a steady stream of curated lights direct you deeper.
The archives feel a bit like Pixar’s Inside Out, with boxes of memories, labeled and stacked tall. Presumably full of items related to a piece of Josh and Connor’s history, each box represents just a small fragment of that life together.
The sheer number of items paints a vivid picture of what this relationship was like. With the limited time available, it’s impossible to take in the level of detail, and that’s before the lights guide you to the missing items. For a passion project assembled on nights off, the intricate theming is all the more impressive.
The use of lighting as a guiding hand to keep you from getting lost in the dark is perhaps one of the most clever elements of the Shoebox Museum. At no point did I feel anxious or lost because I knew the light would hold my hand to the next thing it wanted me to see. When I arrived there and plucked the memory item from the asset tag, the light would become a part of the story, enhancing the audio of the memory. The memories aren’t exposition dumps; instead, they are candid audio recordings of moments in time, seemingly deposited into the fibers of the item itself.
The word intimate truly does describe the Shoebox Museum, not only because of the cramped rooms, but also because these are very private moments between two individuals. Items that are reminders of a person, a place, or a point in time. Taking the item triggers the memory, but placing it in the shoebox brings a sense of closure. The one physical person you interact with when you check in frames the experience as a way for you to reflect on moments in your own life.
The Shoebox Museum definitely has its own dramatic moments, but they’re tinged with sorrow. Yet, somehow the experience is not sad; rather, it’s bittersweet. It’s a unique piece of theater, one that’s a bit somber and introspective.
An improvement over People in the Dark is the location. The Shoebox Museum is right at the intersection of Burbank, Los Angeles, and North Hollywood, less than a ten-minute drive from the Broken Compass Tiki Bar. If you’re interested in visiting the Shoebox Museum, they’ve added some additional dates through July 26th. Splitting a reservation with someone is definitely the best value, as tickets are $60.54 for one person and $77.61 for two.
We’re happy to see a team pushing the boundaries of the medium and hope to see more from them in the near future. Until then, I’ll be contemplating my own shoebox of memories…
