Perhaps Theater of the Mind was your first taste of immersive experiences or you may have been an early adopter when DCPA Off-Center launched in 2010/11 with The Ultimate Wii Baseball Game and Hip Hop Jambalaya. No matter your original entry point, you’re likely hooked…or soon will be.

If you aren’t family with immersive experiences, the 4^th Denver Fringe Festival is serving up nine such shows among its lineup. Now is the perfect time to explore this emerging art form all while surrounded by improv, comedy, theatre, dance, aerial art and more.

Taking place June 8-11, 2023, the Denver Fringe Festival packs more than 50 acts into the four-day festival that takes place in 12 venues throughout the RiNo and Five Points neighborhoods. The immersive options include:

AI SPY WITH MY ChatGPT EYE

By Museum of AI
30 minutes • 18 performances • All ages

Use artificial intelligence to interact with a screenwriter as you perfect your next script in this collaborative new way of storytelling.

CAMPING WITH DAD

By Carter McGrath
30 minutes • 4 performances • All ages

Sit by the fire, ask and learn, and decide for yourself how everyone will work together to make tomorrow’s dads as kind, open-minded and dorky as possible. S’mores included.

CONSULTATION WITH THE CORPSE

By Benjamin Ross Nicholson
60 minutes • Performance by reservation • Adults only

An immersive 1-on-1 experience in which the consultant engages the client in a 60-minute exploration of death and dying, custom-tailored to each client’s encounters with decay.

EXHAUSTED PAINT: THE DEATH OF VAN GOGH

By Justin Maxwell
60 minutes • 3 performances • Adults only

With a narrative arc determined by the spin of a wheel, participants will experience ideas of disorientation and struggle, often based on Van Gogh’s letters.

FEELS LIKE YESTERDAY

By Leah Cardenas & Beau Fisher
35 minutes • 7 performances • Adults only

Can the audience help these childhood friends rekindle their relationships? Audience members will be paired with a member of this friend group to help them reunite.

INFECTED

By Megan Markham
40 minutes • 8 performances • Adults only

An immersive horror audio drama adventure where the audience experiences a 360 soundscape while following live actors through the streets of Denver.

IN LOVING MEMORY

By Kevin Douglas
30 minutes • 5 performances • All 13+

Andi, a queer teenager estranged from their family, processes their trauma…through the eulogy of some roadkill. Through dance, poetry and audience interaction, you may leave knowing more about Andi than you know about your closest friends.

SANDY

By Anna Pellegrini
60 minutes • 3 performances • Adults only

As she attempts to save her marriage, she buys a doll to satisfy him. But it costs her more than she ever imagined as the lifeless doll becomes more and more alive.

Taste the Rainbow

Created by Merhia Wiese, Andrew Novick, Rachel Lang, Jeffrey Lang & Elliot Wiese
15 minutes • 36 performances • All ages

A surrealist ice cream shoppe. Attendees explore what it means to taste — in a unique environment — outside of the typical senses.

The Denver Fringe Festival embodies the “Fringe” tradition, which started in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1947 when eight performing arts groups were excluded from the local mainstream arts festival. Undeterred, they chose to perform in inexpensive or free locations on the fringes of the city. Now, there are more than 300 fringe festivals around the world that feature diverse voices in all genre of performing arts — theatre, comedy, improv, cabaret, dance and immersive theatre.

While you explore these new immersive works, be sure to check out the full lineup of events at the 4^th annual Denver Fringe Festival.