Sweet & Lucky, the 360-degree, dream-like dance-theater experience that catapulted Denver, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and Off-Center to the forefront of the immersive theater world in 2016, returns with Sweet & Lucky: Echo. Neither sequel nor prequel, Echo has been incubating for years and aims to be similar enough but different enough to engross fans of the original.

The same creators, design team, and many of the same performers are back, this time in a different Denver warehouse with a different theatrical structure, scaled differently but with the same themes.

If the original Sweet & Lucky was about facilitating a sense of intimacy, Echo, is about fostering a sense of community.

During the Covid shutdown, Denver native Zach Morris of New York’s Third Rail Projects relocated here to be close to family. He and Charlie Miller of DCPA’s Off-Center met regularly (six feet apart, with blankets and a heater in Miller’s backyard) to discuss what might come next. After Miller collaborated with David Byrne on Theater of the Mind, “we started talking more seriously about Sweet & Lucky being our next produced show,” Miller said. “We’ve been actively working on this one since 2022.”

According to the collaborators, the structure of the original was invisible to the audience as attendees were led in a more solitary experience through a labyrinth of rooms and encounters; the structure of this work is visible to the audience, as a central space transforms around them. As before, individual audience members will see different combinations of scenes.

Don’t expect it to be like a night at the Buell, although there will be optional seating available through much of the show.

Describing a changed financial reality, physical constraints, and a socially different atmosphere, Miller said, “we couldn’t remount the show even if we wanted to.”

“What has emerged is a new play, a new experience, that has the heart, the soul of Sweet & Lucky, staged in a new way.”

Having a larger audience is necessary to make it financially viable and also is now central to the show, he said.

How will the story be different for those who enjoyed the original Sweet & Lucky? Associate directors Edward Rice and Rebekah Morin of Third Rail said via email, “We have been thinking about the story as though it has been refracted through a prism. Some moments are being amplified and duplicated, while others are seen through a character-specific lens. We get to experience both the present and the memories of the past and consider how they affect each other.”

The 27,000 square-foot warehouse where Echo is taking shape is where the immersive MONOPOLY LIFESIZED: Travel Edition took place in 2024, previously the site of the former Dollar Tree on South Broadway. The DCPA has a lease on the building for another year.

The space will accommodate 192 audience members with 14 actors, two stage managers, five crew plus front of house personnel. This time, Miller is glad to say, “we built a real bar with real plumbing.”

Beyond what’s on offer at The Keepsake Bar, this experience promises to feel very different.

Careful to avoid spoilers, Miller will only say that “instead of moving room to room, the audience is in one large primary space that transforms around you.” The themes are familiar, as Echo uses the same source material, and some scenes are reimagined or replayed. “It centers on a couple, their love relationship. It’s about memory, loss, and making sense of what’s left behind in someone’s life.”

Three of the original performers return — Amanda Berg Wilson, Diana Dresser, and Jenna Moll Reyes.

And the design team is the same as in 2016 — Lisa M. Orzolek, scenic design; Meghan Anderson Doyle, costume design; Charles R . Macleod, lighting design; and Sean Hagerty, composer and sound design. Audiences will note some familiar faces from DCPA shows. Additionally, a couple of Third Rail veterans have relocated here to be part of this show.

2016’s Sweet & Lucky was “a defining moment for our artistic community,” Miller said. Denver’s immersive scene now is considered one of the most robust in the country. “I’m eager to see what this new version spawns as well.”

The route to Echo has been “a rollercoaster,” Miller said. Not least, the site had a number of restrictions and required a hefty financial investment to build out the space. The ceilings aren’t high enough to make it rain, for example. But, Miller said, that has ended up being “a liberating artistic opportunity.”

Expect “no rain, but other exciting reveals,” he said.

The production will offer 24 premium tickets each night, which entitles participants to what Miller describes as “a cool keepsake and participation in a special scene 30 minutes after the show ends, in a private space, not an epilogue but a sort of bonus content,” in which they can go deeper into one of the storylines and have a chance to connect with the performers.

Not that premium tickets will help the production break even. “The cost of creating these shows from scratch is so high, we would have to run them for years to recoup the investment. It is not revenue positive,” Miller said diplomatically. That’s where sponsors, donors, and grants come in.

“The immersive theater landscape has greatly expanded in the last decade,” Rice and Morin said. “Traditional theatergoers have certainly embraced immersive theater, and you can see that in Broadway taking on elements of the form. We have also seen people who wouldn’t normally consider themselves theatergoers get interested in this form because it has expanded into multiple performance practices: live-action role-play, escape rooms, murder mystery dinner parties, haunted houses, and 360 visual installations etc.”

Echo is none of those things, but an innovative step in multi-sensory theater.

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Sweet & Lucky: Echo
Now Playing • Broadway Park®
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