Exit Spoonsy, pursued by a bear.

If only for one night, there will be a Fraggle Room at the McKittrick.

I can’t believe you’re all here. My heart is filled with unspeakable joy, seeing all of your faces in this timeless place. The Hotel is opening its doors just one last time and seeing all of you in this specific light

This place has been a home for me for so many years, sometimes more than the places I lay my head. I’m sure some of you feel the same. It’s been a safe haven in a strange world, a place of refuge in a storm of all sorts. A place we gather to be our most elegant selves. We’ve all breathed breath into this place, along with the spirits that are here and will continue to live on long after that final moment.

So let’s raise a glass. To Home. Wherever we all are. Together. Cheers.

(Character voice)

I really can’t believe you’re all here. I dreamt last night I went back to Manderly again. Would you like to go for just one more time?

Also really fitting that I OD on sleep no more posts one last time before things end next week. That’s honestly what this started for and there’s very little use for it otherwise

What a fucking gift for us all

This is the Millennium NYE set from Twilio, shared in the discord by vitaliyf. Twilio stood in what we now call the Ballroom from 1995 to 2001 before becoming BED and Spirit and everything else discussed in my previous post. I don’t know what stood in the space prior to 1995 (if you do, please let me know), but it feels very strange that we may be the last group to dance in that space on the 11th into the 12th.

Then let’s keep dancing. Let’s break out the booze and have a ball. If that’s all…

With the imminent close of Sleep No More in under a week’s time, I found myself interested in when the idea of The McKittrick came into being. The McKittrick itself is a New York invention. The Boston production in its refurbished school setting didn’t have The Hotel. But The Hotel is obviously not actually a hotel, it’s three nightclubs wearing a trench coat consolidated into a single building. But when did that consolidation take place?

Thanks to a post on Reddit where I wound up musing about the serendipity of the Hotel coming into being in the time between the Great Recession and the opening of the High Line extension, this lead to me going on a deep dive thanks to the one free building report you can access on a free PropertyShark account. For those unfamiliar with what West 27th was prior to the Hotel and the condos, it used to be a cavalcade of nightclubs. Club B.E.D. sat at 530 West 27th street - as DrinkTheHalo has documented extensively, there was Sound Factory and Twilo and Spirit and Home (532) and Guest House (542) making up what we now know as the full Hotel space. After the murder of a club goer in February of 2007 BED closed. On December 27, 2007, the building that we’d come to know as the Hotel was sold for $28,000,000 to 27th Street Property Owner LLC.

There were still nightclubs operating in other parts of the location, but a plan examination was filed on February 27th, 2008. Meanwhile, the Boston production was mounted in the fall of 2009. A town meeting was called on May 19th, 2009 to approve as the school that the housed the production was town property. There has been much written elsewhere about how Boston pulled things together from wherever they could, though the sleepnomoreboston tumblr seems to be gone at this time.

From October of 2009 to February of 2010, Sleep No More ran in Boston. Then, in September of 2010, scaffolding goes up at 530 West 27th. January 2011 sees a flurry of permits, with the final one pertaining to occupancy being filed on February 22, 2011, changing the use to all floors . Come March 7th, the show opened and has been running up until this coming weekend.

Now, we know from the press around the reopening in 2022 that proto-Emursive initially wanted to bring Punchdrunk’s Faust to New York (they did on their own, eventually, through Life and Trust). This failed and they turned their attention to Sleep No More, offering it up to Boston and the ART, now chaired by Diane Paulus (the wife of Randy Weiner, sort of but not any more 1/3 of Emursive). Sleep No More runs for a set time period, the kinks are worked out, and the space is secured from 27th Street Property Owner LLC. We know thanks to the Spring 2024 Permitgate A.K.A That’s Bullshit Arthur that the lease was formally entered into on December 1, 2010 It had its first amendment in June of 2012, the second in August of 2015, and the third in June of 2022 after reopening but before the closing announcement in late 2023.

With all these dates in hand, we can see that the Property Owner LLC was created in prior to the BED incident, in December of 2007. Centaur (once again, That’s Bullshit Arthur). What their plans would have been without Sleep No More are uncertain, probably condos, but they got a tenant who sort of paid the bills for 15 years instead.

The timeline is likely this: proto-Emursive comes to an agreement with Punchdrunk in 2007 or 2008 to mount Sleep No More in New York City with an out of town tryout in Boston in 2009. At the same time Centaur acquires 530-542 in December of 2007 as the 27th Street club era is dying. The Boston production goes as planned, with a building identified prior to the start of the run. The lease of 530 is officially agreed upon December of 2010, with scaffolding being set earlier that fall and the ability to modify in hand thanks to the examination from 2008. The official layout permits are modified in February of 2011, right in time for the show to open in March. All thanks to a theater for Faust falling through.

Timing is everything. Without the club era dying, the building doesn’t become available. Without the High Line extension in 2012, the area isn’t changed beyond recognition to the point where something other than immersive theater or a strip club makes sense as an investment. I give Emursive a lot of flack. But they threaded the needle near perfectly in terms of timing. Sleep No More, as a show that attracted both the theatrically minded and those with cash to spend, could not have existed at any time other than Bloomberg’s NYC. But it’s a different NYC now and that’s all there is to a permit.

scorchedthesnake:

It infuriates me that the final post on this blog, still forthcoming, will have to dedicate so much space to the absolute clusterfuck that is Emursive’s management of Sleep No More’s final year.

I was keen to be generous during the first permit shutdown in the spring, but the second time around, there’s no forgiving it.

Emursive have been so eager to claim credit for Sleep No More and transfer its goodwill over to Life and Trust, so let’s let them have it.

Emursive have to own that, when faced with a Buzzfeed expose on sexual assault in the show, they threw their own cast under the bus. This was the hint that malfeasance of the current scale was to be expected.

Emursive have to own that twice now in one year they have utterly failed to do their due diligence and secure the necessary permits for the show to operate.

This has come at massive cost to us, and to their performers and staff. So it is only fair that it come as a massive cost to the reputation of this utterly inept, greedy company. So yes, Emursive, you’re the producers of Sleep No More – you’re the producers of a finale year for the most celebrated immersive production of all time, and you absolutely threw it in a dumpster and lit it on fire.

May similar misfortune strike all your expensive current and future endeavors that have yet to recoup their costs, and may they face a savage and skeptical public and press, wary of how you treated everyone in the final days of Sleep No More.

My current username on the Discord is Garthur Drabinsky. I feel those two would get along.

Genuinely astounded at how this year has been botchamania

spotchka:

reblog to give your mutuals a djungelskog

They’re actually legitimately they mean it ending the show this time for real. January 5th is the last performance. I won’t be there for that but expect to see full write-ups of who switched into what and when for that final matinee.

e: 1/6 - lol of course I caved and went

What I’m here for is to mourn the one way I know how - with a full scale Lore Heavy Audience Costumed McKitty Party. And wouldn’t you know we’re getting THREE of them. Children of the Discord, we shall FEAST on what was commonplace for Halloween and New Years until 2017ish. Love Letter, Fever Dream, Masque. You will be my true farewell.

Because I know -
Just as well as I’m standing here talking to you
That when that final moment comes
And I’m breathing my last breat
I’ll be saying to myself
Is that all there is

Is that all there is?
If that’s all there is my friend
Then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is