Interview with Have You Seen Jake

On September 28^th, I received an email from a friend of a friend. He was concerned because someone close to us had gone missing. We couldn’t go to the police, and we definitely couldn’t ask his family. But he found my name among his things and was wondering if I could help—if I had seen Jake?

Have You Seen Jake (HYSJ) is a new non-profit immersive theater experience. But what truly sets HYSJ apart from others in this genre is the level of interactivity that the characters have with the audience members. A Slack Forum was created by the participants and the characters were invited to join. And these characters talk with the participants daily to help them solve puzzles, to discuss theories, and more importantly, to actually build relationships and friendships between them. Instead of waiting for a character to contact you–you can message certain characters at any time and start a conversation. This is truly groundbreaking in the immersive theater world. Also, the amount of calls received by audience members has been impressive. There are currently six characters that make routine calls, and all calls are unique to the participant. In this search, give a piece of yourself to it and you will get a personalized journey in return.

Furthermore, the narrative doesn’t shy away from dark contemporary societal issues opening up deep conversations in the community. The themes are often dark, centering on familial problems, sexual abuse, substance abuse, and heartbreak. Some characters are gay or transgender, giving certain members of our community characters to empathize with or relate to. Ultimately all members of the community are included and can connect to some aspect of one of the characters. As one member shared with me, she feels very connected to Blue–someone who is just looking for his friend who he loves.  That’s a very human idea that people can relate to and is often missing from stories.

I asked the organizers if I could talk with them and ask them a few questions regarding the experience. I will present the interview below in question and answer format.

1. First, in your own words, can you tell me what Have You Seen Jake is?

Congratulations on the new website! This is an exciting opportunity to bring together a community of passionate fans to an incredibly exciting genre and we’re honored that you’ve asked us to participate. Thank you!

Have You Seen Jake is the first project created and produced by a newly formed non-profit organization whose mission is to benefit high-potential students in the arts. Our goal in the development of the HYSJ project was to create an experimental and fully immersive theatrical experience that weaves its way in and out of audience members’ daily lives. While there is a pre-determined story arc in the project, details also bend and flex given the interactions and developments of the audience members who are looking for Jake – someone they once knew but may have forgotten. While we certainly are informed by a number of mediums, including ARG’s and Extreme Haunts, we also wanted to create an experience that was different from others, particularly in terms of the level of customization with individual audience members.

2. Have You Seen Jake appears to be rather child-like on the outside with names like Sniffles, Blue, and the forgetting sickness. However once you understand the themes and tones of the experience, they are very dark, mature, and sexual in nature. Is this stark contrast deliberate? How do these themes set you apart from other immersive experiences?

Childhood and the loss of innocence are critical themes in the HYSJ project. Throughout the project, we are asking audience members to look at characters and plot points from multiple angles and perspectives. How we view things at 5 or 15 years old are very different compared to when we 30, 40 or 50 years old. Sometimes what we gain in maturity we also lose in our appreciation of the sense of wonder that is constantly around us. In terms of setting our project apart, our perspective is that every immersive experience is a unique and special undertaking. We’ve learned quickly that these projects require an enormous amount of dedication from talented teams.

3. This story does seem rather personal to the creators. Can you comment on what it means to you?

Tying back to our last answer and the amount of effort that a project like this takes, we would imagine that any such undertaking is deeply personal for the creators behind the experience. Our organizing team of 6 (as well as the rest of our incredibly talented cast and crew) share a deep passion for social justice issues and young people. We believe today, more than ever, the investment in young adults is critical for the future of our society. Far too often, young people who have been hurt or simply have fewer opportunities socio-economically are sorely disadvantaged regardless of potential or talent. These are themes that both inform the artistic nature of HYSJ as well as the mission of our organization.

4. You already have a sold out first event with two other events planned. Can you comment on what people should expect going into this first event? Is the third event really going to be an ambitious overnight experience—any details on that? 

We are grateful and overwhelmed by the fact that “Therapy & Dreams” is already fully committed. We’re also sad that we can’t accommodate the audience members who are inquiring every day about the show. Because the experience will be one that is experienced alone, it became impossible to accommodate more audience members and still maintain the quality we are dedicated to, but we are looking forward to welcoming folks to the shows in February and March—and perhaps a couple of very limited, one-off experiences in between as well. 

In terms of “Therapy & Dreams,” we would prefer that the experience speak for itself. We can share that our team is working very hard to stage an experience that we hope is evocative, passionate, frightening, and affirming. We are very excited to welcome everyone for the evening. 

Each of the three shows will be very different in terms of content, tone and venues. The final chapter of the HYSJ project, “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” will indeed be an overnight experience in March to end the search. This show will be a bit of a drive from LA proper, and will be compromised of multiple experiences and scenes throughout the overnight show. Thank you for calling it “ambitious,”- some days our team calls it “insane,” but we are eagerly anticipating getting to that point of the experience with our audience.

5. Can you talk about some of the advantages and difficulties in having the players and characters together on a slack forum, constantly interacting throughout the day? Would you have done this differently now?

The rapport building with the audience has been an incredible gift and we are very grateful to the two slack board founders, Kimberly and Taylor, for both starting the board and devoting the time to administering it. Its existence allows a window into the world of our audience that really assists us in our goal of customizing the experience.

In terms of challenges, it certainly does represent a great time commitment from certain members of our team. Blue won’t really be sleeping again until March. Beyond that, there have been times that the slack board community have really driven forward with certain theories or concepts that are very different from the intentions of the project. On one hand, this certainly contributes to the dynamic nature of the project, but can also present some unique challenges – sometimes we have to just set aside what the audience is doing or saying and return to the core narrative.

6. For you, where is the line between using personal information for a highly personalized journey vs having someone call safety because it became too personal?

We believe that every audience member is on his or her own continuum in terms of their engagement with the project. We have been honored to bear witness to some very personal disclosure over the course of the experience that has been very moving for our team and really informed the development of individual paths. Conversely, other audience members share much less, but are still greatly invested in the project and we’re honored to have them involved. So, for us, we don’t choose what is too personal—our audience members do, and they engage with us understanding the nature of consent and how to disengage if, for any reason, at any time, the experience is no longer suited to them. We have a deep respect for every audience member in the search, and we aim to honor them through a balance of challenging them as well as respecting the fact that, ultimately, the choice is theirs how much they engage or who they bring along in their own immersion.

7. This experience is very different from others because we are building a relationship with these characters every day through emails, phone calls, and interactions on a slack forum. What made you decide to craft a story in which you built relationships with players and weave them into the story so beautifully that they become characters in the story outright.

We think that anything worth creating comes as much from the heart and the gut as it does the brain, and thus, the project was created based on a story that we needed to tell, and the details of the experience wove themselves into that story. Every search party member who has joined (and left) the search have informed that path, and been an important part of Jake’s story. 

8. Finally, if we can talk to Jake and he can text us, why can’t he return home?

This is a great question. We can only suggest that the answer will be revealed by the end of the Search for Jake.

I want to thank The Organizers of Have You Seen Jake for taking the time out of their busy search to answer my questions. If you would like more information, please check out Have You Seen Jake or email me to learn more and join the slack forum.