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Behind the Scenes of Sweet & Lucky: Echo, Denver’s New Immersive Memory Play

"So many of us have a lot that we're grieving, so this piece is really a response to where we are in the world right now."
Image: People interact with a shelf of boxes
Alex Campbell and Jenna Moll Reyes in Sweet & Lucky: Echo. Courtesy of Amanda Tipton Photography
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Inside the DCPA Off-Center's temporary home at 407 South Broadway, the bones of a new world are being built. The oversized board games from Monopoly Lifesized, which formerly occupied the venue, are gone. In their place is a labyrinth of cardboard boxes, swinging shelves and items left by a recently deceased couple. And under the direction of Third Rail Projects’ Zach Morris, the world of Sweet & Lucky: Echo has begun to take shape.

"One of the things that I think is often unique about immersive work is that these projects are so informed by the incredible artists and support team that we're working with as well as audience feedback," Morris reflects. "We are testing this piece with test audiences to fine-tune it. So right now, all of the different elements are in place and the audience is helping us make all the bits converge and congeal. It's like when all of the pieces finally start to fit together to form something larger, and you realize the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

Created by Third Rail Projects in collaboration with the DCPA's Off-Center, Sweet & Lucky: Echo runs from August 13 through October 5. Morris describes the work as a companion piece, rather than a sequel, to the 2016 immersive hit Sweet & Lucky, which helped establish Denver as a national hub for immersive, site-specific performance.
click to enlarge A group photo of a cast
The company of Sweet & Lucky: Echo.
Courtesy of Amanda Tipton Photography
“In Sweet & Lucky: Echo, I consider the audience to be the most important person in the room,” Morris says. “The staging is really predicated on what makes the most sense for them, how they are moving through the space and how all of these different moments are stitching together the story in their head.”

In this case, the story is about grief and memory's fragmented persistence. Audiences enter a cavernous room filled with closed shelves and unmarked cardboard boxes. All that’s known at the start is that someone has died. Over time, guided by actors and shifts in space, the life of a couple unfolds through poetic vignettes.

“This is very much a story of this couple, and we get to follow them through some of the most tender moments of their lives,” Morris explains. “But it’s also a deeply universal story. We’ve all loved, we’ve all lived, we’ve all experienced loss. And how do you deal with that? That’s maybe the oldest question we’ve been asking ourselves as a people.”

The couple is never named, allowing audiences to project their own experiences onto the characters.
click to enlarge
Sam Urdang and Amanda Berg Wilson rehearse a scene in the DCPA Off-Center's production of Sweet & Lucky: Echo.
Courtesy of Amanda Tipton Photography
"It's a really delightful balance of specificity and universality," Morris says. "So the couple are very distinct characters, but there's also room for the audience to say, 'Oh, that couple is me and my love,' or their parents, grandparents or children. The couple has a very specific life experience, but it hopefully speaks to many of us in that they were two people who were part of a community, and this is what it means for a community to come together and grieve a loss."

That sense of collective remembrance is core to Echo’s immersive design. Audience members may be invited to recall a recipe from childhood or assist performers in transforming the environment, such as helping to raise a canvas sail, shifting the space into a new emotional register. Participation is always optional, Morris emphasizes, but meaningful.

“If you are an audience member who wants to sit back and observe, this piece is for you. If you want to become part of the action, it’s for you too,” he says. “But certainly, whether you are a witness or whether you become a more active member, there are these invitations to memory. The interesting thing is how they resonate — because even if we’ve lived wildly different lives, some things, like being fed when you needed it most, are just deeply human.”

While Echo builds on thematic foundations laid by the original Sweet & Lucky, it’s not a retread.

“It’s almost like a sibling,” Morris says. "It deals with similar themes in terms of loss and remembrance, but it's asking a very different question. Some of that is who I am as an artist, nine years later. I'm grieving very different things than I was a decade ago. My life has changed in many ways, and I think our world has also changed. We have collectively lived through a pandemic that has repercussions that are still impacting folks. Right now in this cultural moment, so many of us have a lot that we're grieving, so this piece is really a response to where we are in the world right now."
click to enlarge
Brendan Duggan and Tiffany Ogburn in Sweet & Lucky: Echo.
Courtesy of Amanda Tipton Photography
The show's concept was first discussed over whiskey in the backyard of Off-Center executive director Charlie Miller during the pandemic. Though a direct remount of the 2016 piece was briefly considered, both teams quickly realized this was an opportunity for something new.

"We were outside, in the cold, trying to envision what it would be like to bring Sweet & Lucky back or some iteration thereof. There's also really some deep synergy between Third Rail Projects and the DCPA," Morris says. "We are two organizations that really enjoy working with each other, and I believe there is a deep mutual love and respect there."

Echo is performed in a 5,000-square-foot environment that accommodates up to 192 people per show but is engineered to feel intimate. Some scenes are performed for as few as seven audience members, blurring the boundary between observer and participant.

"Anybody can make something that's complicated, but it takes a degree of mastery to make something that is simple and elegant, and that is what our designers are bringing," Morris says. "There is a real elegance to the design that's being employed that's almost intentionally essential. We're really trying to drill down to what is the essence of every moment."

That design team includes associate directors Edward Rice and Rebekah Morin, scenic designer Lisa M. Orzolek, costume designer Meghan Anderson Doyle, lighting designer Charles R. MacLeod and composer/sound designer Sean Hagerty. The cast features eighteen performers, including several returning from the original Sweet & Lucky, like Amanda Berg Wilson, Diana Dresser and Jenna Moll Reyes.
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Andrea Camacho practices a scene in the immersive Sweet & Lucky: Echo.
Courtesy of Amanda Tipton Photography
“I am so excited to bring the exceptional design team from the original production of Sweet & Lucky back together for its new companion piece, Sweet & Lucky: Echo,” Miller says. “We have assembled a spectacular ensemble of performers, including fifteen local actors and three returning cast members from the original production. These experienced and talented performers will breathe life into this next chapter of immersive storytelling.”

With opening night approaching, the team is focused on more than just staging scenes. They’re building an experience that honors the spirit of the original Sweet & Lucky while speaking directly to the present moment. For Morris, that means creating a space where every audience member feels like they belong.

"Sweet & Lucky: Echo is designed to welcome anyone, whether you are a person who is a seasoned, immersive performance goer or if this is your first work. If you saw Sweet & Lucky in 2016, or you didn't," Morris says. "This incredible community is making an offering to the audience, almost like a love letter. We're so excited to have them with us because we've made this for them, but we can only do it with them."

Sweet & Lucky: Echo runs Wednesday, August 13, through Sunday, October 5, at DCPA Off-Center at Broadway Park, 407 South Broadway. Learn more at denvercenter.org.