Being a good student of theatre and working on a series of large-scale nightlife projects in the mid-2000s that were structured like 5 act plays, I learned about a movement of immersive theatre bubbling up in London led by a company called Punchdrunk.
After I saw Sleep No More in Boston and got wind Punchdrunk was preparing to come to New York, I approached the team of executive producers saying I want to be a part of it. They gave me an option to either recruit volunteers or be the Supervising Producer tasked “to know everything about everything” regarding the production and launch. I chose the latter.
Just as social media was really taking off, those of us in nightlife noticed that wellness was quickly replacing escapism. The audience was shifting from dancing the night away to getting up in the morning and going to the gym.
SoulCycle was already well on its way, but I saw a whole other audience at the gym practicing boxing drills. I asked my trainer if he would lead a class for my friends - gay men - to learn some non-contact boxing techniques…all set to dance music. It started off as a half joke and promised them they wouldn't get hit in the face, but by the first class my friends were already asking for more. We turned the one-off into once a month…which become once a week…which become daily …which become a wide-reaching community of warriors across the city.
After launching the original 29Rooms for Refinery29, someone who experienced the project approached me seeing if I could talk to her about a concept she had about ice cream.
I met and listened to what she was thinking. I took the bundle of concepts, rearranged them and added my own proverbial cherry on top in a digital proposal. But something was missing. I asked her if I could present her with a physical proposal to get the ideas across. I knew we needed a physical, unexpected experiential “Wow!” element to truly connect. I went to Michael’s and bought every sprinkle I could, placed them in a large metal tin, and buried a printout of the proposal inside of it. Et voila! The Museum of Ice Cream and the endlessly Instagrammed sprinkle pool was born one month later.