Acts include immersive experiences

B1 whether it’s rolling around on wheeled stools, making physical contact or simply sitting back to observe.

Brassroots District: Live in the Lot Summer ’73:

This immersive music-theater troupe re-creates the Summer of Love in 1973 Los Angeles. The nine-piece Brassroots District funk band has its own internal drama, but it’s the opening act for Sly and the Family Stone. Can the record company execs coming to hear them play finally be their shot at the big time? Come for the concert and the drama.

“The Cell Plays” from Playwrights Project:

This San Diego theater organization will present an intimate, site-specific, immersive play written by members of its Out of the Yard program, for people who have experienced incarceration. The audience will be guests touring a correctional facility and jail museum, where they’ll experience a play about life inside a cell performed by actors in and around their cells, followed by an audience talk-back featuring formerly incarcerated individuals.

“Fair Trade” from Jessica Creane and Yannick Trapman-O’Brien, Philadelphia: In this interactive experiment of negotiation, audience members will choose three items in their possession as possible offerings and negotiate a trade with a perfect stranger. Who they are and what they bring will be a mystery, but with just an hour between the two participants, their decisions will lead the way to discovering whether a fair trade is in reach.

“It’s Not That Way, It’s This Way” from Galmae of France:

This immersive installation is created by the audience, starting out with only a stone and piece of string. Over time, people working alone and together create an enormous weblike string maze. South Korean artist Juhyung Lee was inspired to create the project after seeing how collectives can make change during a rally in Seoul in 2015.

“Moving Spaces” by San Diego Dance Theater: Dancers will lead their audience to different spaces around the Rady Shell, where they will perform sitespecific pieces at different locations by four choreographers. Grace Shinhae Jun of bkSOUL will create hip-hop and modern dance; former SDDT artistic director Jean Isaacs will present “Creation Myth”; Pendula Cero’s Miraslova Wilson will create “Esquina del Movimiento,” inspired by the Shell’s architecture; and SDDT’s current artistic director, Terry Wilson, will premiere a new work inspired by the Shell and San Diego skyline.

“Yellow Bird Chase”

from Liars & Believers of Boston: A clownish maintenance crew finds a magical yellow bird, and the mad chase begins. The familyfriendly show will travel around the Shell and will feature masks, puppets and gibberish language.

“Cleaning the Stables” from the Herakles Project’s Robert Twomey and Ash Eliza Smith: This San Diego duo has created a moving adventure described as a “sound-walk-meets-locative-cinema” experience inspired by the Greek hero Heracles and his 12 labors. Audience members will wear headphones as they join the HeraKlean company to clean a cow stable, redirect two rivers and discover a cult legend.

“Glacial Incantations” from the Herakles Project’s Hortense Gerardo: This San Diego artist presents a modern retelling of the ninth labor of Heracles, where king Eurystheus was ordered to bring him the belt of the Amazon queen Hippolyte. Participants will use a smartphone and earbuds to access recordings and augmented reality visuals on the walkway around the Rady Shell.

“Jin vs. the Beach” from the La Jolla Playhouse: The Playhouse’s Performance Outreach Program (POP) Tour is a new musical play for young audiences about an anxious fifth-grader named Jin going on his first school field trip to the beach.

Community Canvas: Making Our Mark: The San Diego Unified School District Honors Theatre Project, in partnership with the Playhouse, will be a devised theater piece created by local theater students in response to studying murals in the community.

Previously announced “A Shared Space”:

The San Diego Symphony presents this interactive performance in which Ryan Carter transforms cellphones into instruments as the audience joins the symphony musicians as players in a communal performance. Once audience members are connected digitally with Carter, their phones will emit sounds that will cue the orchestra to play.

“Birdmen” from CloseAct Theatre Co.: This theatrical stilt-walking troupe from the Netherlands become huge, illuminated, birdlike creatures from the future who react to their environment, communicate with colors and search for others of their species.

“Choreo & Fly” from Disco Riot: San Diego’s Disco Riot presents this audience-participation dance program that involves short dance pieces, kite-flying, physical expression and movement.

“Circular Dimensions” from Cristopher Cichocki:

This Coachella Valley artist presents an audiovisual performance that harnesses elements from the natural and industrial world to create original compositions for his DJ sets, which embrace the music genres of sonic ambiance and experimental dance. Complementing the music will be three-dimensional video

projections that will transform the environment around the audience.

“Drive” from Diversionary Theatre: The LGBTQ-identified San Diego theater will present this immersive theater piece inspired by Broadway veteran Sharon Wheatley’s book about her pandemic-necessitated, cross-country RV trip with her wife and family. Wheatley, an original cast member from the La Jolla Playhouse-born “Come From Away,” stars in the play with her “Come From Away” castmate Astrid Van Wieren.

“The End” from Control Group Productions: This Denver-based company takes audience members on a bus tour through a city transformed by escalating climate catastrophe and on the brink of collapse. Part theater, part civics lesson, summer camp and wild ride, it’s a story about San Diego’s present and future from the viewpoint of a school bus window.

“Las Cuatro Milpas” from TuYo Theatre:

This Latinx-voices San Diego theater company will present an immersive play inspired by one of San Diego’s oldest and most beloved Mexican restaurants, Las Cuatro Milpas in Barrio Logan. Audiences will walk through a corn maze modeled on Aztec codices and covered in murals with interactive QR codes and audio tracks to learn the story of Petra and Nati Estudillo’s journey from Mexico to California and the founding of their restaurant in 1933. The show will include music and recorded dances inspired by the Aztec corn gods.

“The Nest” from Megan Flød Johnson: This St. Paul, Minn., artist will create an immersive playscape for young people that represents the home of an elusive migrating creature. Children will help workers decorate the colorful nest with their writings and reflections.

“salty water” from Blindspot Collective: This San Diego theater company will present a walk-through theater piece inspired by San Diego’s history and its connection to the sea. Fifteen performers, 40 local youths and large-scale puppets will present music, movement, poetry and spoken word pieces.

“La Lucha”: Written by David Israel Reynoso through his immersive Optika Moderna theater company, will take viewers inside the world of lucha libre Mexican masked wrestling. The audience will step inside the ring to cheer, explore and learn the secrets of the highly popular sport.

As an addition to the four-day WOW Festival in April, La Jolla Playhouse is also working with the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, on a ticketed world premiere lucha librethemed project that will have a series of previews during WOW, followed with an extended run, May 11 through June 4. All performances are at MCASD, 1100 Kettner Blvd., San Diego. Tickets start at $39.