by Nate Allen
Directed by Nate Allen
Scenic Designer: Lee Keenan
Costume Designer: Melissa Torchia
Lighting Designer: Lee Keenan
Sound Designer: Sarah D. Espinoza and Josh Horvath
Props Designer: Eleanor Kahn
Puzzle Designer: Sandor Weisz
Video Designer: Lucas Merino
Software Architect: Bem Wilhelm
Directed by Nate Allen
Scenic Designer: Lee Keenan
Costume Designer: Melissa Torchia
Lighting Designer: Lee Keenan
Sound Designer: Sarah D. Espinoza and Josh Horvath
Props Designer: Eleanor Kahn
Puzzle Designer: Sandor Weisz
Video Designer: Lucas Merino
Software Architect: Bem Wilhelm
About The Last Defender
The Last Defender was a new experiment in immersive story and stagecraft. Part performance, part puzzle hunt, and part live action game, it gave audiences the chance to become heroes in The Defenders' underground headquarters. Set in 1983, The Last Defender drew on the era's political and social turmoil, the golden age of arcades, and impending nuclear threats to give audiences a one-of-a-kind storytelling experience. In the immersive adventure, the United States and the Soviet Union were still mired in the Cold War. We deployed artificial intelligence alongside 8 bit arcade-style computer technologies to control our nuclear weapons. As Defenders, players navigated their own paranoia, as well as the stresses of Mutually Assured Destruction. Everyone worked as a team to gather information, solve puzzles, and make increasingly difficult decisions in real time; all to finally complete The Defenders' final mission and save the world.
The Sound Design
The following media is best experienced using headphones.
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The Experience
16 players suit up and head to the elevator to go beneath the surface to Defender HQ. They undergo orientation and perform daily tasks as they would any other day. The Intelligence, Engineering, Communications, and Operations teams begin their assignments when they get a warning of an attack. The game then presents teams of players with a classic "trolley problem” resulting in three possible endings based on their choices and actions: Nuclear War, which is easy to achieve, Nuclear Peace, which is very difficult, and a costly compromise scenario for teams who fail to reach Nuclear Peace but wish to avoid Nuclear War. |
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Orientation
When first arriving in Defender HQ, the Defenders encounter a large screen that plays the orientation video. The sound design in the video is based both on the world we created for Defender HQ as well as an instructional video made in the 1980's. This video also shows the space used for the actual game experience and some of the tasks patrons would actually perform. Each of the rooms and modules had different sounds and treatments. |
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Nuclear Peace
Very few teams accomplish the feat of Nuclear Peace in the game, but when they do, they get to see some of the characters they have come to know in a more revealing version of the Orientation video. |
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Zelda
Zelda is one of the characters the players get to know through the game. She serves as a guide and gives information to the Defenders that Mayday, the computer running HQ, is corrupt. She is also seen in the Orientation and Nuclear Peace Video holding the disarm key. The following audio file is one of her warnings. She hacks into the mainframe to embed these files so the sound design is harsh and has a lot of interference, because she would have had to bury these messages so deep Mayday could not find them. These messages are unlocked by a few of the puzzles or the closer the countdown gets to zero. |
"Geeking Out" Behind The Scenes
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Programing The Last Defender
Sound designing was not my only job on The Last Defender. I was also tasked with programming all of the parts of the show into one Qlab that would run sound, lights, video, and game terminals. This cue sheet I made shows some of my methodology in programming the show as well as gives an idea what it meant to have 3 alternative endings. All the different parts of the show were on different machines. The lights were programmed into a light board, the video was programmed on to a laptop with its own Qlab, the terminals were controlled by raspberry pis (tiny programmable computers), and sound was programmed into a Qlab that would send signal either through Midi or Network connections to the other devices. The Qlab had multiple cue lists for the different endings as well as hints and hidden surprises. Each action the 16 participants took had to be thought of so the Qlab could act accordingly. Working on programming the show was one of my favorite parts of the job as it gave me a deep understanding of the inner workings of of the piece and at times gave me some of the most interesting problem solving challenges. |
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Black Rabbits Calling The Show
The Last Defender was run by a stage crew dressed as black rabbits. My job as the programmer was also to make their job a lot easier by making most of cues fire through automated commands. Altogether the stage manager had to call 8 cues per game and could call up to 20. Every game was different. Some games players were very self sufficient and had high leveled puzzle solving skills, but most needed the extra help and the way the show was programmed made the experience beneficial to both. Most of the time the black rabbits could handle the players questions and direct them in the right direction, but when needed the SM could supply a hint by calling an extra cue. |
PRESS
READER RECOMMENDED!
"Perfect combinations of storytelling, stagecraft, and giddy theater-school camaraderie... Will undoubtedly satisfy even the pickiest problem-solving nerd"
Chicago Reader
"Ingenious interactive theater piece! ... a futurist environment where you feel like you've been plunked down in the middle of a sci-fi film."
Windy City Times
FOUR STARS & CRITICS PICK
"An adrenaline-generating team-building exercise! Uniquely challenging and exhilarating, The Last Defender is exciting new territory"
Time Out Chicago
"House Theatre of Chicago is responsible for some of the least-pretentious high art in our city. There is real and well-deserved affection for this company that goes beyond niche. Like a spring-loaded door on the other side of which is the key to saving the world, they release something in us. So come play. The world needs you, defender."
New City Stage
"Challenging and terrifcally fun!"
A.V. Club
"Perfect combinations of storytelling, stagecraft, and giddy theater-school camaraderie... Will undoubtedly satisfy even the pickiest problem-solving nerd"
Chicago Reader
"Ingenious interactive theater piece! ... a futurist environment where you feel like you've been plunked down in the middle of a sci-fi film."
Windy City Times
FOUR STARS & CRITICS PICK
"An adrenaline-generating team-building exercise! Uniquely challenging and exhilarating, The Last Defender is exciting new territory"
Time Out Chicago
"House Theatre of Chicago is responsible for some of the least-pretentious high art in our city. There is real and well-deserved affection for this company that goes beyond niche. Like a spring-loaded door on the other side of which is the key to saving the world, they release something in us. So come play. The world needs you, defender."
New City Stage
"Challenging and terrifcally fun!"
A.V. Club