October is a time of haunted houses, terror-filled corn mazes, and other events that place the attendees in the middle of the action, and Café Nordo adds its own offering with an immersive psychological thriller. Its new show, Ghosts of Nebula: The Missing Six, is intended to evoke the spookiness of Halloween without the stereotypical blood and gore of horror.
Set in a hidden part of the Georgetown Steam Plant, the show unfolds all around the audience, who tour the various rooms with the added enjoyment of two included cocktails per person. “Even before we opened our Pioneer Square venue The Culinarium, Terry Podgorski, my co-Artistic Director, and I knew large-scale site-specific work was a part of the dream that couldn’t be realized in that pretty little venue, and that would someday be our next chapter,” shared Erin Brindley, Café Nordo’s Co-Artistic Director. “The Georgetown Steam Plant is an astonishing venue for this dream to be realized.”
Podgorski teamed up with Maggie Lee to write the script. “I am a playwright who loves science fiction and horror, so this show was right in my wheelhouse,” Lee said. “I was really excited to get to work with Terry Podgorski on the script.”
The script calls for the performers to act as guides, demonstrating the technologies of dream exploration and raising questions about the nature of ghosts. “He created this fascinating new world of Nebula and it’s been such a blast to help bring it to life,” Lee said of Podgorski. “I have never written for an immersive show before, so it’s been fun for me to try something new as a writer!”
The audience will take an active role in the progression of the show. “I’ve been helping to write some of the environmental clues like letters and notes that will be discovered by the audience as part of the show with clues as to what happened to the Missing Six,” Lee reported. “I’m so used to a play happening in a typical theater environment with defined areas for the stage and the audience, and this show is breaking all the rules in the best way.”
Among the array of characters is Dr. Elias Corbeau, portrayed by actor Ray Tagavilla. “Dr. Corbeau has little sympathy and hope for humanity but there’s humor there, as dark as it is,” Tagavilla revealed. “There’s method to his madness and it’s fun to find some logic in all the chaos.”
Tagavilla has worked to uncover the elements of his role. “Part of my process is finding the opposite, the hidden aspects, and how it bubbles up to the surface, whether purposefully or otherwise,” he described. “The hardest thing is always, is this enough?”
His counterpart is a Filipino-American scientist played by Jose “Jojo” Abaoag. “He is a rebel who absconds tech from a corporation he is working for, uses it to analyze dreams, and finds a benefactor to pursue the entities in the dreams of his test subjects,” Abaoag said, “and this leads him to a supernatural phenomenon surfacing in a steam plant in Georgetown.”
Abaoag has his own particular way of preparing for Nebula. “I am using old photographs of Seattle,” he shared, “and reading a lot of Carlos Castaneda to help activate my imagination to help flesh out other realms and realities.”
Finding these other imaginative spaces is key to working with Café Nordo. “They make magic,” Abaoag said. “They transform spaces and get the right folx to find new and captivating ways to surprise their audiences.”
Alongside Abaoag and Tagavilla is Wedgwood Drama Studio founder Christi Cruz, who portrays Devorah, the Dream Collector. “She’s this brilliant, eccentric figure who’s spent her life navigating the subconscious like a seasoned explorer, always a step ahead of everyone else in her field,” Cruz said. “There’s a quiet intensity to her because she’s so close to making this groundbreaking leap, and that tension drives everything she does.”
Devorah yearns to be able to craft dreamscapes, which in the world of Nebula could change everything. “Imagine the impact on health, where dream therapy could heal minds, or even on politics and art, where the boundaries of creativity and influence could be pushed beyond what we know,” Cruz mused. “She’s constantly balancing the brilliance of her mind with the weight of what her discovery could mean for the world.”
Cruz describes this production as exhilarating. “The immersive, promenade-style format transforms the audience into active participants, guiding them through a hauntingly atmospheric journey filled with unexpected twists,” she said. “We navigate an extraordinary historic space, forging genuine connections with the audience as they walk alongside us.”
Helping create the style of the show is costume designer Katrina Hess. “I was initially inspired to join the project because Café Nordo dreams up the most unique theater experiences in Seattle,” she said. “Terry created an imaginatively rich world for Nebula that features fashion from both modern day and the 1920’s.”
Nebula has inspired exploration in many different directions. “I went down an extensive rabbit hole of professionals from the 1920’s to inform the designs for our period ghost characters,” Hess relayed. “For our contemporary tech villain characters, I pulled inspiration from couture runway shows and bespoke menswear.”
Even with the script, characters, and visual design as constants, those who attend the show will introduce novelty in each performance. “Every night unfolds uniquely, shaped by the audience’s energy,” Cruz explained. “With the intricate interplay of cues and the constant potential for surprises, each performance will be an exciting challenge.”
After all this preparation, Café Nordo is ready to raise the curtain on this new concoction. “We have spent over a year planning, commissioning artists, writers, designers,” Brindley said. “For us, this is a moment to show the future of our company to the city of Seattle.”
Ghosts of Nebula: The Missing Six runs from October 18 to November 2 at the Georgetown Steam Plant, 6605 Thirteenth Avenue South, Seattle.
