Imagine this: It’s a warm October night in downtown Los Angeles and you’ve just stepped into a packed elevator in a vacant office building. You and your fellow riders have no idea what you’ll find when the doors open on the fifth floor, but you’ve been told to wear comfortable shoes and contemplate this question: What happens when the monsters in our mind become real?
Over the next 75 minutes, you’re instructed to lie in full-size beds arranged in a circle. Then you’re asked to crawl through an elaborate tunnel made of newspaper. Most frightening of all, you’re encouraged to race around a 60,000-square-foot space that’s been transformed into a land of waking nightmares.
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Such was the premise for “Awake,” the 2018 installment of Los Angeles immersive theater company Just Fix It Productions’ ongoing Halloween series Creep LA. Beyond the consistency of the name, Creep LA changes with each production, leaving even its creators struggling to define it.
“It’s hard to describe, right? Everyone wants to feel seen and to be taken on a journey where there’s a sense of wonder and play,” says cofounder and creative director Justin Fix. “At first, people wanted to call what we were doing haunted houses, but with our shows, the scenes develop. There’s a sense of tension and fear and dread and suspense and intrigue.”
That’s one way to put it.
Since 2015, JFI has taken over various properties in Los Angeles to stage events that combine elaborate narratives, direct interactions with actors, and high production value to deliver unforgettable evenings that delight—and terrify—audiences. In 2019, Creep LA took the form of “Haus,” a darkly satirical send-up of selfie palaces and Instagram museums; in 2020, it was “Inside,” a pandemic-friendly event held entirely outdoors that featured a guided tour around a home in Los Angeles.
Aside from Creep, Fix and his cofounder and executive producer, J.T. Swierczek, and their team of writers, designers, and actors have created activations for Hollywood studios, like the collaboration with Universal Studios in 2021 to promote Halloween Kills or Netflix’s 2022 promotional event for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
“We want to create environments where you can truly escape and not see the seams,” explains Daniel Montgomery, a JFI writer and performer. “We want you to feel like you’ve stepped into something that’s both surreal and very real, whether that’s a four-hour, 1970s sexy wild disco night with tons of choreography, characters, flashing lights, and drinks”—2020’s “Night Fever”—“or it’s a 20-minute activation for a studio where you get a brief touchpoint with a performer.”
Comparing his projects with other immersive productions, Fix says that he and his team seek more than passive engagement from their audience members: “The pioneers of this stuff were like, ‘Put on a mask. You can’t talk,’” he says. “When you come into our spaces, we ask a lot of you.”
“‘Sleep No More’ was wonderful,” Swierczek adds, referring to New York’s long-running immersive theater production that is set to close later this yearafter 13 years. “But there, the audience were simply observers, right? With our shows, you’re participating. Maybe you’re not solving clues, but you’re taking part in the performance.”
Despite the darkness of some of its material, like 2017’s “The Willows,” for example, which sat audience members at the table to dine with actors playing a dysfunctional family on the cusp of unraveling and ran for four years and 400 sold-out performances, JFI’s mission is to provide adults with meaningful, memorable chances to play.
“I love that there are people who you’d never think would want to play,” says Montgomery. “Then it turns out they just needed an invitation. I feel like, over the years, we’ve been really good at offering that invitation.”
This year’s Creep was created in partnership with the CBS television series Ghosts and called simply “Creep LA: Ghosts.” Running October 4 through 27, the hourlong interactive show was staged across two historic mansions in the West Adams area of Los Angeles. “It’s the biggest show we’ve ever done,” Fix says.
“What we’ve learned over this almost 10-year journey is that anything is possible,” Fix says. “I never would have thought we could have produced over 1,000 shows in someone’s mansion in Los Angeles. I never thought we’d put small groups into little bespoke experiences and [give] them these thrill rides, but I think, more than ever, people need that. We’re seekers. We’re explorers. And as long as I’ve got this team with me, we have a lot more stories to tell.”•
Zack Ruskin is a freelance reporter living in San Francisco. His regular beats include weed, music, literature, comedy, and drag. He’s written the cannabis column “Chem Tales” for SF Weekly since 2016 and reviews new music releases for Variety. His byline has also appeared in Vanity Fair, Merry Jane, the San Francisco Chronicle, Alta, Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, Cannabis Now, and Marin Magazine.
