Then She Fell was a long-running Off-off-Broadwayimmersive theater production conceived, directed, written, and choreographed by Third Rail Projects directors Zach Morris, Tom Pearson, and Jennine Willett. Inspired by the life and writings of Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson), the production combined elements of site-specific dance, interactive performance, and installation art. Set in a fictional institutional environment designated as the "Kingsland Ward," the show premiered on October 12, 2012 at Arts@Renaissance, located in the outpatient wing of the former Greenpoint Hospital in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. In 2013, the production transferred to the former parochial school building of St. John the Evangelist Lutheran Church at 195 Maujer Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where it ran until March 2020.
Synopsis and structure
Then She Fell explored the relationship between author Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell, the young girl who inspired Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, alongside themes of memory, obsession, and Victorian institutionalization. The audience was strictly limited to 15 attendees per performance. Upon entry, guests were invited into a multi-room environment styled as a 19th-century asylum. Attendees were separated throughout the performance and experienced a combination of one-on-one encounters with actors, small group scenes, and silent exploration of detailed physical environments including doctor's offices, bedrooms, and parlors. Performances incorporated food and beverage and interactive movement sequences.
Development and history
The production was created by Third Rail Projects, an American performance company known for site-specific immersive work. Artistic Directors Zach Morris, Tom Pearson, and Jennine Willett developed the piece in collaboration with the original cast members Elizabeth Carena, Alberto Denis, Stacie C. Tobar, Rebekah Morin, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus, Tara O'Con, and Zoë Schieber. After a run of more than seven years and 4,444 performances, the production suspended operations in March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequently announced its permanent closure.
Critical reception
Then She Fell received widespread critical praise for its atmospheric design, choreography, and intimate audience interaction. The New York Times designated the show a "Critic's Pick," with chief theater critic Ben Brantley describing it as occupying "a dreamscape where the judgements and classifications of the waking mind are inoperative, and where the single self keeps splitting and blurring." Dance critic Siobhan Burke, also writing for The New York Times, highligted the production's "exacting, exhuberant choregraphy." Brantley later named the production to his list of top 10 theater events of 2012.
Adam Green of Vogue named the show among the best in theater for 2013, calling it "haunting, hallucinatory, and profoundly intimate." Writing for TIME, Richard Zoglin characterized the work as "extreme theater: fresh, fun, totally absorbing." The New Yorker called the work "wildly imaginative." Additional reviews in Time Out New York, Gothamist, and Backstage praised the production's intimate audience experience, dramaturgical examination of the life and works of Lewis Carroll, and "luscious and meticulously designed world."
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