New York City theatergoers and horror fans will be spooked silly this summer, as a play based on the “Paranormal Activity” movie franchise comes to Broadway.
Tickets are currently on sale for “Paranormal Activity: A New Story Live on Broadway,” which will play at the August Wilson Theatre, The Hollywood Reporter reported Tuesday. Previews begin Aug. 14, followed by a Sept. 15 opening for a limited 20-week run.
The play, replete with so-called jump-scare illusions and special effects, features an original story by playwright Levi Holloway, who wrote the theater-horror “Grey House,” and is directed by Feliz Barrett of “Sleep No More” fame. Their goal is to invoke the movies’ nature rather than carry over characters or plot, the two told The New York Times last year. Jason Blum, an original producer of the “Paranormal Activity” films, has also signed onto the production team.
“James and Lou move from Chicago to London for a fresh start,” reads the play’s synopsis. “But as the young couple settles into their new home, Lou is certain that something isn’t right, and before long they will both have to grapple with the same truth: Places aren’t haunted, people are.”
The play “reimagines the modern ghost story with an intimacy that only live theatre can provide,” its website says.
“That ‘Paranormal Activity’ has earned the chance to trouble the sleep of Broadway audiences, that they’ll be immersed in the waking nightmare we’ve had the privilege to make, is the stuff of dreams,” Holloway said in a statement quoted by Broadway World. “I offer it’s unlike anything else on the American stage right now: a work of horror, heart and absolute mischief borne from one of the most profound collaborations of my career.”
Like the movie franchise launched in 2007, this 3D production promises to send people leaping out of their seats, with inventive staging that replicates the jump-scares of the films. An eighth “Paranormal Activities” film is coming out next summer. Unlike the movies, however, viewers won’t be separated from the goings-on by a screen, and the found footage technique made popular by 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project” will not come into play. Without that buffer or the help of CGI and other special effects, the play’s creators have deployed unique techniques to transpose it to the stage.
The play has toured to sold-out houses in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., San Francisco and London’s famed West End, where it was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play. Its last stop pre-Broadway will be a limited run in Boston from July 11 – 30. Casting has not yet been announced.