The Bloomington Playwrights Project will soon open an escape room experience for the Bloomington community.
The theme of the escape room will be IU basketball, and the room will open Feb. 23 and continue through March 4 on the stage at BPP.
Chad Rabinovitz, producing artistic director at BPP and mastermind behind this escape room, said positive personal experiences inspired him to bring the Escape Room concept to town.
“It’s just a heck of a lot of fun, and there was nothing else in the area like it,” Rabinovitz said. “I thought, we have this stage, I wonder if we can actually build one, so that became the goal.”
Rabinovitz said he has frequented escape rooms in Indianapolis and in Calgary, Canada, and this seems to be a hot trend in modern entertainment.
Themes for these sorts of centers can range from a KGB hideout to a heist scenario. Participants work in groups to solve a series of puzzles to escape the themed room.
IU basketball was chosen as a theme to help localize the idea, Rabinovitz said. Participants act as the basketball team and attempt to escape Coach Tom Crean’s office under pressure from the evil Boilermakers or else risk losing the game to them.
“The question became, ‘How do I take this theme and bring it to Bloomington?’” Rabinovitz said. “It’s basketball season, and I wanted to make it thematically fun so that’s where it branched off.”
There will be a variety of puzzles designed by members of BPP, Rabonivitz said. The challenges of arranging this project included the creation of said puzzles.
“It’s got to be intricately designed so everything is challenging, makes sense and is solvable,” Rabinovitz said. “Right now, we’re designing the actual room — physically what it will look like.”
The puzzles will deal with a range of different skill sets. Some even deal with the sense of smell or pouring liquids or seeking out secret compartments. A referee will also be around to deliver hints when needed.
“The puzzles have been designed — when we put it together, we’ll bring in people and test it out and change things based on what our test group does and how they do,” Rabinovitz said. “You don’t want it so easy that everyone can get out, but you also don’t want it so difficult that no one knows that they’re supposed to be doing. It’s about that balance.”
The goals include uniting different audiences who may or may not frequent BPP, Rabinovitz said.
“It’s not something that our typical theater-goer knows about or is used to,” Rabinovitz said. “It also markets to everyone — to students, gamers, sports fans — you get to pretend you’re on the basketball team and kind of get out.”
Whether or not the participants have had an escape room experience, Rabinovitz said this version of the traditional room should be fun.
“It’s the first one in Bloomington, and it’s kind of a great introduction,” Rabinovitz said. “If you’ve never done it before, it should be a lot of fun and affordable, if you’ve done it before it is absolutely worth the time.”
