Immerse yourself — literally — in this Broadway show

On Thursday, a new $22 million musical opens on Broadway and it may be a bigger risk than most. Here Lies Love, with a score by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, literally turns the Broadway Theatre into a disco, with many members of the audience on the dance floor, surrounded by the actors. It tells the story of Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos’ rise and fall in the Philippines. At a time when Broadway ticket sales are down, is an immersive new musical a way to bring audiences back?

After a recent preview performance of Here Lies Love, a crowd gathered outside the theater. “I thought it was very fun,” said Nico de Jesus, who had just seen the show. “I didn’t expect to get a history lesson in a disco, but I did!”

“I think this is a risky, adventurous, one-of-a-kind endeavor,” explains director Alex Timbers, “its success or failure will probably have some impact on whether people try to do something like this again.”

Three hundred audience members stand on a dance floor, while others sit directly above it or in the balcony.

Billy Bustamante, Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman

Here Lies Love was a hit off-Broadway, 10 years ago, at the much smaller Public Theater. And the immersive staging was essential to David Byrne’s concept. He read that Imelda Marcos was a fan of disco – she was a frequent visitor to Studio 54 and installed a mirror ball in Malacañang Place. So, he wrote a score with a thumping beat and melodic hooks, to invite the audience to dance along with her. “I imagined it as being a theatrical story, a musical story being told in a discotheque,” Byrne says, laughing, “and on little platforms around the periphery.”

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