MORE ABOUT
THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUE STORY THAT HELD THE WORLD CAPTIVE
A BOLD NEW CHOREO STYLE
PHYSICAL STORYTELLING
MOVEMENT WITH MEANING
COMPETING VERSIONS OF REALITY
WHERE 1974 & THE 21st CENTURY COEXIST
VISIBLE STAGEHANDS (played by actors)
DISSOLVE THE BOUNDARY between the 1974 storyworld
& the narrative of “a 21st c. theater staging a show"
Like the seemingly-impossible entangled realities of
— MC ESCHER & SALVADOR DALÍ —
Its effortlessly engaging & hypnotically mind-bending.
CAST SIZE : 10 +
The show has been successfully workshopped with as few as 8 performers.
The ensemble easily scales to 25 or 30 or more for college/university productions or larger regional stages.
MUSICIANS : 5 +
The five-piece rock band is expandable with modular orchestrations for college/university productions.
INHERENTLY FLEXIBLE CAST SIZE
ITS ARCHETYPAL STORY ENGINE
DRIVES TO AN UNFORGETTABLE FINALE
BUILT FOR TODAY'S REWIRED AUDIENCES
THE PROBLEM IS:
IN A COMPETITIVE MARKETPLACE, a new musical needs to engage the modern, distracted audience more efficiently than its competitors.
TODAY'S TICKET BUYER ARE restlessly-scrolling, dopamine-seeking, easily distracted — yet engagement-starved.
IMAGINARY GIRL SOLVES IT:
A MULTI-LEVEL EXPERIENCE FOR TODAY'S "REWIRED" AUDIENCES
Crafted to hold attention at the surface, while rewarding deeper engagement underneath — ENGINEERED TO INSPIRE REPEAT VISITS & EXCEPTIONAL WORD-OF-MOUTH.
WHERE IT BEGAN
ORIGIN / INSPIRATION
IMAGINARY GIRL was conceived while its creator was serving as the lead developmental editor of Dr. H. L. Schwartz's THE ALCHEMY OF WOLVES AND SHEEP — a landmark contribution to psychological trauma literature,.
It won the prestigious 2017 International Sándor Ferenczi Prize from the International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation (ISSTD).
The book coined the term coerced perpetration and illuminated its links to brainwashing and ideological hijacking, and how trauma victims are manipulated into betraying their own moral limits. Dr. Schwartz, an internationally recognized expert on PTSD and complex trauma, continues to serve as the play's psychological consultant.
5DMEDIALAB’s founder's lifelong commitment to advocacy for those struggling with the psychological dilemmas at the center of Imaginary Girl – including “identification with the aggressor” – grew out of an unusual childhood in rural Vermont, shaped by a family system where members were coerced into inflicting abuses on others, and moral ambiguity defined daily life.
AREN'T WE ALL
FIGHTING A NEVER-ENDING BATTLE BETWEEN
WHO WE ARE
&
WHO WE ARE NOT
5 D M E D I A L A B
SYNTHESIZING : INSTINCT VISION VOICE EMOTION + MEANING