Image from the show Apollo 13 at Downstage Theatre
Pho­to by Domini­ka Zielin­s­ka

Two of our num­ber were lucky enough to (wo)man a con­sole each at mis­sion con­trol on the open­ing night of the new sea­son of Apol­lo 13: Mis­sion Con­trol at Down­stage The­atre. Kowhai has an inter­im report before Robyn’s com­plete report is pub­lished in the Cap­i­tal Times.

Did Apol­lo 13: Mis­sion Con­trol do the busi­ness, flick my switch­es, get lift-off etc?

Yes, yes it did.

A great time was had at Down­stage bring­ing our boys home with the team at mis­sion con­trol as the press gallery observed from above clutch­ing their note­books (bloody media, always ask­ing the dif­fi­cult ques­tions…)

My com­pan­ion bare­ly had time to grab this shot on her cam­era before we became immersed in our roles, guid­ing and nav­i­gat­ing the trou­bled Apol­lo 13 back home, enjoy­ing the pick-a-path unpre­dictabil­i­ty of the audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion. You can book press or mis­sion con­trol seat­ing and will expe­ri­ence the show dif­fer­ent­ly depend­ing on which you pick, I cer­tain­ly enjoyed hav­ing the switch­es and knobs to play with.

Being drawn into immer­sive the­atre com­plete with your own 70s flash­ing con­sole and space man­u­al just works. There is just the right edge of fear and uncer­tain­ty with the rov­ing actors get­ting the audi­ence to guide, nav­i­gate and prob­lem solve. We had a real­ly good laugh and even lost the urge to twit­ter and cri­tique for an hour or so. I can see why this show had such a suc­cess­ful run last time with such a wide range of peo­ple real­ly enjoy­ing them­selves, giv­ing them­selves over to the fan­ta­sy of space trav­el, and rock­ets, and being on a ‘Mis­sion’ with a cap­i­tal M.  We saw quite a few father and son com­bos hav­ing a jol­ly good time bond­ing over rock­ets and hero­ics.

This would make a super staff Christ­mas par­ty activ­i­ty as it par­o­dies some of the dull aspects of work but makes you feel like team work is kind of hero­ic.

The sea­son goes until 18 Decem­ber and you can view a video pre­view and get all the times and prices on the Down­stage web­site.