Back to the Future

'Tell No One': Cinema Auditorium as Game-Space: Audience Participation, Performance and Play

Kennedy and Atkinson's 2015 study examines Secret Cinema's immersive staging of Back to the Future as a hybrid form that combines film, game, and theatre.

• The study frames Secret Cinema's immersive staging of Back to the Future as a hybrid of film, game, and theatre in which audiences actively perform within the film rather than simply watch it.
• Based on participant observation and pre- and post-event questionnaires with 70 participants, the authors find the experience is shaped as much by play as by viewing.
• Pre-event in-fiction websites, assigned identities, and costume instructions, combined with on-site navigation of a recreated Hill Valley, encouraged roleplay and cosplay-like behaviour, with participants describing the experience as "live" and "in character."