One of the most anticipated events at True/False Film Fest this year is Lost Letters, a unique combination of immersive theatre and escape rooms.

“Unlike the traditional theatre experience, the audience is in motion, as well as the actors,” True/False co-conspirator David Wilson says. “What makes it interactive is, in addition to watching the story play out in these different rooms, it’s actually on the audience to figure out how to get into the next room.”

“Lost Letters” is of collaborative effort of Breakout CoMo, an escape room coming soon to Columbia; Greenhouse Theatre Project, a local immersive theatre company; and The Neon Treehouse Art Collective, a local group in charge of the set design.

Similarly to a typical escape room, the audience members must solve puzzles to make it through the narrative within an hour, and not all groups will complete the story. With Lost Letters, however, all of the puzzles tie into the larger story being told.

“This totally takes everything you know about traditional theatre and throws it out the window,” Greenhouse Theatre Project artistic director Elizabeth Braaten Palmieri says.

Due to the interactive nature of “Lost Letters,” the plot is being kept a secret.

“It’s a very character-driven piece,” Jon Westhoff of Breakout CoMo says. “It’s trying to touch on something that, I think, is very true of all people, and is very much the human experience of how we define our lives, how we achieve a sense of accomplishment, and define successes and failures in our lives.”

Lost Letters was largely inspired by “Sleep No More,” an interactive theatre production in New York.

Wilson and Palmieri both attended the show on separate occasions and returned to Columbia with the need to create something new for True/False.

“The theme (of True/False) is the celebration of this idea of leaving the familiar, of getting out of your comfort zone,” Wilson says. “In the case of Lost Letters, that pushed into this idea of ‘what if, to get to the next chapter, you have to become an actor for a stint?’”

Tickets to Lost Letters are on sale now for $38 on the True/False website. Reservations can be made for up to eight people in each hour-long slot, and the show runs March 4–6 several times a day.

For those who can’t make it to Lost Letters, Breakout CoMo will be opening Columbia’s first escape room in early April.