What It’s Like To Work As An Immersive Experience Actor In ‘Stranger Things’

• Pamela Flanagan is an actress of Fever and the Netflix show “Stranger Things: The Experience” in London.
• She guides the audience through the experience and answers their question while staying in character.
• She told Insider that she had to conserve her energy because she only had a 15-minute break between each group.

Pamela Flanagan performs for hundreds of people five days a week as part of the cast of ‘Strangers Things: The Experience’ in London.

The immersive adventure created by Fever in association with Netflix allows fans of the series to experience their own adventure in the “Strange Things” world, supported by multiple actors who react to everything an audience member says.

While the show also performs in Los Angeles and Atlanta, Flanagan has been part of the cast performing in London since August. She told Insider that she’s done immersive theater before, but she hasn’t done anything “on this scale.” This meant that when she was cast in the role, she found the experience “a little daunting”.

“I think once we did our first full week, because you’ve done it so many times, we were all over in fear and now it’s just second nature,” Flanagan added.

Flanagan says there’s no “typical day” for her because it just depends on the audience.

Immersive theater can take many forms, but it often means the audience can interact with the performance either verbally or physically. Such is the case for “Strangers Things: The Experience,” where Flanagan and the rest of the cast lead groups of up to 28 people through a building with several different sets for different locations in the fictional town of Hawkins.

These sets range from a lab in Hawkins to a 1980s-style arcade, inspired by the show’s period setting. Depending on who she’s playing, Flanagan plays her part, fielding comments and questions from the audience, before sending them on their way before the next group arrives, and then she repeats it again.

Flanagan told Insider she has a normal morning routine of stepping into one of her four personas, listening to ’80s music, and putting on her costume. However, the rest of the day is not as predictable since she also has to react to the audience.

“It’s hard to say a typical day because although we do the same thing, every day is different,” she said. “The audience coming in affects him so much. You can have one band and the next band comes in and the energy is totally different. And so in one hour you can have done four completely different things.”

The actor added, “You would be talking and someone will talk to you or ask you a question and then you have to work with that. Some characters in the beginning really improvise with the audience, and that can be really fun because you never know what they are going to release. You just have to accept what they give you and that makes it really interesting.

Flanagan’s favorite character is PR rep Blake because she can make “a real impact immediately” as one of the first characters audiences meet.

“You’re kind of setting the stage for them and she’s not entirely trustworthy, so she’s pretty fun to play,” the actor said.

Flanagan also plays creepy doctors and a scientist in the immersive show.

Flanagan says she’s had many confusing interactions with children.

Flanagan told Insider that she didn’t have to deal with the backlash from the public, but was stunned by some comments from children.

“I had a little boy who walked up to me and I was taking them from game to game, and he came up to me and he just said, ‘Whatever you do, eleven [played by Millie Bobby Brown in the show] will stop you. And I was like, ‘Oh, okay,’ Flanagan recalled.

She said of another example: “We had a wonderful boy who said, ‘If you betray me, I’ll kill you. And you’re kind of like, would I betray you, someone I’ve never met?”

Flanagan said it’s important not to shut those comments down and “roll with it” because you want the audience to stay invested in the show.

“Sometimes if they’re really loud and you have a large group of kids, you have to try to politely calm them down so they don’t get completely out of control when they walk into the real experience,” said the added actor.

Flanagan also noted that parents who often only go for their kids are also often invested in the immersive experience.

“A lot of them tell us at first, ‘Oh, I don’t really watch. I’m here for John and he loves it. He watched everything,'” she told Insider. “And obviously we’re playing scientists who don’t know anything about it because it’s the 80s. So we’re like, ‘What are you talking about?’ We’re just trying to bring them into the world of the show rather than talking about a TV show, and it’s fascinating to see how many of them join in.

Flanagan said conserving energy throughout the day is the trickiest part.

Flanagan told Insider that the cast spent four weeks rehearsing before the show’s opening night, which helped because they could learn from each other.

“You had to look at all the others who were also playing [your] pieces and we could store ideas,” she said. “If someone did something, you’d be like, ‘Oh, I really like that.’ So you could try to work it into your character and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

During rehearsals, the actors received dialect coaches to perfect their American accents.

“We’ve done it so much that you know it’s in there,” she said. “It flows into the box and I find at home now that I think my partner is getting sick because I’d be like, ‘Okay,’ because American just came out. Little elements of the characters come out sometimes too , and he’s just like, ‘You gotta leave that at work.'”

What the training couldn’t prepare her for was the struggle to conserve her energy. Flanagan told Insider that making sure she doesn’t get tired is really important so everyone has a positive experience. She only has 15 minutes before the next group arrives.

“It’s so crowded and you’re constantly rehearsing,” the actor said. “So there were two kinds of things to be nervous about: constantly turning people around, but also maintaining your energy. You don’t want one person running you full throttle and someone ‘other really tires you out. So you want to balance that out.”

“Stranger Things: The Experience” is currently booked in London, Atlanta and Los Angeles.