Undertale LIVE Interview: A Transformative Experience
When “Undertale LIVE” was announced last month, the response was overwhelming—so overwhelming, in fact, that their Twitter account was suspended due to suspicious behavior (what’s suspicious about the fervor of the Undertale fandom?). In the following weeks, we’ve learned quite a bit more about “Undertale LIVE” and Fifth House Ensemble, the production company that is crazy enough...err...bold enough to attempt an interactive musical experience like no other. Of course, this isn’t their first rodeo. In fact, you might recognize them from a previous show that featured another indie darling, Journey.
What is Fifth House Ensemble?
Dan Visconti, Artistic Director: Fifth House Ensemble is an adventurous music group founded in 2005 with the mission of creating cutting-edge concert experiences that challenge conventional notions of what classical music can mean in the 21st century. The ensemble's core is a dectet of strings, winds and piano (augmented with percussion and electronics for “Undertale LIVE”), and many of our projects come to life as collaborations—whether that's with graphic novelist Ezra Claytan Daniels (Black Violet), or other musicians from different sides of the tracks (e.g. our collaboration with Grammy-winning Tuvan throat-singing masters, Alash, which took us into the far reaches of Siberia). We’ve also designed music programs for incarcerated youth, people currently experiencing homelessness, and other vulnerable populations where music and art can play a role in caring for each other and responding to issues in the community. In addition, we devote a large portion of our time to sharing what we've learned with the next generation of young musicians through our annual Fresh Inc Festival, a two-week immersive training program where we work with emerging artists on launching their own creative projects.
This isn't your first foray into video game music. Describe the production process for the Journey show.
Since Fifth House Ensemble is all about reaching beyond what you'd expect a traditional concert experience to feel like, we're always searching for new project ideas that are fresh, boundary-pushing, and fun. Above all, we're looking to create experiences that engage curiosity and wonder—experiences that welcome all kinds of people and that recognize the ways we live today...and experiences in which we're not entirely sure what will happen. That's considered very risky in the classical music scene, which tends to be stodgy and removed from the more improvisatory spirit of jazz and pop.
What happens when audience members become participants? And what happens when we take gaming off of the couch and into a massive communal experience? While other video game concerts certainly exist, we wanted to create something different than a "greatest hits" concert. We wanted to create something that was moving and artistic and absolutely stunning in terms of visual presentation—a game that could draw in audiences from outside of the gaming community with a presentation that would reveal new ways for existing players to appreciate the experience.
When I first played ThatGameCompany's Journey in 2012, I was completely overwhelmed by the experience, something which I mentioned in one of the game's first online reviews. Journey represented a new achievement in video games, something akin to the culmination of what opera is supposed to be—a completely immersive experience with music and storytelling in perfect harmony. We knew that Journey was the ideal game to present in a live performance version, and after joining Journey's composer Austin Wintory for a radio interview, I knew I had to reach out to him about such a wild idea.
We ended up getting some much-needed help from Sony, who helped facilitate a Tricky Pixels build of the game with music removed but footsteps and other sounds intact. With two PS4 Pros loaded with this special build of the game, eight live players (often selected through local gaming groups) play through the main sections of the game projected onto a large screen with our live musicians reacting to the gameplay in real-time. No two shows are ever the same, and accommodating the sheer variety of alternately touching, thrilling, and hilarious moments we could have never anticipated is part of what makes the show so special.
The rest is history, and Austin has been an amazing friend and collaborator who has conducted Fifth House Ensemble performing “Journey LIVE” to audiences of thousands at cons like MAGFest, theaters such as Chicago's Steppenwolf, and at large performing arts centers throughout North America.
What was the response to the Journey show?
We received a tremendous response to the “Journey LIVE” show from the moment we announced the project, and we’re eternally grateful to over a thousand Kickstarter supporters who helped fund the project from around the world. While funding the project was certainly a priority, the best part of running the KS campaign was how it connected us directly to fans who shared their own touching personal histories with the game; they also helped us identify where demand for the show existed. The show received great reviews and coverage in Polygon, IGN, VICE News, and other outlets, and we so appreciated the incredible fan response! One thing was exceptionally clear—our audiences wanted to know when Fifth House Ensemble was creating our next video game show.
Undertale urges us to think deeply about our actions in a world where we are routinely made to feel that our choices are insignificant at best.
Who pitched the idea for an Undertale show?
I've been obsessed with Undertale ever since Toby released the demo, and as Artistic Director of Fifth House Ensemble, part of my role is not just to queue up the next video game project, but the right video game project. Journey was a game very well-suited to the ensemble's priorities, especially because of the ways that Journey directly flies in the face of a lot of mainstream gaming culture—there's a reason we didn't do a live presentation of some 3D shooter. I knew that our next collaboration had to have similarly high artistic merits and positive, thought-provoking themes worthy of presenting, but I also was wary of stamping out a facile “Journey LIVE” clone, so I wanted our next video game collaboration to be very different.
Undertale hit all the marks. Toby Fox is an amazing composer whose music deserves to be performed, and Undertale is one of the most original and moving games for the ways it encouraged empathy toward those most unlike ourselves, and as I'll get into a bit later, Undertale's branching paths suggested a radically different mode of audience interaction than “Journey LIVE”’s continuous playthrough.
Undertale is a game about decisions with fixed musical cues so it made sense to focus on audience choice via live voting as the show design best-suited to “Undertale LIVE”. It's really important that the show reflect what is so endearing and fascinating about Undertale, and in a nutshell, that's the chance to make choices and watch the consequences of those choices unfold...and then, perhaps, maybe even make some different choices? The process of playing Undertale often feels very nearly like hacking a game as much as "playing" it, per se. It's a game where the process of exploration and discovery includes that game system itself, and it's important to us that “Undertale LIVE” brings participants that same sense of excitement and "I wonder what might happen now?"
What makes Undertale so special in your opinion?
When film was still nascent, many decried the medium as inferior to the theater, and many early films replicated theatrical conceits. It was only with time that the unique opportunities afforded by film could be more fully appreciated and integrated.
The same seems very true of games as well, and for me, Undertale is a game that takes full advantage of the mechanics of gaming, weaving these normally unremarkable artifacts of the gameplay experience into a cohesive narrative—one that responds to our choices, and in a rare move, holds us accountable to those choices.
This is the heart of what makes Undertale so special to me, that Undertale urges us to think deeply about our actions in a world where we are routinely made to feel that our choices are insignificant at best. Are the monsters in our midst really monsters? How might we think and act differently if we took the time to understand their own personal stories? Might we find unexpected ways of resolving that conflict where our stories intersect? No other game challenges us so profoundly to confront our own moral selves.
The music itself is phenomenal in how well it sets up characters and situations, often beginning with very simple themes that go through all manner of transformations. Toby Fox is a gifted composer who has a gift for creating tracks that are characteristic and rich, yet simple. He knows the wisdom in leaving enough up to the player's imagination, so we've strived to preserve this plainspoken quality in arranging the game's music for acoustic ensemble.
Journey LIVE
How did you get in contact with Toby Fox?
Toby has a reputation for staying out of the public spotlight so it took a while to track him down. Fortunately, once I was able to get in touch with Sebastian Wolff at Materia Collective (who represent Toby's catalog), we were able to get the ball rolling.
How did Materia Collective get involved?
Once we began discussing this project with Materia, we were thrilled that they also saw the value in this show as a wonderful way to bring together Undertale fans. We're thrilled to partner with Materia due to their enormous experience and because their initial investment in the project has made it possible to identify visual collaborators and plan a recording that will be available for purchase at the shows and online.
How will the audience be involved with the show?
Closely following the events of Undertale along three branching routes, the show unfolds in a series of game events and their accompanying music, with the audience using a text-based voting mechanism to collectively vote at multiple junctures. So for example, there's a video of a monster fight while we perform that monster's music, and during that selection, the audience votes on whether to fight or spare the monster, just as in the game. While we did have to condense certain aspects of the plot, the show is very much like a playthrough of the game itself.
With all the different branching paths, I imagine rehearsals must be difficult. How did you rehearse something like this?
We're so fortunate to have Eric Roth of AWR Music as our arranger and Music Director for the show. He'll be conducting Fifth House Ensemble and keeping everyone together. After rehearsal of all the music arrangements, we then have technical rehearsals with test audiences where we test the show build, ensure transitions work, etc. This one was not for the faint of heart! It definitely requires a higher level of commitment from our musicians than playing Nutcracker again for the 100th time, but that's one of Fifth House Ensemble's points of difference—we're the ensemble crazy enough to create a show where we literally have no idea what will happen next until it does.
While you've only announced one show, is it true that you plan to take this on the road?
We've announced a second show (also at Chicago's Studebaker Theatre) which is close to selling out as well, and we're absolutely planning on touring with the show. Fans should expect a week of May 2020 tour dates followed by additional Summer 2020 tour dates to be announced shortly. Make sure to sign up for updates to find out when new shows get added near you.
What we're really after is creating transformative experiences.
What were some of the unique challenges with this show, and how did you overcome them?
Whereas “Journey LIVE” is a complete playthrough of eight areas that always unfold in the same order, “Undertale LIVE” presented us with a great many more challenges in designing the show build. Since the show has to be under 90 minutes rather than 5 hours, we had to trim less essential content in order to focus on the story elements and characters that would be most relevant. In doing so, we necessarily had to modify a few elements from the original game, with Toby's blessing.
We're thankful that Toby encouraged us to stay faithful to the game while also recognizing that “Undertale LIVE” needs to be a satisfying experience in its own right. To that end, fans should expect dozens of their favorite tracks including encores, secret content, and maybe even some chances to switch routes not available in the Undertale game. We wouldn't want to keep fans from hearing “Megalovania”, would we? (Editor’s Note: not unless you want a riot.)
What do you want your audience to know before they see Undertale LIVE?
Expect a ton of music from the game, both the greatest hits and and unreleased deep cuts. The show will run just under 90 minutes with no intermission, featuring in-game visuals and audience voting.
We've also made sure there are opportunities for fans to experience their favorite tracks—so going down the Genocide Route (for example) doesn't necessarily mean that's the only music!
If you had to choose another game to make into a show, what game would you choose?
I'd be looking for something very different from either Undertale or Journey, a title that brought a new element to our show design. I've been dying to present in an IMAX theater or planetarium projection room or to experiment with virtual reality as well as "augmented reality" phone apps and projection mapping (that's projecting moving images and textures on 3D-surfaces, effectively transforming a space into a live game environment). Whatever takes us even farther from what feels like a video game concert to something that feels like a party, an experiment, a moment of communion. What we're really after is creating transformative experiences. One of my favorite parts of games is the way they change us, and I'm curious how a live event could extend that transformation out into the real world.
Any final thoughts?
We're so thrilled for audiences to join us, not just in the normal sense, but literally in that this show can't happen without your participation! One of the strengths of the show’s modular design is that we can continue to fine-tune the build based on audience feedback. Want another encore? It's in now! Got a section that's not working? We can edit or reroute the map of events. We're hoping this show grows along with our audience, building a community just as Undertale itself has captured the hearts of millions of fans worldwide. We'd love to hear from you at our Twitter account—let us know where you'd like to see the show, ask us questions, and let us know your hopes and dreams for “Undertale LIVE”.
