A 380-page show, 11 character arcs simultaneously happening, a cabaret lounge, a cocktail bar, two floors – all pieces of one man’s ambitious production.
Steve Wargo is the creative mind behind Denver Immersive Repertory Theater (DIRT), a new theater coming to LoDo. He’s writing, directing and producing the experience.
Currently under construction, Wargo’s show is being built in real time.
“You'll come in and you'll make a left and there's going to be a hutch-kiosk-desk contraption here, that's a merch stand, but also our front desk,” Wargo points to a pile of boxes, before gesturing to a hole in the wall. “You'll get your ticket scanned there and then you will come to this corner and this whole thing is our coat check because you will have to check all your coats, bags, hats, phones.”
The building, off of 15th and Blake, has had many faces. The former Patagonia store, has also been a coding school and Mike Bloomberg's headquarters for his 2020 presidential campaign.
And now, if all goes according to plan, in seven months it will be an immersive theater.
Wargo likens an immersive theater experience to a Disney ride, but instead of being buckled down in a seat, theatergoers get to walk around, in whatever order and pace they choose. (A classic of the relatively new genre is the long-running Punchdrunk production “Sleep No More.”) They can follow one character the entire time, stay in one room, take a break at the bar or grab a quick bite to eat in the lounge.
A choose-your-own-adventure story, come to life.
“I've gotten to know LoDo very well, and my big impression of downtown right now is it asks a big question,” Wargo, a former New Yorker, said. “The question is dinner and a ‘What?’ Denver needs more ‘whats.’”
So what drew a couple of New York theater guys to Denver?
Wargo’s business partner is Blair Russell, a Tony-nominated producer and developer who’s also a veteran in the musical theater production space. The two met and became business partners during the pandemic lockdown.
“He’s good at finding the money,” Wargo said lovingly. “He’s the capital, I’m the creative.”
The two former New Yorkers set their sights on Denver during the Denver Immersive Gathering in 2022. Wargo described it as a conclave of immersive folks.
“We came out for that because Denver was sort of like a flashing red light on our dashboard at that point because Meow Wolf had just recently opened and we were like, ‘Something's going on out there,’” Wargo said. “So we came out and we spent the weekend and we were mightily impressed with the city and the potential we saw here. And also just this fervent love for immersive work.”
Denver has a few immersive experience staples, like Casa Bonita and Meow Wolf, but Wargo thinks the city is hungry for more.
“And really, honestly, the thrust of the whole conference was Denver wants to be the center of the immersive art and entertainment in North America,” he said. “And we took the city at its word in due time, decided to leave New York, and come here.”
Use your imagination for this tour of the space
Starting in March 2026, Denverites will also be able to just walk into the theater lobby, turn right and go to the cocktail lounge
“We'll have a spotlight, chandeliers, velvet for days. So, a nice sexy lounge to hang out in that you can come and spend the evening and chill out, even if you're not seeing our show,” Wargo said. “I want to create this third space, as a place where you hang out and the public gets to know the actors and everybody gets to know each other and create a little sense of community.”
There will also be a cabaret lounge.
“This is the stage manager control booth just for the cabaret operations,” Wargo points to a different hole in the wall, at the end of a soon-to-be hallway.
“There'll be a door here, there'll be a curtain where you're standing. and you'll come in, and then you'll see there's another opening to the coat room. If you're just here to see the cabaret show tonight, you check in here. This is a coat room slash, say, ‘host stand.’”
The lounge will serve as one location for part of the show, but also as its own standalone space, where people, even without tickets, can come eat, drink and enjoy a cabaret act. Like a normal restaurant, Wargo said.
The Denver Immersive Repertory Theater got $400,000 in funding for the renovations from the Denver Downtown Development Authority Board, a voter-approved pot of money with $570 million to spend on housing, business and redevelopment opportunities downtown.
The city called the project “the world’s first resident immersive, theatrical production studio and venue” in a press release.
The money is a low-interest, long-term small business loan, Wargo said.
‘I want people to come to Denver’
The immersive shows will have open-ended runs. Once attention dies down and less people start coming to a production, Wargo will debut the next one.
He has a few unfinished shows in the chamber for when that time comes. Each show will run through the “core shell” of the building — the two lounges, a new staircase, a ramp to the downstairs, where many rooms will be built.
But each show will have different lighting and scenic designs, which will have to be approved by the Department of Buildings.
“You don't do (that) in normal theater because the public isn't on the set. But in this milieu, the public will be interacting with most of the set,” Wargo said. “So for fire safety, life safety, general safety, tripping hazards, all that stuff, it all has to pass through DOB. So it's a whole other layer of bureaucracy that you never have to do in the traditional theater.”
When Wargo and Russell first decided to bring the theater to Denver, they initially thought the city would be a good place to do an out-of-town development production, before bringing the show to New York.
But now that work on the space is well underway, that’s changed.
“And actually, no, we don't want to take things back to New York. You can’t tour this,” Wargo said. “I want people to come to Denver.”
