Getting lost in a haunted house when we were kids was never an enjoyable experience. We either A) wanted to get the hell out of there because we kept getting scared shitless by the spook with the bad makeup job, or B) the spooks with the bad makeup jobs (and even worse acting skills) just made us laugh. But when the haunted house in question consists of a 100,000-square-foot hotel decked out in the finest antique shop ephemera, and staffed with free-roaming characters straight out of Macbeth, we're definitely lining up. Punchdrunk Theatre Company's latest immersive production "Sleep No More" is a weird mash-up of Shakespeare's Macbeth and Hitchcock brought to life in installations that are straight out of a '30s film noir set. There will be taxidermies, graves, candied confections, drawers filled with clues and tools, bloodied crime scenes, and, throughout them all, actors who will lure you into their own personal world of horrors and pleasures. Be prepared to get lost the moment you put on the Venetian mask they give you at the entrance. And feel free to be as nosy (yep, you can open those drawers), uninhibited (you are encouraged to interact with the actors), and voyeuristic as you want. This is one dream you can't, and probably wouldn't, want to wake up from. Especially when you stumble onto that witchy orgy.
"Sleep No More" plays Mondays to Saturdays at The McKittrick Hotel, 530 West 27th Street (between 10th and 11th avenues); 866-811-4111. Entry times are as follows: Monday to Thursday at 7:00 p.m., 7:20 p.m., 7:40 p.m., and 8:00 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 7:00 p.m., 7:20 p.m., 7:40 p.m., 8:00 p.m.,11:00 p.m., 11:20 p.m., 11:40 p.m., and midnight. Get tickets, $75, here.