As Co-Artistic Directors of the Electric Company Theatre, the incredibly multi-talented duo of Callie Prendiville Johnson and her husband, Brian Johnson, is responsible for conceiving, developing, and implementing an artistic vision and for making major decisions about the continued development of the theater’s aesthetic values and focus. Their original play, The Centennial Project, is one of the most spectacular theater works of art of the season.  

Centennial Company

Brian, Callie and son in front of Muck

An exclusive interview with The Electric Company Theatre’s Co-Artistic Director, the incomparable Callie Prendiville Johnson.

Angela Hatcher: The Centennial Project is an exciting collaboration between you and Co-Artistic Director Brian Johnson. Although the Muckenthaler Mansion’s 100th Anniversary is a once-in-a-lifetime celebration, how did you create a compelling original production honoring this special event, but also choose to turn your ideas into an immersive work of theater art?

Callie Prendiville Johnson: We created an immersive experience based on local history in 2016 with a piece we called The Plummer Project (in what is now the Fullerton Auditorium), which was similar in scope and scale, focusing on Fullerton in the 1930s. When we first started our partnership at The Muck in 2021, Muck CEO Farrell Hirsch had heard about the previous project and told us they were interested in something similar to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the mansion coming up in 2025, so we’ve been building up to this for four years. 

Hatcher: Immersive live theater is a distinctive gift to theater audiences, offering an intimate,  unique experience in which the audience becomes engrossed in different aspects of the play. Depending on which actor each viewer chooses to follow, the experience becomes a different take on the storyline, and, in a way, the audience members become part of the storytelling. It must be a massive undertaking when designing for a multi-level narrative. How did you ensure the story remains coherent while allowing for individual choices?  

Johnson: I would answer that by saying there is no linear plot in this piece! There are two sorts of worlds at work in the play, which we have been referring to as “tracks”: a Muckenthaler track that includes the Muckenthalers themselves and their friends and contemporaries, and a Bootlegger track that follows an underground bootlegging operation and the investigators trying to catch them. Both of these worlds live simultaneously under the same roof. Inherently, by watching one character in one room, you are missing out on what’s happening simultaneously in the other rooms, but that’s ok! There’s no big picture plot to try to “figure out,” it’s more about experiencing what you choose as you have agency to follow a character or choose to stay in a space. 

Hatcher: How does your creative collaboration process work? Do you start with a simple idea and build from there? Or, do you begin with the big picture and whittle it down until it becomes as magical as The Centennial Project? 

Johnson: We knew we wanted to transform the ground floor of the mansion from its usual use as a gallery space back into what it looked like as the Muckenthaler home, based on historical photos, from the beginning. We knew it would be a dance- and music-heavy experience from the beginning, but we definitely had to whittle it down as we got more specific about what was happening. Initially, we brainstormed three different “tracks,” then decided to focus on just the Muckenthalers and Bootleggers, and that was a great choice in retrospect. We are using every square inch of the building, so we had to edit some of our ideas to make it all fit. 

Hatcher: There are so many layers to immersive theater. What were some of your biggest challenges during this particular creation process?  

Johnson: This definitely felt like a home renovation project, because that’s what we were doing! The scale of this thing is so massive because the audience can explore wherever they want to, so there’s no “backstage” to hide things or for actors to catch a break. Also, each character (of which we have 26) is the main character in their own story, so it was like mapping out 26 plays that happen to be intersecting and taking place simultaneously. 

Hatcher: In your collaboration, how did you approach site-specific work? Can you describe your process for selecting and transforming the space to fit into your artistic vision? Or, since this was a tribute to the Muckenthaler Museum’s One Hundred Years, and held on the same grounds, did you change anything at all to symbolize its history?

Johnson: The living room is restored to the best of our ability to how it looks in historical photos, including the original lanterns on either side of the fireplace. Also, what is now the main gallery used to be an open-air atrium garden space, so we covered the entire room in greenery and put in a real working fountain to match the historical photos there as well. The parts of the house that are inhabited by the “Bootlegger Track” are more historical fiction than magical realism. 

Hatcher: Fullerton’s handsome, sprawling Muckenthaler Cultural Center is a cultural gift dedicated to the arts. Did you feel that it was important to authenticate the characters who paved the way for what the “Muck” is today? If so, how did you approach the historical aspects of the piece?

Johnson: I am very indebted to the Fullerton Library Local History Room and Cheri Pape, local historian Jesse LaTour, and the Cal State Fullerton Center for Oral and Public History, which have all been great resources in my research for this and other plays about local history. 

Hatcher: What did you learn about the Muckenthaler Museum and/or its early inhabitants that surprised you the most? Did anything that you discovered influence your storyline?

Walter and Adella

Johnson: At a glance, most writings about the Muck and the family focus on Walter making the family fortune in citrus, and their son Harold donating the house to the City of Fullerton after his father’s death. But I’ve realized two things: Adella was the one who brought wealth to the family as she was a Yorba and Kraemer descendent who had land with oil on it (allowing them to build the mansion), and Adella was the first one to suggest donating the house to the city (most accounts don’t even mention that she was still alive at the time of the deeding, Walter had passed away at that point). 

It’s my own creative insertion, as a playwright, that this couple, who were devout Catholics and both came from large families, may have been disappointed in the fact that they only had one child. 

Hatcher: How does immersive theater differ from rehearsing a traditional play? Can you walk us through the rehearsal process for an immersive show? 

Johnson: In early rehearsals, we would spend a lot of time practicing which room each actor was supposed to be in at which time: At minute five, I’m in the garden, then in minute six I move to the dining room to set the table, etc. Where in a traditional play you might start by learning your lines, here the locations and timings are equally important. It’s easy to get lost without it! 

Hatcher: What is your process for giving actors constructive feedback on their interactive performances when every show is different?

Johnson: The best feedback in the rehearsal process was when our different cast “tracks” got to perform for each other, and then share what they experienced as a test audience member. Brian and I can’t be in every room at all times, so we really rely on the ensemble to communicate with each other about what’s happening and how they can help each other. 

Hatcher: What is your strategy for ensuring a consistent and high-quality audience experience even with unpredictable audience behavior?

Johnson: We have a lot of rules for the audience! Actor and audience safety are our top priority, so we have many systems in place to help everyone feel comfortable, even when in proximity. For example, the audience has to wear a cloth mask when inside the house so our actors and audience can determine at a glance who is a performer and who is an audience member (they are welcome to take a break and take the mask off outside in our “speakeasy lounge”whenever they wish). There is no talking and no cell phones in the play’s world. We also have a team of volunteers stationed throughout the mansion to help enforce the rules, assist the audience as needed, and ensure everyone is safe.

Hatcher: Thank you, Callie Prendiville Johnson, and lastly, how important was it to both Brian, and to you, to create this phenomenal work of theater art, and in your view, what is the long-term impact of immersive theater on both the participants and the broader theater community?

Johnson: I think having such intimate experiences with these historical figures helps us to understand that people are people, even when we only know them from distant black and white photos and some names on plaques. Any time a group of people can get together in a physical space and experience something together, it’s a win for me. We spend so much time alone, and theatre is inherently not that. This specific production, where you may see and experience things totally different from the friend you brought with you, makes for great conversation on the car ride home.  

Conceived and Directed by Co-Artistic Directors Brian and Callie Johnson with Original Music Composed by Shenelle Salcido and Emma Nevell. Choreography by Emily Taylor and Camille Vargas. Costume Designs by Natalie Oga. Lighting Design by Brian Johnson. Stage Management by Jordan Jones and Jordyn Galvan.

The Centennial Project runs October 14 – November 5 at the Muckenthaler Cultural Center, 1201 Malvern Ave, Fullerton, CA 92832.  www.electriccompanytheater.org