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Team

“TRUE! Nervous. Very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! And observe how calmly I can tell you the whole story.”  – Edgar Allan Poe
Ava Lee Scott
lead performer, co-writer & producer
An accomplished stage and screen performer, Ava has extensive experience in immersive theatre, film and television. She created and performed her character, Annabella the Gypsy, in the off-Broadway show Sleep No More from 2011-2017. She’s the creator, writer, and lead actor of the off-Broadway immersive musical, Serenade, which was profiled in the The New York Times. She co-created a Tennessee Williams immersive show called Tennessee on Hudson, which included a dozen of his plays with 38 performers. Ava is developing a supernatural TV series with multiple storytelling platforms, including immersive theater with emerging technology, AI, mixed virtual and augmented reality. She premiered the immersive experience in New Orleans at the Overlook Film Festival in 2019. She is the co-founder and artistic director of Actors Theater of NYC, a multidisciplinary acting company.
Lance Weiler
director, co-writer & producer
An alumnus of the Sundance Screenwriting Lab, Lance Weiler is recognized as a pioneer in mixing storytelling and technology. Wired magazine named him “one of 25 people helping to reinvent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.” He was nominated for an International Emmy in digital fiction for his work on Collapsus: The Energy Risk Conspiracy. His award-winning collaboration with David Cronenberg entitled, Body/Mind/Change premiered at the TIFF Lightbox and his most recent project Frankenstein AI: a monster made by many was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival. In addition, he is a founding member and director of the Columbia University School of the Arts’ Digital Storytelling Lab. He’s currently developing a new immersive work entitled, Where There’s Smoke which had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival this past Spring.
Nick Fortugno
interactive narrative designer & creative technologist
Nick Fortugno is a designer of games and interactive narrative experiences and co-founder of Playmatics. Fortugno has been lead designer on dozens of works, including leading interactive narrative design on Frankenstein AI, shown at Sundance New Frontier, and on games and experiences including the downloadable blockbuster Diner Dash, award-winning serious game Ayiti: The Cost of Life, CableFAX award winning Breaking Bad: The Interrogation, and MUSE award winner Body/Mind/Change. Nick is co-founder of the Come Out & Play street games festival, and teaches game design and interactive narrative at the Columbia School of the Arts Digital Storytelling Lab and the School of Visual Arts. Nick holds an MFA in Design and Technology from Parsons School of Design.
Nick Childs
co-writer, producer & marketing lead
Nick is an award-winning writer, director and producer. His film, “The Shovel,” won Best Narrative Short at Tribeca and awards at more than 15 other festivals, and he executive-produced the SXSW-winning feature documentary, “High Score,” now in development as a narrative film. He helped lead the transmedia project, “Pandemic 1.0”, at Sundance, and rejoined Lance Weiler in Park City in 2018 to premiere the immersive experience, Frankenstein AI, for the bicentennial of Shelley’s novel. Their most recent project, Where There’s Smoke, was premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival and singled out by Indiewire as “one of the best offerings – it lets you walk inside the frame and experience a story from the inside out.” In the world of advertising, Nick has held top creative leadership positions within WPP, Omnicom and IPG, where he crafted senior, innovative roles to radically change the landscape across all three major marketing silos — creativity, communications and media.
Joel Beckerman
Lead Composer
Joel Beckerman is an award-winning composer, producer and the founder of Man Made Music — a global sonic studio. Man Made is dedicated to impacting everyday experiences across entertainment, technology, spaces, and products. Beckerman has created original scores for over 50 television series and specials for CBS, ABC, FX, NBC, and A&E among others. He and his team have developed signature sonic identities for Disney, AT&T, HBO, IMAX, Hulu and the Super Bowl on NBC. As a television soundtrack producer, Beckerman has collaborated with artists, songwriters and composers from John Legend and John Williams to will.i.am and the late James Horner. He is the co-author of “THE SONIC BOOM: How Sound Transforms the Way We Think, Feel, and Buy”, a Fast Company “Most Creative People in Business 1000”, a recipient of ASCAP’s Most Performed Themes award for ten consecutive years and currently serves on the ASCAP and Promax boards.
 
Collaborators/Partners
Film at Lincoln Center
The New York Film Festival
Columbia University School of the Arts’ Digital Storytelling Lab
Actors Theater of NYC
American Irish Historical Society
Man Made Music
Bose
Microsoft