Are You Nostalgic For Days Gone By?

Do you love History? Interactive Theatre? “Live History Shows” regularly presents interactive events at local museums. Guests at performances always join the immersive play and sometimes change the outcomes considerably. Events are a fun mixture of playing games, theatre, and local history.

About Live History Shows

Jasmine Bowen and Joshua Kitz of Live History Shows travel worldwide, performing at amazing museums and historical locations. They specialize in bringing museums and their History to life.

Live History was Nominated for a Canadian Governor General’s Award – Learn more about Live History on their website.

Here are examples of Live History Show Events.

• Edgar Allan Poe Reads “The Raven” on YouTube
• The Whispers Speakeasy on Youtube
• View a Brockville T.V. show with a Live History Segment playing on YouTube

• An Online Voyage For Lynde House Museum Patrons – Performance of “The Round Table” in International Waters on the R.M.S. Carpathia c. April 14, 1912.

A synopsis of “The Round Table” performance on the HMS Carpathia was presented via Zoom. It was great to hear all about Kay’s (played by Jasmine Bowen) fabulous experiences when she worked on the Carpathia amidst all of the fineries of its well-to-do and sometimes excentric passengers. The stories she told!

Here is the secret! Kay has invited you to join her table aboard the Carpathia. The occasion is a surprise birthday party for her childhood friend, Julia Cservenka, one of the stewardesses. Will the tension between these two friends be resolved? You’ve been invited because your help is most necessary; you see, it is all about a misunderstanding. A lost gift from Julia’s beau, Vernon. Can you help solve the mystery before it is too late?

History on the Carpathia has a habit of unfolding as you least expect it! The plot and endings change depending on who attends the performance.

See the video of Jackie Mahoney, a member of the Live History show design team who has a personal connection to the R.M.S. Carpathia. Join her as she reads a letter from her great-grandfather and speaks of his personal journey.

Guests donned their best hats, put on their best garb, and boarded the R.M.S. Carpathia. Joining this interactive experience with the Live History Actors as the theatre guests turned back the clock to April 14, 1912. Seated among other notable guests at Kay’s table, guests were regaled with her stories during Dinner in the Carpathia Dining Room. See the original Carpathia Menu above.

About Jasmine and Joshua – A Love Story within a Love Story…

“As I looked around an empty museum, I realized that this was not at all like the museums of my childhood. When I was young, my Grandma took me to museums almost every weekend. They were crowded places, full of eager young faces and smiling parents and grandparents. They were places for socializing, learning, and exploring. Now, it seemed like they were becoming ghost towns.”

Jasmine Bowen

I can attest to Jasmine and Joshua’s love for museums, and I attended several performances at different museums. They are a couple who combine their passion for History, Escape Room style games, and Interactive Acting skills in a unique blend of immersive entertainment. They are a boon to small museums that rely heavily on event-driven tourism.

Though strangers to each other, guests at performances always join the immersive play and sometimes change the outcomes considerably. It makes you appreciate the spontaneous skill of the Live History Actors to be able to roll with the unexpected in more ways than one! On occasions when friends of one another filled the tables, things got really lively.

Jasmine and Josh are so playful and vivacious. They keep all the actors on their toes and have a ball. This creates such an aura of fun at each performance that guests are shortly carried away as they become part of the play!

It is rare for a couple to be so thoroughly in love with each other and their work. I am sure they have moments, but for the most part, they have a rare connection that comes through in all they do.

They love people, they love History, and they love including you in all the fun!

A Cast of Characters in Live History Shows

Jasmine Bowen is the founder of Live History. Founding Live History was a dream that grew from Jasmine’s love of history, museums, and theatre. Since 2015, Jasmine has toured with the company across six countries, performing hundreds of shows customized to local history. Jasmine has a B.A. in Theatre from the University of Toronto, Canada. Other site-specific credits include The Loyalists and Canstage/Single Thread. A Streetcar Named Desire -Studio B.L.R.‘ Front GaHistorynada‘s Wonderland. The Preacher and the Leading Lady (Classic Theatre Festival). Jasmine has also worked in film, television commercials, and stage theatre over her twenty-year performance career.

Joshua Kitz ‎is the Show Designer for Live History. He designs all the clues, missions, and quests for the shows and customizes them to fit each venue. He draws on his professional background in Game Design. Joshua’s Game Design includes simulation games for university and college students (Experiential Simulations) and superhero role-playing games (Compose Dream Games). Joshua has a Bachelor’s Degree in City Studies from the University of Toronto and a Master’s Degree in Spatial Analysis from Ryerson University.

Jeremy Jagusch, the Author, is the head writer for all of Live History’s scripts. Jeremy is responsible for customizing each script to the historical context of each venue. Working on his craft for more than twenty years, Jeremy attended film school at The Toronto Film School. After writing and producing several short films and commercials (The Package, Duck Test), he was drafted to write for Live History. As much as he enjoys writing for film and stage, he found the challenge of writing immersive customizable theater incredibly rewarding. He finds writing for Live History a unique experience that can’t be replicated in film or traditional stage settings. ‎In 2017, Jeremy wrote and produced “The Last Voyage,” a site-specific piece on a pirate ship as it toured the Toronto Harbour.

Ian Gillies is a touring lead actor for Live History Shows. Since the 2017 season, Ian has given many historic personalities back their voice, including Lt-Col John Macdonell at the siege of Detroit (Fort Malden) and Art Carr, famed newspaper editor (Palmerston Railway), and William Warren, Lynde House Museum. ‎ Ian has many stage credits when not performing site specifically, including The Three Musketeers, A Year in the Death of Eddie Jester, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ian has a degree from Carleton University.

Sarah Kern, a cast member, played the site-specific character Clarissa Lynde Warren at Lynde House Museum. Sarah graduated from the University of Toronto and Sheridan College, obtaining an H.B.A. and a Diploma in Acting in 2016. Her credits include Masha, The Seagull; Susie Friend, Uncommon Women, and Others; and Achilles, Troilus, and Cressida (Theatre Erindale).

LYNDE HOUSE MUSEUM – link to current events at the museum.

Please note: The author of this post has received no financial remuneration for mentions of creative people, books, products, places, or businesses mentioned in this post.

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