This topic has 44 replies, 23 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 3 months ago by 
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We’ve been following along as Mason has contacted participants and Stephanie Hyden, but the other day Mason asked Russell about some very specific cast members. It turns out Mason has contacted at least one of them directly as well.
Erika Quintana played a handler in Tension (and a reporter in @larry’s recent Fringe show). We traded some messages, and she shared that Mason reached out to her yesterday to schedule a meeting.
The calls came in from an unknown caller, and much like Stephanie, Erika reached out to Darren to see what the deal was. It sounds like he has not responded to her – and Erika expressed doubt that DLB would try to loop her into Lust without just contacting her directly.
I asked her permission to share this info here, because it not only establishes a pattern – the timing itself seems problematic.
Mason said on Friday that he had reached out to people involved in the show, with no response. But on Slack he also asked for the community’s help in getting hold of cast members.
Erika was called a day after he put that request out. Did somebody in the community share her info with Mason? Erika herself pointed out that her info isn’t that hard to track down, but it’s something worth considering. And who else has Mason contacted that we are not yet aware of?
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Anyone who has the Tension book could look up the actor and actress’s names and obtain contact information from google or their representation, so her information might not have been given out by one of us. But like I’ve said before, if Erika is going to meet with Mason, she should be the one to set the meeting time and place, and bring backup/witnesses.
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Mason may have appeared disorganized, but hopefully he’s clued in enough to realize contacting Sabrina would be a lost cause. I don’t really see her being as likely as the others to spill corporate secrets in light of what we learned in June. I’m sure if the Collective COULD turn her, the information she’d provide would be all they’d need, but the risk would be too great. Plan a meeting with Sabrina Kern to talk about ethics violations in immersive theatre and bringing the OSDM to justice, you might find a helmetted Otis waiting for you at Starbucks instead.
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I too have spoken with Erika about this, and Mason knew personal details about our upcoming plans together that I have shared with only my closest friends. I don’t know where exactly he’s getting this information or how deep this goes, but I know she’s confused about this contact and not encouraging this communication at all.
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I just heard from Andrew Perez. There’s a pattern forming.
He said he had also been contacted by Briarberg in the last couple of days, but hasn’t responded to them and has no intention of doing so.
Part of the reason? He had a falling out with the producers of Tension, and decided to not come back this year even though he was asked. He had a problem with what he described as the “hazy rules” — where even the actors didn’t know what was in-game, out-of-game, meta, or just trickery.
Strangely, Andrew also said Briarberg Foundation was the first Tension-related contact he’d received in a while. (I guess his music video wouldn’t be considered Tension-related, but it did involve DLB… so something to flag for the time being.)
I wonder if Briarberg is intentionally trying to get in touch with cast and crew they suspect may be disgruntled or had negative experiences? Andrew’s concerns do actually sound connected to ethics in immersive theater.
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Wow, bizarre. Does this Mason fellow really think he’s going to get very far cold contacting actors like this? That’s a strange technique. It seems if they are no longer involved with The Experiences then they likely would prefer to be kept out of this. Conversely, if they are actively involved, it’s doubtful any of them would be willing to divulge any information to him. This seems a little desperate on his part. Maybe he doesn’t know as much as he proclaims he does.
I’d really like to know more about this Briarberg Foundation, too. Who is funding them?
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I’m super confused about what is IG, OOG right now…like, what? Like, I think if I’m getting this right, according to Daela’s chart, I thought Mason was IG, but not IG-IG…but now it’s like, is he OOG? Nah. I still think he’s IG. But if the actors are talking to Brian on Facebook about their experiences with Tension…and Tiffany’s conversations with her friends..? That’s hard to tell if that’s IG or OOG. I want to believe IG because I don’t want to think there’s any integrity issues OOG.
Nothing I just wrote makes any sense, and that’s exactly how I feel.
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@cass Don’t worry, I understand exactly what you mean and have the same worries. I’m desperately hoping that if the creators of Lust are behind this whole Mason business (which is likely given that no discussion about him has been purged), they know what they’re doing, and that the actors are somehow “in on it.” If they aren’t, and the actors are actually being harassed, it is, as you say, a huge breach of trust and integrity.
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Strangely, Andrew also said Briarberg Foundation was the first Tension-related contact he’d received in a while. (I guess his music video wouldn’t be considered Tension-related, but it did involve DLB… so something to flag for the time being.)
I don’t remember exactly what set of emails it was in (maybe the Sushi Dan dead drop) but the music video was specifically mentioned and someone was upset about it. So Andrew may be involved still, even if he doesn’t realize it.
We’ve now seen multiple people who were disgruntled with Tension or have an issue with Lust reject advances from Briarberg. In my mind, that leaves a number of possibilities. First is that they don’t want to talk to Mason because he comes off like a creep. Second is that they’re locked into NDAs that we’ve seen mentioned and can’t really say anything, but can vaguely mention they had problems. Third is that they’re still in the employ of OSDM or Tension LLC and can’t say anything except what they’re allowed to. Fourth is that they’re actually working with Briarberg but need to play it off that they’re not.
@bcbishop Had any of the previous cast that you’ve talked heard of Briarberg prior to Mason contacting them? -
Andrew’s concerns do actually sound connected to ethics in immersive theater.
I want to point out here that these issues being brought up are NOT the normal “ethics in immersive theatre” issues that are frequently discussed, which is another reason why I don’t buy this whole cover story. What’s going on with Lust is not normal immersive theatre. This is a lot more like “ethics in Bohemian Grove,” if I hadn’t been working with Bohemian Grove directly back when I lived in San Francisco and therefore believed that shit. I think Mason knows exactly what’s going on, and is using us to get to specific performers for his own purposes, which are in no way connected to ethics. Actually I would guess that they are rather unethical purposes, given the trajectory of things thus far.
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If Mason is trying to reach out to specific performers with his own goal in mind and whatever that goal is has @a from the Slack chat so eager to silence him that he’d get banned off the chat and labeled as a ‘disgruntled participant’ or whatever they said, I get the impression that whatever Mason wants from the actors is something the ODSM would go to great lengths to keep him from.
What do the actors know that Mason would want? And what would the ODSM be so afraid of them telling?
I’d bet some cash on the idea that the actors Mason is trying to talk to were part of something before they began their performance work during Tension. Maybe it was during one of those oddball retreats…
But what would Mason want with that information? What could he do with it? Is he trying to expose the ODSM as an unethical organization? Or does he have other plans?
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Wait… Andrew’s not coming back?! That’s it… I’m out…
Jokes. Kinda.
I’m trying to catch up on all of this, trying to make sense of it all. But there seems to be no sense to make. The lines are so blurred and there are no discernable patterns to Mason’s outreach – which may be intentional. We seem to be dealing with someone incredibly smart. Or crazy. Or both. You think you got it figured out and he’ll change his angle and tactics… If there was ever a time to close ranks, it’s now.
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I’m getting the feeling that LUST is not what it seems and possibly not just a performance but something more…dark? We’ve had warnings from 2-3 actors now that something shady going on behind the scenes. Now Mason is actively trying to look into it and various sources are trying to shut him down. We all need to be careful and keep our eyes open.
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These connections may have been made already, I’m still catching up after being away last week but can’t stop wondering:
The contracts referenced the group of participants that would be involved with Exhibit C. Shortly thereafter, these were the first people to be contacted by Mason Silver on behalf of Briarberg.
Joyce mentioned the Tension actors/actresses to Russell. Within a week, they’ve all been contacted by Mason/Briarberg.
Throughout this, Mason/Briarberg seems to be a step behind OSDM/Joyce and is reacting to the same info as we are, in real time.. @a dismissed them on Slack that they’re an “angry fan” and they’re not associated with anyone or anything. The timing of their efforts seems to corroborate the point that they don’t have insider info. However, there are plenty of “angry fans” – looking at you @111error and the BOS crew – that are actively working to make a change.
Of all the questions, I haven’t seen anyone ask this one –
- why
are TPTB afraid of Mason specifically?
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I just got off the phone with Damien Gerard (“Simon” in Tension).
Damien is still under NDA from Tension, something he stressed repeatedly, so I’m going to have to talk around some things — as did he. He was concerned, as I’m sure many of the actors are, with how talking about this show could impact his reputation moving forward, harming his ability to get work.
Here are the bullet points that I think are safe to share:
-He has indeed been contacted by Mason, but doesn’t know if he is going to meet with him or not.
-He acknowledged that some sort of weekend retreat did happen for Tension, and that for him at the time, it seemed like a step up professionally. James Cameron did something similar for Aliens, and he felt it was a big moment to be involved with a project that did that kind of thing. The retreat wasn’t that innocent, however. (He couldn’t share further details.)
-Tension was the most intense experience he’d ever had on a set, but much like Andrew said, the project didn’t feel quite right in the end. That’s why he’s stayed away from Lust. He, and several other cast members that share a group chat on Facebook, just decided to write the whole thing off “as an immersive theater experience” and decided to move on.
-Damien stressed that he would like to think that Darren are Clint were NOT behind the retreats and the other strangeness in the production. He wanted to believe that it was something the people funding the show were forcing.
-At one point I asked him about Erika’s message to me yesterday, which I took as a warning. He was quick to point out that nobody was ever in any kind of physical danger, but that there are other kinds of danger: emotional, psychological, etc.
If I had to sum up the tenor of the conversation, I’d say that he is trying to put the experience of Tension behind him as best he can. He and the other actors have decided to pretend it was all just theater, because the alternative choice seems to be too disconcerting to really grapple with. And there’s some worry there about speaking out, too: he wanted to chat rather than email any responses, because he was afraid to break that NDA — and casually mentioned that he had not given me permission to record our phone call.
As I’ve reached out and chatted with the actors these last few days, I’ve been trying to put this into some sort of framework; to understand what it all means. In our theorizing here on the boards, we’ve found some comfort in the clarity of what we think happened: OSDM put on a fake show, Darren and Clint were covers, they got fired, and so on. But that’s always left a ton of loose ends. Was Sabrina acting before, or was she helmeted? Did anybody really die, or was it all illusion? Was Noah himself, or an actor?
The fourth wall isn’t just destroyed around Lust, it’s now being torn down around Tension, too. There’s a ton we clearly don’t know about that show, still, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that Darren and Clint are perhaps not the place to put our attention at all.
All roads seem to lead to The Investors.
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@bcbishop Jesus… the fuck is going on.
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I am open to hearing what Mason has to say? Obviously, bad things are happening at these actor retreats, why is it so wrong to be open to meeting with him (unless you signed and NDA)? Looks like he’s gone now though, so we may never know what he was trying to acomplish or where that might have led us. I hope he comes back so we can get to the bottom of this?!
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I also think that it’s incredibly suspicious that the actors are only talking to @bcbishop. Bryan, maybe you should just ask them why they are choosing to speak to only you, the reporter, about this. Maybe there’s something they want reported after all…
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@chelsea tbh I don’t know why they decided to share what they did, other than I reached out to each of them directly and had previously had some sort of professional-leaning correspondence with each.
I will say that nobody I spoke to, or traded messages with, was eager to share information. This didn’t feel like an “in-game” interaction in that sense, where I felt I was receiving a story point to share with the community. Erika quickly cut off communication after mentioning Mason, and I took her parting message as a warning to stop digging altogether. Andrew was succinct, and said he was moving on.
Damien was extremely reluctant to talk about anything at all, speaking in general terms for much of our conversation due to his NDA concerns. Things like Mason and the retreats were addressed only after I’d asked about them, sometimes multiple times.
I got the sense that each of them would prefer they never heard of Tension again, and could just put the chapter behind them, rather than trying to leak a story to the press.
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I reached out to Erika and Don Appleby. Don responded to me saying he has not been contacted by Mason and asked if I knew what he wanted. I told him what I knew and that I was just glad he was OK and to be careful. (I’m not sure if he is at all aware of anything going on in LUST…but I wanted to give him a heads up that tension actors were getting called out..he was one of my favorites in Ascension ?).
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@chelsea I don’t think that’s the case. When she answered the phone, on the street in Pasadena, she did not respond to him in a manner consistent with knowing him.
However, I will float the following, without intent to antagonize, but merely to raise the question:
Is Mason Silver, in fact, Morgan Doors — who can do a perfectly good American accent?
In addition, I just received an Email from Mr. Silver at 931PM.
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Erika responded to let me know she’s OK and that she’s a littLe weirded out by this whole Mason thing cause she’s not trying to really get involved with tension right now. She thanked me for checking and said she’s not at liberty to say anything about the retreats (I asked her if she attended so I’ll take that as a yes).
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I spoke with Andrew Perez today. I had reached out to him a couple days ago and he only now got back to me.
He confirmed that he had been contacted by Mason, but that he had not responded and believes that to be the best course of action. He will not engage anyone.I told him about the phone call I received today and he was very stunned.
(I asked his permission before sharing this information)Apparently on Sunday he received a phone call. It was a recording of himself in his apartment talking with friends about Tension. Both of the people he was speaking with have sworn they did not record him.
He stressed several times that he wants absolutely nothing to do with this, or anyone involved with Tension. He wants to give it some space and back away from it all and does not want to be contacted about it at all.
Andrew, I hope you find a way to stay safe. I can’t walk away from this any more than anyone else can…but I hope to be able to cause some good out of this. To fight this head on.
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Ugh. Thanks for sharing this update @meghanmayhem.
I pinged Erika and Damien as well if they received any calls and will report back if I hear anything. If anyone else has heard something, please share in this thread as well. The more information we have, the better we can circle the wagons.
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@sfire8 I think they have, but the performers are still under NDA and can’t talk about it.
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