ELLY GRIMM
• Leader & Times
The staff at the Coronado Museum and Dorothy’s House is always looking for ways to enhance visitors’ experience, and next month will feature something particularly new.
The theatre troupe Live History will be making its way to the Coronado Museum and Dorothy’s House Saturday, Oct. 11, and they will be performing a show titled ‘In Time.’ The show is interactive, with multiple members of the troupe playing certain characters, and the show is also something visitors will be able to participate in. Session start times will be available every fifteen minutes from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and tickets are $8. As Coronado Museum Director Nathan Dowell tells it, the experience should be fun for all.
“It’s akin to a scavenger hunt and/or escape room and once people begin their story, they’ll have an hour to go around the grounds, talk to the characters, learn about what’s going on, and then work to solve puzzles and find clues to complete everything,” Dowell said. “One of the big things we’re excited about is seeing what clues and puzzles they come up with. I provided a bunch information on the building and history of the community and area, and they’re the ones putting together the puzzles and everything else for the day. I haven’t seen any of that yet, so I’m excited to see what they came up with, and it’ll be a surprise for EVERYONE.”
Dowell said bringing the group to the museum has been in the works for a little while, and the wait will be worth it.
“This has been in the works for a really long time. I would say we started talking about all of this around the beginning of 2024, but it’s only been more recently when everything’s officially come together for us to do this,” Dowell said. “Live History is an internationally touring, site-specific, interactive theatre company and throughout the past 12 years, they have performed hundreds of shows across 10 countries, bringing local history to life, and we’re very excited to be bringing them to Liberal. They actually reached out to us, and we looked into them by talking with some of the other museums they’ve performed at, which we used as a reference point in terms of who they are and what they do. Once we did our research, what stood out to us was how unique they are. We would like to experiment with the types of events we can host at the museum and the types of experiences the Seward County Historical Society can provide to the public. This stood out as something only a museum could provide and because of that, we thought it would be a great and fascinating experiment, and we’re really excited to see people experience it all.”
For those looking for an adventure, Dowell said this will provide just that.
“If you like escape rooms and scavenger hunts and those types of team events, or if you’re curious about what is going on at the museum, this is probably the most unique thing we’ve done in many years,” Dowell said. “If you have some time that day, be sure to swing by and give this an opportunity. Tickets will be available at the door that day – we had looked into doing pre-registration, but with the way we’re doing everything and timing everything, we decided the waiting period wouldn’t be too long, so we opted to not do that and have things be on more of a walk-in basis. If we start hearing about really, really high interest among the community, we could look into something – however, at the moment, it’s going to be show up, buy a ticket, and you’ll be good to go.”
While October is normally the time for OzFest, Dowell said it ultimately made more sense to bring the troupe in for this year.
“We would like to have a big October event every year, and we are dedicated to making OzFest as big and bold as possible, but when we started looking at everything in terms of timing and all of that for this year ... we decided if we did do OzFest, it wouldn’t be as big as we wanted, and that doesn’t really do the event justice since it’s such a big part of the community,” Dowell said. “We decided, instead of OzFest, to explore this unique event and see how we can change that perspective on what a museum can be. With the way everything was shaping up, we knew we wanted to offer something big for the community while exploring some different options and seeing how the community responds. We decided to hold off on OzFest in order to plan as much as possible and make it as big and wonderful as possible while still offering something fun and unique for the people of Liberal.”
And if the troupe has a successful Liberal debut, Dowell said it would not be out of the question to bring them back in the future.
“If people come out and have a great time and indicate this is something they’d like to see more of, we’d definitely welcome Live History back. And they offer multiple options for shows in different formats, and workshops for children, so if we can make things work out and if this is successful, we’d definitely love to have them back,” Dowell said. “Those types of events are always a lot of fun, so if we have the community support, it’s not out of the question for us to ask them to return.”
Overall, Dowell said, the main goal is for the visitors to have fun.
“I hope the interactions with the characters is a lot of fun for people. I hope having the troupe out here and having them interact with the museum patrons will be a good time, especially since they’ll be characters from Liberal and Seward County history,” Dowell said. “I also hope the puzzles and clues are a lot of fun, and I hope that experience of having to use your own knowledge will be a good time. What really interests me about this experience is how, unlike an escape room that’s crafted from the bottom up, this is more about transforming the exhibits and buildings we already have into those puzzles, and I think that’ll be really neat. There are many people who have been in our museum multiple times and know our exhibits, and this will be a great way for them to look at everything from a different angle, which should be really interesting for them.”
