Beginning this summer, Outside the March (OtM) is inviting you to put your life on pause with a series of proudly analog movie-loving experiences hearkening back to yesteryear—or at least to the days before Netflix and Amazon Prime. The Popcorn Double Feature will see OtM take over the Annex’s historic Queen Video and open up its own VHS rental store (with a twist) for The Tape Escape, and transform Streetcar Crowsnest into a classic cinema for The Flick.

Co-created by Mitchell Cushman, performance poet Vanessa Smythe and video artist Nick Bottomley, The Tape Escape is OtM’s foray into the booming world of Escape Rooms—a series of story-based, puzzle-infused mysteries staged inside of a brick-and-mortar VHS rental store. Step back into the world of the 1990s with this love letter to the lost art of browsing, created in an installation of over 5000 VHS tapes. Audiences will solve a series of film genre-inspired puzzles that uncover the untold tales of the store’s staff and membership base.

The Tape Escape will open in early July and run throughout the summer at 480 Bloor Street. Space is extremely limited for this intimate experience, as each story is designed for four audience members at a time.

In October 2019, OtM teams up with Crow’s Theatre for the Toronto Premiere of The Flick by Annie Baker, one of contemporary theatre’s most exciting voices. Baker’s work has blown-away Toronto audiences thanks to recent award-winning productions of her plays John and The Aliens. Written in her same signature style of uber-naturalism.

Tickets for The Flick‘s limited run are on-sale now at outsidethemarch.ca.