I finally got it.
After 12 years of coveting it, I finally got the 1-on-1 encounter with the nurse presiding over the McKittrick Hotel’s mysterious sixth floor.
The 1-on-1 happened on visit 14 to Sleep No More; the date was Wednesday, 06 November 2024.
I attended my first show all the way back in December 2012, a time when information about the sixth floor was nothing but sparse rumors. It was just something you lucked out and got.
Back in those days, I think (could be wrong) the only way to get the encounter was to be let off the elevator on the sixth floor upon entry into the show.
But all these years later, that’s not how I landed the 1-on-1 encounter on the sixth floor.
Was The ‘Pool’ Really Open?
For once, I wasn’t hunting for the experience.
I already learned that lesson, because months ago I asked one of the hosts in black (Miguel Anaya) if he could send me to the sixth floor after reading on Reddit that someone successfully used this tactic. I felt like an entitled prick doing so, but still, I gave it a try.
The host gave me a confused look.
“I don’t know about a sixth floor, but I can send you to the pool,” he said.
“Okay.” I didn’t know what that meant, but I ran with it.
He whispered to another host in black (Karen Marie Richardson), who yelled the pool was open.
Maybe it was, but not for me.
I was let off on the third floor, furiously walking through the cemetery and the residences of Macbeth and Macduff. It soured my mood for nearly half the show, and I regretted acting like a tool to begin with.
A Wayward Traveler
I also read online that a lonely figure sometimes haunts the fifth floor of the McKittrick Hotel—the King James Sanatorium.
About halfway through the show, a wayward traveler wearing a bulky overcoat appears and sits on a large suitcase in the hall outside the bedroom wing of the sanatorium. The traveler is in a daze, falling in and out of a trance-like sleep. After coming out of the trance, this individual may or may not select someone to take up to the sixth floor.
This is how I landed the encounter.
I noticed the traveler on visit 13, and tried to play it cool. I walked by a few times, hoping they’d grab my arm and rush me upstairs to teach all of the desperate campers a lesson—don’t try too hard.
It didn’t happen for me, though, and I didn’t dwell on it. I learned my lesson from the “pool” incident months ago.
Not so on visit 14.
“It’s Actually Happening”
Visit 14 was perfect in many ways, and if it was my last show, what a farewell it would have been.
(Thankfully I have three more shows booked at the time of this writing.)
I landed three 1-on-1 encounters I’ve wanted for years in one night: the sixth-floor nurse, the Matron, and Malcolm.
They all seemed to happen in quick succession. The sixth-floor nurse was my third of the evening.
I was an hour and a half into the show, riding high from my experiences with Malcolm (the incredible Tim Jones) and the Matron (the spellbinding Ilana Gilovich).
I eventually swung by the King James Sanatorium to test my luck with finding the sixth-floor nurse.
And there the nurse was, played by Noah Wang.
He sat atop his suitcase, bundled in an overcoat and sleeping. I followed my instinct and waited nearby, watching him at a bit of a distance with my arms folded. Sure, passersby were curious and stopped for a few seconds, but quickly grew bored and kept moving. Only one other audience member settled in to watch and wait.
That’s when the sixth-floor nurse started to stir.
His eyes fluttered open and he looked in my direction. Wider his stare grew, and he didn’t break his gaze with me. My heart was pumping, but I kept it cool. I stood there looking back at him, still at a distance and still with my arms folded.
The nurse stood up, still staring at me. I was waiting for a psyche-out. But he extended his hand to me.
No way is this happening, I thought. No fucking way.
I did not waste time.
I moved forward and put my hand in his. He didn’t break gaze. I didn’t either.
He smiled at me, gripped my hand, picked up the suitcase, and pulled me down the hall toward the stairwell. The steward standing guard stepped aside, allowing us to pass.
My heart was beating out of my chest while it all happened. I kept thinking, over and over—it’s happening, it’s actually happening.
Not since the Porter (played at the time by the incredible Paul Zivkovich) pushed through a thick crowd and grabbed my arm for my first 1-on-1 encounter all the way back in February 2013 have I felt so transcendent in one of these shows.
We Can Never Go Back
It was dark on the sixth floor.
It was dark when the nurse started reciting the opening lines of Rebecca, about how he wanted to return to Manderley. Me too, my friend. Me too.
He kept reciting the story as he pulled out a lighter, flicked it alight, and then snatched the flame away, discarding it in a slight-of-hand trick.
That’s when a stoplight broke the darkness and illuminated the sixth-floor nurse. The overcoat was gone. His suitcase was thrown open and disheveled. The nurse took my hand and led me down a hallway toward a single wheelchair.
I clutched the nurse’s hand hard—not for dramatic effect, but out of my old-lady fear of falling. He gently set me down in the wheelchair and slowly pushed me down the dark hall, the prose of Rebecca still in recitation.
We stopped.
The nurse unlatched the back of the wheelchair and pushed it down. I had no where to look but up. I saw the estate of Manderley glowing. Music swelled up around us, the music of “The Cemetery” from Batman Returns.
The nurse wheeled me back down the hall as my eyes locked on the inverted Manderley.
The slow pace turned fast as the sixth-floor nurse rushed me toward the entrance. He stopped, helped me out of the wheelchair, took my hand, and ran with me the rest of the distance.
The nurse gripped my hand one final time before bidding me farewell, telling me we can never go back to Manderley.
Indeed, we can’t.
Sacred Memories
The thing with 1-on-1 encounters is this: explanations come off as trite. Summaries can never convey the true emotional impact of these experiences.
I’ve written in my essays and articles about Life And Trust NYC (and Sleep No More NYC by extension) that these shows require a great deal of imagination in order to “work.” That’s your only hope to enjoy the experience. That’s why I typically hate mainstream normie reviews of immersive theater shows.
Our cherished 1-on-1 encounters are brief but sacred memories among us mega fans.
They are not for rational analysis. They are not the terrain of pure intellect.
They are emotionally charged experiences. They are felt deeply and viscerally. You make a pact with the immersive experience when you enter one, and the pact is to give yourself over to it completely.
I repeat a favorite Alan Moore quote from Promethea:
Opera, as developed by practicing alchemists, such as Monteverdi, attempted to magically alter consciousness by incorporating music, words, costumes, and dance to similarly overwhelm the senses.
Is that not exactly what happens at Sleep No More and Life And Trust?
It is for me.
And the overwhelming emotion I felt after my visit to the sixth floor was the truth of the nurse’s message.
We cannot return to Manderley.
Soon, Sleep No More NYC will pass into a dream.
This reality fills me with a grand sadness.
But I’m grateful for the experiences, the magical performances of the actors (alchemists and magicians very much in their own right), and the unforgettable memories I will continue to chronicle here, long after the McKittrick Hotel’s closure.
Maybe we can’t return to Manderley. But we can still remember it fondly, and embrace our own creativity to give it spiritual life again.
Sleep No More NYC will close after its final performance on Sunday, 05 January 2025.
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All images used in this essay are modified screenshots taken from the Sleep No More NYC trailer found on the Emursive YouTube channel.
