You may have partied with Justin Timberlake, howled with Margot Robbie or clinked glasses with Bono — and not even known it.
That’s true for theatergoers at “Sleep No More,” the off-Broadway show that requires audience members to don masks and make their way through multiple floors of dreamy, “Macbeth”-inspired scenes. In the five years since the show started, it’s been a celebrity magnet: More than 200 of them — from Beyoncé to Johnny Depp, Jennifer Lawrence to Chris Pratt — have taken advantage of the anonymity to cut loose.
“You never know if you’re watching the show standing next to a celebrity, because everybody’s got a mask on,” says Cesar Hawas, “special envoy” at The McKittrick Hotel, the show’s decadent venue on West 27th Street. “There’s no paparazzi, there’s no fanfare. It’s dark. It’s very discreet.”
One night in September, both pop star Adele and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the McKittrick for a few hours of incognito revelry. A source told Page Six that “Netanyahu was seen running around . . . with a frantic energy” and “diverting his security detail as he got caught up in the show.”
He was later “found by his guards at the rooftop bar Gallow Green late in the evening,” the source said.
“They just show up,” says Hawas of famous faces. “Sometimes we don’t even know until we read a sighting or see an Instagram post.” Often, stars will buy tickets under an alias and arrive through the main entrance like any other theatergoer. “The reality is we don’t even have a back door!”
“You generally don’t have throngs of people showing up with entourages the way that [stars] would at a traditional show,” Hawas adds. “They come here because they’re . . . anonymous.”
Still, as a world leader, Netanyahu couldn’t afford to be entirely invisible.
“There was a massive entourage virtually out of nowhere. Cop cars blocking the street,” says Hawas. When the performance began, however, the friends and handlers slapped on masks and played along.
After Leonardo DiCaprio experienced “Sleep No More,” he retreated to the venue’s second floor Manderley Bar, still wearing his mask and smoking an e-cigarrette, recalls Hawas. “It wasn’t until somebody said, ‘Sorry, sir, can you put that e-cigarrette away?’ ” that he revealed his famous face.
‘Some celebs’ “Sleep No More” fandom is so intense, they ask to appear in the show for unadvertised, one-night-only acting stints.’
Two months after the show opened in 2011, Pink jumped onstage at the bar and sang an impromptu set with the house band. Oscar-winner Glen Hansard, the brains behind “Once,” did the same not long after, excitedly borrowing an actor’s guitar.
Some celebs’ “Sleep No More” fandom is so intense, they ask to appear in the show for unadvertised, one-night-only acting stints. That’s been the case for Alan Cumming, Neil Patrick Harris, Aaron Paul, Sara Bareilles and others.
“Now [celebrity guests] are so much a part of the show that I’ll hear so-and-so was in the audience and it doesn’t phase me any longer,” says actress Isadora Wolfe, who’s been with “Sleep No More” for five years and plays multiple roles.
“As a policy, we’re very respectful of everyone’s anonymity. We don’t have any way of knowing who the audience is [in advance],” she says.
But not having any warning about stars in their midst can lead to major surprises for the otherwise-cool performers, especially during private, one-on-one moments when an actor may unmask an audience member.
As Wolfe recalls: “One of the most shocking times was when I took off [a woman’s] mask and it was Katy Perry!”
https://nypost.com/2016/10/09/you-may-not-even-know-your-sitting-with-celebs-at-this-off-bway-show/