Meet Julia Nardin, creator of Spirit Parlour

The secrets of julia nardin

Julia Nardin, creator of the upcoming Spirit Parlour at Nordo, is a storyteller and worldbuilder whose immersive works invite audiences to explore the dichotomy of human nature and our relationship with the natural world. When she isn't creating theatre steeped in magic realism, she's helming the writers' room at Bungie where she works as the company's Universe Narrative Director on the well-known video game Destiny. Her previous theatrical projects include Starling, Den of Thieves, and an ode to the dark heart of the Pacific Northwest: Dump Site. We recently sat down with Julia to learn more about the mysterious world we’ll be visiting this fall.

Talk to us about the moths. What is inspiring about them, what do they mean for the storytelling of Spirit Parlour? When did they come into the process?

 Julia: Moths are a symbol of death and transformation—I actually have an enormous tattoo of one spread open across my back, so the idea to involve them was sort of peeking over my shoulder before I even realized it was there. I was looking for an iconic piece of imagery that could represent the show and make a statement about how it’s different from some of the other Halloween experiences out there. There’s nothing explicitly violent or gory about Spirit Parlour. It’s not the sort of show that’s going to hit you with a jump scare or chase you out of the building with a chainsaw. Our frights are the kind that float in through your bedroom window at night because you invited them by leaving a light on, like moths do.

 It sort of spiraled from there. We (Julia works with co-director Mark Siano, as well as two other writers) named our secret society the Sacred Order of Aurelians because it’s only slightly less difficult to say than “Lepidopterists.” Our designers started looking for as many ways as possible to weave them into the tapestry of the world we were building, which included working with Moth & Myth to populate it with a collection of beautiful paper specimens. One of our resident spirits entombed himself because he was so obsessed with the idea of transformation through death. I don’t think I’m that far gone (yet).  

What haunts you? What do you find especially scary that you'd like to share with our audiences?

 Julia: The things that haunt us and the things that scare us aren’t always the same, but they can be. The spirits in Spirit Parlour have a lot of unfinished business, otherwise they wouldn’t be spirits. There are a lot of recurring themes in their stories about the mistakes they made, the things they left unsaid, or things that maybe they should have left unsaid but didn’t. Everyone in the audience has their own version of that too, I think. By its definition, life is pretty irreversible. Death, even more so. That scares me.  

How does going "under the influence" affect Spirit Parlour's story telling?

 Julia: Spirit Parlour is part cocktail bar, part boutique haunted house. The audience and the spirits share the same space most of the time, so you might be having a drink at the same table as a soldier who died during World War I, or you might be cozying up with your date on a couch twenty feet below a circus acrobat who fell to her death. If you’re lucky, you might even be able to have a conversation with them like you would a stranger at the other end of the bar.

 The spirits in the cocktails correspond with the spirits in the parlour, and there are five of them. You’ll learn their stories by interacting with them, but you’ll also receive a little lore alongside the drink of your choosing, which will help you piece it all together. You'll get as much out of the experience as you opt to put into it, which is a nice way to also allow everyone to establish their own tolerance. 

 Be sure to catch Spirit Parlour this September through November in Nordo’s Culinarium. MORE DETAILS>>>

Promotional photos by John Ulman