One More Time’s debut at the People’s Building is an emotionally rich yet technically uneven immersive experience.

What happens when the technology meant to preserve memory becomes the thing that disrupts it? That’s the central tension of Remember Me, the debut production of new immersive company One More Time in collaboration with Two Cent Lion.

Written and directed by Maxwell O’Neill, the experience unfolds inside a fictional Museum of Obsolete Technology (MOOT), where a daughter’s search for her missing father turns into a meditation on memory, grief and the gadgets we’ve left behind.

Presented at the People’s Building in Aurora, Remember Me is bursting with heartfelt intention. There’s clear love here — for analog tech, for storytelling, for the fragile traces we leave behind. While the concept is compelling, the execution still feels like a work in progress.

Opening the Museum

Upon arrival, guests are handed a folded pamphlet that reads “The Museum of Obsolete Technology: Remembering Since 2025.” Only upon opening it do we realize it’s actually the show’s program — one of several charming design touches that demonstrate how much thought the creative team has poured into world-building.

We are then led into the building’s lobby, which features some retro technology to indicate that we are just outside the MOOT. Guests are asked to write their name and pronouns on tags that are worn throughout the experience. Mingling amongst the crowd is Caycee Kalinoski, who soon introduces herself as Alice Flagg, our guide for the evening.

She’s the museum’s de facto curator and the daughter of its missing founder, Henry Flagg (voiced and portrayed in filmed sequences by Zach Tait). She explains that her father vanished a few weeks ago, leaving behind only the museum he never got to open. Alice is now stepping inside for the first time — and taking us with her.

She’s finally opening the museum her father never got to launch — and maybe, just maybe, she’ll find some answers about where he’s gone in the process. Despite the exposition dump, Kalinoski delivers Alice’s opening speech with warmth and approachability.

So far, so good. The premise is quirky but thematically rich, touching on intergenerational memory, grief and how obsolete technology shapes our understanding of the past. But the execution of Remember Me struggles to keep pace with its ambition.

Caycee Kalinoski in ‘Remember Me | Photo: Maxwell O’Neill

Tech trouble in MOOT

Following the opening speech, Alice queues up a VHS from her father as our entry point into the mystery, but the tape — awkwardly — begins at the end.

“Whatever happened to ‘be kind, rewind?’” Kalinoski quips, visibly flustered.

This moment, while amusing, immediately breaks the immersion: If this is Alice’s first time watching the tape, why is it already played through?

This becomes a running issue. Nearly every VHS tape throughout the night starts at the end, requiring rewinding. It’s a detail that might be forgivable on opening night (which it was), but one that unfortunately undermines the production’s premise.

In a show centered on obsolete tech, the tech itself often fails to support the story.

After watching Henry Flagg’s video introducing MOOT, we visit his carefully curated exhibition of vintage technology. Inside the MOOT space — AKA The People’s Building theatre space that’s been designed by O’Neill, Frieda Celeste and Delanie Stephens — we’re greeted with a thoughtful, tactile installation: a central TV surrounded by a horseshoe of old devices, from cassette players and Game Boys to overhead projectors and record players.

Once in the museum, Alice activates another key element of the show: an AI version of her father, brought to life in real time by Tait over the sound system. This interactive voice responds to audience members by name, cracks jokes about the technology on display and occasionally assigns tasks to attendees. The AI is a creative way to keep Henry present throughout the show and brings moments of levity that contrast nicely with the production’s more melancholic tone.

The lighting design by O’Neill adds a moody, nostalgic glow, and Celeste’s sound composition deepens the sense of quiet melancholy. Scenic design is a high point here, with thoughtful curation that evokes both nostalgia and curiosity. But the carefully crafted space is undermined by how little time we’re given to actually interact with it.

Despite being advertised as immersive and interactive, Remember Me is surprisingly rigid in its structure. The central experience is structured around a series of puzzles, and while the conceit of “solving memory” is clever, the execution stumbles.

Clues hidden in projectors, tapes and handheld devices are meant to unlock new pieces of the story, but the audience is given little time to explore or engage deeply. The show’s 45-60-minute runtime forces a brisk pace, and instead of allowing the audience to truly solve puzzles organically, we’re frequently nudged — sometimes directly told — what to do next.

During one early challenge, we’re supposed to use clues from a projector and a Game Boy to decipher which cassette tape holds the next clue. After our group didn’t catch on quickly enough, Alice gently steered us by explaining what “2” meant in this context. While Kalinoski’s improvisation was generous and game, the moment robbed us of agency and made the interactivity feel more performative than participatory.

The experience simply doesn’t give its ideas enough room to breathe. There’s a deeply personal story at the center of the show, and when we hear Henry speak through his recordings — filmed, edited and co-directed by Celeste — there’s real emotional potential.

But that narrative is often sidelined in favor of rushed transitions, puzzle explanations or long speeches from Alice that deliver backstory instead of inviting discovery. In a format that’s supposed to be immersive, too much of the action happens to the audience rather than with them.

We are guided through the experience by the didactic instructions of Alice and pre-recorded message from her father, not guided by curiosity. The show doesn’t trust us to uncover the narrative at our own pace, and as a result, its interactive promise rings hollow.

A debut full of heart

This isn’t to say the show lacks merit. The visual and thematic world is impressively cohesive, and there are lovely touches throughout — like the interactions between Alice and her AI father. And while the mystery’s resolution (which I obviously won’t spoil here) is anticlimactic, the final moments return the focus to where it belongs: on the complexities of remembering someone who’s no longer there.

Remember Me is an undeniably ambitious debut. O’Neill and co-producer Celeste are attempting something difficult: an emotional, interactive, tech-based experience that tells a personal story through objects and memory. That’s a bold undertaking for any team — let alone a new company mounting its first production.

With more time, more runtime and a tighter integration between puzzles and narrative, Remember Me could become something extraordinary. As it stands, the show feels like the pilot episode of a promising new series: uneven, yes — but full of heart and worthy of looking at one more time.