DREAM AWAKE
The Deal is a large-scale immersive promenade production staged aboard the Minghua, a renovated 1960s cruise ship at Shekou Sea World in Shenzhen. The historic vessel has been transformed into a permanent, seven-level theatre environment, creating one of the city’s most ambitious immersive cultural destinations. Designed for adult audiences, the production transports visitors into a richly imagined version of 1920s Paris and tells a universal story of love, ambition and consequence through physical theatre, dance, live music and close-up performance.
There is no fixed auditorium and no single viewpoint. Audiences move through interconnected streets, shops, offices, hidden rooms and a vibrant jazz club, following performers and discovering different strands of the story as they unfold. Guests may linger in one space, pursue a particular character or choose an alternative route, so each visit offers a different perspective. Detailed environments, including a grocery shop, tarot reader’s room and tailor’s workshop, are filled with narrative objects that reward curiosity and make the ship itself an active part of the storytelling.
A live three-piece band roams through the venue, weaving music into the action, while a 34-strong international cast performs in multiple mother tongues. The approach prioritises emotional truth over literal translation, allowing movement, music and human connection to carry the story across cultural and language barriers. At its heart is the journey of Marcel, whose life-changing choices gradually draw audiences into the emotional stakes of the production.
The Deal combines cinematic scale with intimate encounters, using architecture, scenography, performance and audience movement as one integrated system. Its technical infrastructure supports a moving live band, tracked scenery, overlapping sequences, centralised show control and more than a thousand cues across the ship.
More than a temporary spectacle, it establishes a sustainable, long-term model for immersive theatre within a historic landmark. The result is a significant cross-cultural collaboration that demonstrates how narrative-led immersive performance can become a lasting part of a major urban destination.