Mindplay 2022-2025
2022-2023 | The Geffen, Los Angeles
2024 | Arena Stage, Washington DC
2024-2025 | Greenwich House Theater, New York City
2022-2023 | The Geffen
Mindplay is a love letter to the imperfect mind. Drama Desk Award–nominated theatermaker and mentalist Vinny DePonto leads us on a raucous romp through the back channels of our innermost thoughts, exploring the fragmented and flawed nature of our memories, and asks us to question whether we can trust the voice inside our heads. In the spirit of the Geffen’s long tradition of magic comes an entirely new theatrical event in which your thoughts play a leading role.
“I was awestruck while in the presence of Drama Desk Award–nominated theater-maker and mentalist Vinny DePonto during the World Premiere of MINDPLAY...
there is no way I can contemplate or explain his skill as a mentalist. Besides that, he is a wonderfully soft-spoken and charismatic performer whose stage presence will keep you enthralled.”
— Gardena Valley News
“DePonto, whose stage presence exudes compassionate sincerity, is his own most magical asset.”
— Los Angeles Times
DePonto, a Drama Desk nominee and mentalist, presents an exploration of the imperfect mind and questions if the voice inside one's head is trustworthy. Andrew Neisler directs the play, which is produced by Eva Price with support from the Edgerton Foundation New Play Production Fund.
Press
The Hollywood Reporter
JJ Abrams (Briefly) Faces off With Mentalist Vinny DePonto During ‘Mindplay’ Opening Night
“He was pretty, great, right?…We’ve all been fans of magic and all that geekery for a long time so it was great to see this show. He’s terrific.” — JJ Abrams
Los Angeles Times
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Vinny DePonto lists three different professional titles on his website: mind reader, theatre-maker and visual artist. And now he’s putting his passions together in Los Angeles for an acclaimed world premiere called Mindplay, which is enjoying an extended run through Jan. 8 at the Geffen Playhouse. The audience members’ individual thoughts are showcased throughout the 80-minute performance, and DePonto questions whether that inner voice in their mind should be trusted or second guessed.
“After my off-Broadway run of Charltan in 2014, my co-collaborators — Andrew Neisler, my director, Josh Koenigsberg, my co-writer — got together, and I started pitching them on some ideas of where to go next and what themes to explore,” DePonto said in a recent phone interview. “We’ve really been tinkering with it since then, and then [producer] Eva Price joined in on the project. And she helped shape the piece as well, and together we just built a language and kept exploring. That’s the origin story of it.”
Price was able to connect DePonto with the world-famous Geffen Playhouse, which has built an impressive history of producing shows of magic and illusion. The theater also kept the candle burning during the pandemic and presented many theatrical offerings via Zoom (so did DePonto with his show Mental Amusements), and now with in-person theater returning to the Geffen, Mindplay is able to work its magic in a live setting.
“We had been workshopping the show around, doing it at various festivals,” DePonto said. “We had done it at American Conservatory Theater and some other places around, beginning versions of it, and eventually Eva called me. And she was like, ‘How do you feel about the Geffen?’ That’s an amazing place. I would love to be there. She was like, ‘We’re putting it up there.’ I was like, ‘That’s amazing,’ so that’s how it all happened. They have been absolutely lovely. It seems like they have had a bunch of magic shows, and this is their first mentalism show.”
Mentalism is an art form that many people, even those who purchase tickets to Mindplay, don’t exactly understand. To put it plainly, a mentalist is able to “read minds.” To pull this unbelievable feat off, DePonto utilizes psychological tricks, visual art and immersive storytelling.
“Audiences are loving it,” he said. “Thankfully the nice thing about L.A. is there’s mostly amazing weather out here, so we all get to hang out and chat afterward. And everyone has had some positive experiences, and they’ve also had incredible stories to share afterward. I think by the nature of this piece, I try to build a really strong connection with the audience, and the audience with each other, and I think that’s really lovely to have this little social event after the show as well.”
Because so many people don’t quite understand what Mindplay will be about when they enter the theater, DePonto takes time during each show to set expectations. For the next 80 minutes, he’ll be exploring the thought process, and he wants everyone to take a deep breath and bring the nervousness factor down a few notches.
“The lovely thing about mentalism is that there’s still a lot of mystery around the nomenclature of it, so immediately when you hear mentalist, you don’t immediately think of a magician,” he said. “You don’t think of all the stereotypes that go along with a magician. You hear something a little bit more mysterious, a little bit more mystical, and I try to set up that definition of what a mentalist is within the first few minutes of the show so that people both feel confident in knowing what they’re going to expect, but also feel like perhaps they can put their guard down a little bit. I make sure everyone knows that I’m not out to embarrass them or reveal their deepest, darkest secrets all for applause and accolades. We’re here to connect, and we’re here to share. So that’s really an important thing for me, not using the audience as props.”
DePonto’s shows, which have been experienced by many audiences around the country, are not solely about “serious” mentalism or illusion. He works in some levity and whimsy in order for people to walk away having had an enjoyable night at the theater. He has brought this theatrical thesis to his engagements at Ars Nova, American Repertory Theater and The Orchard Project. He’s also consulted on a variety of projects, everything from Broadway’s Angels in America to shows on the Discovery Channel.
“For me, it’s always been about incorporating some levity and some whimsy into the show so it doesn’t all feel very serious,” said DePonto, who was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Charlatan. “This is one of my more serious shows just because it deals with some things about control and anxiety and memory that are personal to me, but I try to surround it with a levity that makes people feel comfortable. There are always going to be people in the theater who are going to be kind of closed off, trying to sit in the back and hiding from participating, and I totally understand that. And I always make sure I ask for consent or make sure that people have the agency to come up or not come up.”
Mindplay is in many ways a culmination of a lifelong journey into the heart of magic, illusion and mentalism. His love for this unique field began when DePonto was a child, and he carries that inspiration with him every single day.
“When I was a kid, all the magicians at the time that were on TV were always really inspiring, and I wanted to be a magician,” he said. “It just felt like my natural state when I was a kid when I realized I could be creative with it and I can also make a living from it. It’s something that I never really strayed away from. It’s been really hard to figure out how to make a career out of this, but I’ve stuck to it.”
By John Soltes
January 19 - March 3, 2024 | Arena Stage
“NOT TO BE MISSED…Mindplay reminds us that theatre is magic, and magic is theatre”
“Enthralling feat of mind-probing prowess”
Drama Desk Award–nominated theatermaker and mentalist Vinny DePonto guides us on an entirely new theatrical event in which your thoughts play a leading role. A “warmly inviting, nostalgia-ridden, gem of a performance” (BroadwayWorld), Mindplay masterfully blurs the line between illusion and reality. Escape into the expansive beauty of imagination and bask in the ephemeral and surprising nature of memory.
Support for Mindplay is provided by Ricki and Joel Kanter.
December 15, 2024 - May 11, 2025 | Greenwich House Theatre
“Captivating and visually stunning, Mindplay is as thought-provoking as it is gasp-worthy.”
“Vinny DePonto is an extraordinarily engaging performer who...captivates the crowd like a bonafide vaudevillian.”
“One of the best magic shows you may ever see.”
photo by Chris Ruggiero
