A glowing phone booth in a forest at night, a stranger’s knapsack and the 1995 hacker underground waiting on the line: “1337” is an immersive experience for one person at a time, performed live by telephone. It premieres in Brooklyn on Sunday, November 22, at Odyssey Works’ The New Frame 2026: Prototopia.
Most theater asks you to sit in the dark with a few hundred strangers. 1337, pronounced “leet”, asks you to pick up a phone and listen to just one.
Created by Charming Stranger, the company founded by Emmy Award-winning writer-director Cameo Wood, 1337 premieres as a workshop production on Sunday, November 22, 2026, at 100 Sutton Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It is one of the projects at The New Frame 2026: Prototopia, a one-day festival of experience design presented by Odyssey Works.
Quick answer: 1337 is a one-hour, one-person phone performance set in the 1995 hacker underground. Its public sessions are already sold out, but tickets for the rest of The New Frame 2026 are still on Eventbrite, and new dates for 1337 will be announced at 1337.show.
A Phone Booth, a Knapsack and the Year 1995
The story opens in a forest at night. A phone booth glows in the dark, and someone has left a knapsack at its base: a Walkman, a stack of 2600, the hacker quarterly, a notebook of passwords and a red box, the little device phone phreaks once used to fool payphones.
From there, each participant dials into the DefCon Voice Bridge, where phone phreaks trade secrets, test newcomers and keep one ear out for the Secret Service. What you hack, who you help and which calls you answer are up to you. “The line remembers everything,” say the producers, and nobody gets the same call twice.
The game starts before you even arrive. The show’s website, 1337.show, looks like a 1995 message board, glowing green on black, with a phone booth in a dark forest and a message from someone called “missx”, dated November 13, 1995: “so you read my zine and you STILL dialed in.”
“A Stranger’s Voice Right Against Your Ear”
The idea comes from Wood’s own past. Before she made films, she worked as an engineer on early internet phone systems.
“I’ve never stopped thinking about how strange and intimate it is to have a stranger’s voice right against your ear,” Wood says. “In 1995, a kid with a payphone and a tone dialer could reach into the most powerful network on earth. 1337 hands you that power for an hour, and then asks what you’ll do with it.”
Wood is based in San Francisco and holds a Harvard MA in Dramatic Arts. She describes her research as “voice as intimate architecture”. Phone phreaking is not new territory for her: she was an executive producer of Joybubbles, Rachael J. Morrison’s documentary that premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. The film tells the story of Joe Engressia, born blind, one of the first phone phreaks, who discovered he could manipulate the telephone network by whistling a tone.
The New Frame 2026: Prototopia
1337 is part of a larger day. The New Frame 2026: Prototopia presents the work of the fifth cohort of Odyssey Works’ Experience Design Certificate Program. After a year of research into worldbuilding, aging, presence, sound design, community building, archetypes and “the wave-like nature of happiness”, more than 20 designers from around the world will show new interactive projects for the public to playtest.
Expect sound walks, intimate performances, rituals, games, scavenger hunts and interactive installations. The designers include Alejandra Garavito Aguilar, Mariana Jatahy, Katie Mack, Tara Ocon and Doug Goldstein.
How the day works:
- Doors open at 10:45 a.m., and the experiences run from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Community presentations take place from 1 to 2 p.m., followed by a cocktail reception from 5 to 6 p.m.
- Many experiences have limited capacity and require signing up in advance on the festival’s Sched page, linked from the ticket page. Arrive 15 minutes before your first experience to check in.
- If the ticket price is a barrier, the organizers invite you to contact them through Eventbrite.
Who Is Behind It
Odyssey Works, directed by Abraham Burickson, has been creating performances for an audience of one for 25 years. It shares its approach through books, workshops, lectures and its year-long certificate program, and it is the center of a community of designers focused on empathy, intelligence and impact.
Charming Stranger, Cameo Wood’s company, creates interactive experiences designed to inspire play and introspection.
Good to know: the event is for ages 16 and up, and the venue includes three flights of stairs, theatrical scents, loud sounds and flashing lights.
Read also: Must-See Art Exhibitions in NYC This Winter · Broadway Theaters in NYC: The Complete 2026 Guide · Masaaki Sato: New York Since 1970 at NowHere
Plan Your Visit
The New Frame 2026: Prototopia
- When
- Sunday, November 22, 2026
11 a.m. to 6 p.m. (doors 10:45 a.m.) - Where
- 100 Sutton Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY 11222
- 1337
- Public sessions sold out
New dates at 1337.show - Good to know
- Ages 16+ · three flights of stairs · scents, loud sounds and flashing lights
