Created by the award-winning Australian collective Pony Cam, the madcap theatrical endurance feat Burnout Paradise is now playing at Off-Broadway’s Astor Place Theatre for a limited run through June, following a series of hit engagements in Fringe Festivals and venues around the world, including its North American debut at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn in 2024. The wildly different approach to live theater is more in keeping with a TV game show, with full-out audience participation an essential part of the company’s self-challenge to beat the clock and to rack up more miles than in previous shows, in a taxing attempt to complete a set of daily tasks while running on a treadmill. And if they fail, they’ll refund your ticket price (as indicated by a handful of cash waved by host Ava Campbell). Sound wacky? It is, and it’s also a fun-filled, exhausting, and hilarious metaphor for the demands and stress we put on ourselves to get it all done in life – even more than is really necessary – in an unreasonable amount of time.
Upon entering the theater, we see the performers – Claire Bird, William Strom, Dominic Weintraub, and Hugo Williams – physically prepping on the stage, set with four treadmills, in a pre-show warm-up with a voiceover about “greatness” (sound by Cody Spencer). They, along with Campbell, then introduce themselves, their background, and their original show in direct address to the audience, with projections on an upstage screen and at the sides of the house that add humorous info about their strengths and weaknesses (set and videos by Pony Cam and Jim Findlay). They also make it clear that they’ll need our active help throughout the seemingly impossible challenges, which are divided into four hand-labeled themes: LEISURE (with an extensive to-do list of activities on a whiteboard at the side, such as cutting hair and shooting hoops, Happy Birthday and Rave, with the necessary props on shelves to the left of the whiteboard); PERFORMANCE (which includes everything from recreating childhood dances to reciting Shakespeare); ADMIN (filling out an online grant application for the company); and SURVIVAL (cooking a three-course meal, which is served to volunteers at a table in a small restaurant above the stage, audience right).
The execution of the tasks is divided into four twelve-minute rounds, with a short break between and Campbell leading the audience in the final ten-second countdown of the digital clock, after which the number of miles the cast completed while running non-stop are recorded and totaled, and the four then rotate on the treadmills and activities, changing costumes and accessories (from their initial gym shorts and tee-shirts), handling the props, enlisting our assistance, and talking, running, and performing simultaneously, adding to the over-the-top hectic pressure they (and we) place on ourselves to achieve the aforementioned greatness.
At first a little hesitant to volunteer, the audience, on the date I attended, grew increasingly involved, enthusiastic, and boisterous, as Campbell handed out glasses of Gatorade to the crowd (and laughingly hawked the merch for sale stage-side). Even those who chose not to interact fully with the performers on stage and remained in their seats were encouraged to take and to share photos and to send their recommendations in support of the grant from their cell phones, which appeared on the projection screens (as did live feed of the dinner preparation, the erasure of finished tasks from the whiteboard list, the typing of the answers on the application, and virtually everything else, along with film footage of the childhood dances on which Bird’s in-sync PERFORMANCE was based).
There are also two segments in which the individual members of the cast come together, dancing to the music in the Rave, under disco-style flashing, revolving, and colored lights (lighting by Dans Maree Sheehan), and moving with acrobatic skill and grace under spotlights on the darkened stage at the conclusion of the show, before the final stats are announced.
With different volunteer participants each night and a changing order in which the tasks are performed, as chosen by the audience, it’s not a spoiler to say that, when I was there, the collective mission was accomplished, the existing record of miles run was broken, and the success was met with euphoric cheering, clapping, and laughing out loud.
It’s my guess, by the ardent response, that even if Pony Cam was not successful in besting their miles and fully completing their overload of challenges in time, no one would have accepted a refund of the money they spent on their tickets. Burnout Paradis is a unique and unpredictable theatrical experience that is both entertaining and engaging – and is well worth the price of admission.
Running Time: Approximately 70 minutes, without intermission.
Burnout Paradise plays through Sunday, June 28, 2026, at Astor Place Theatre, 434 Lafayette Street, NYC. For tickets (priced at $59-109, including fees), go online, or find discount tickets at TodayTix.
