A plaque greets you at the entrance of Conwell Coffee Hall, the striking and mysterious café now open in New York’s Financial District. The text pays tribute to a powerful 1920s magnate, J.G. Conwell, former chairman of the Life and Trust Bank and the builder and former occupant of this craggy limestone skyscraper at 20 Exchange Place. “The Skyscraper,” it explains, is also the name Conwell gave to a coffee blend he perfected shortly before he died “unexpectedly and suddenly under tragic circumstances.” Conwell Coffee celebrates his work and life.
Except J.G. Conwell never existed. Nor did the bank called Life and Trust. Conwell Coffee Hall is an impressively elaborate bit of promotion for Life and Trust, presented by the theatrical production company Emursive as a follow-up to its hugely successful immersive show Sleep No More.
I say Conwell is impressive because it’s both a promotional gimmick and a fully operational coffeehouse (the cold brew is excellent) that switches to cocktails toward the end of the day. The room is high-drama Art Deco, a preserved former banking hall with lofty ceilings and a snazzy bar built inside the tellers’ cage. (The building itself, landmarked and hugely impressive, was once the headquarters of City Bank–Farmers Trust, a predecessor institution to Citigroup.) Behind the baristas is a towering Art Deco mural depicting some vaguely apocalyptic urban scenes.
One could certainly wander into Conwell for a coffee, sit and work on a laptop for a few hours, and never notice anything unusual. That has been happening for a few weeks, and I watched many tourists and finely suited bankers do just that on Thursday, most of them pausing to marvel at the space and snap a picture before heading off, coffee in hand. But it’s also a room full of hints at the space’s true purpose. The in-house espresso bean is known, after all, as the “Sleep No More.” This past Wednesday, after months of speculation and low-key online chatter, the café was descended upon by hundreds of theater obsessives. Many had been watching Conwell’s social-media accounts closely, waiting for the next reveal. Alec Zbornak, an immersive-theater-maker himself, was just one fan who noticed that Conwell’s Instagram page followed only one account: @lifeandtrust, which provided only a link for text alerts and no other information. Zbornak signed up, and on Tuesday afternoon, the text came through.
“Tomorrow, we will satisfy your longing. Presale tickets will be available for a lucky few through our Trusted Teller at Conwell Coffee Hall from 10am– 8pm. Seize your future.”
Zbornak got there at 9:50 on Wednesday morning to find the line already out the door. By the time tickets went on sale, it was snaking around the corner. “Everybody seemed to be a die-hard immersive-theater fan, all gossiping about what they heard about the show,” he said. “It was a really exciting energy.”
Emursive’s Sleep No More has amassed a huge following in its long run at the McKittrick Hotel in Chelsea. Enthusiasts are known to return multiple times to pursue a different character and discover new corners of the vast warehouse space. Even after a two-year pandemic hiatus and a BuzzFeed report of multiple allegations from performers and staff of sexual assault by audience members, it has surpassed 5,000 performances. Its closure, first announced for this past January, has been repeatedly postponed; tickets are currently on sale through June 16, but further extensions look likely. (A representative for Emursive declined to comment.)
Sleep No More was created by the English company Punchdrunk, which was not involved in the creation of Life and Trust. A creative team has yet to be revealed for the newer show, though the performer Aaron Dalla Villa lists a workshop version in his bio, saying it was choreographed by the Kuperman Brothers (recently Tony-nominated for their work on The Outsiders) and directed by Teddy Bergman (KPOP). The Kupermans’ official website also lists an upcoming “Untitled Immersive Project” produced by Emursive.
As for the show’s source material, after buying his ticket on Wednesday, Zbornak was handed a slip signed with a quotation: “Let me dare to throw those gates open …” The line is from Goethe’s Faust, the story of a discontented intellectual who sells his soul to the Devil in exchange for unlimited pleasure.
At Conwell on Thursday morning, there was little indication of the previous day’s frenzy. The café was stiflingly hot, suggesting a journey through the depths of hell was being readied somewhere in the building. (Or maybe the AC was just broken.) I thought I could hear some recorded wailing under the jazz playing over the speakers — but it turned out to be the squeaky old revolving door. Finally, I asked my server about the “Trusted Teller.” She leaned in surreptitiously to confide that the teller would be returning at some point today. “Or that’s what I’ve been told,” she smiled.
Looking around, I saw no indication that anyone else was waiting for tickets. Everyone appeared to be simply having coffee, reading, taking meetings, though the hall has an unsettling, mythic vibe that made me feel as if everyone could suddenly stand up in perfect unison and encircle me, John Wick–style.
At noon, the Trusted Teller arrived. Dressed all in black, she met my questions with evasive replies and a mischievous smile. Where exactly would the show take place? I asked. “In this building,” she said, declining to provide further details. Would audience members wear masks, as they do at Sleep No More? No answer, though the Life and Trust order-confirmation emails read, “All guests will be required to wear a Life and Trust mask while inside the bank.”
And would the show’s design be Art Deco in style, I asked, the same as this coffee shop? She gazed around the room thoughtfully, then simply replied, “It is very beautiful in here, isn’t it?”