Devika Santosh

How might we transform a theater lobby from a space people simply pass through into an experience that begins telling the story before the curtain rises?

We designed Encore, an interactive luggage exhibit that lets guests discover the lives of Titanic characters through their personal belongings, combining physical props, lighting, motion-triggered interactions, and character-driven audio.

What can a suitcase tell you about the person who packed it?

Instead of recreating scenes from the musical, we designed each luggage station as a window into a character's life.

Guests could explore trunks, discover personal belongings, read letters and journals, and listen to characters tell their own stories as they packed their suitcases before boarding the ship, building an understanding of who they were before ever seeing them on stage.

The experience also transformed through the run of the production, allowing the story in the lobby to change alongside the show.

• encouraging guests to touch and interact with the exhibit,
• creating user journeys that feel complete even if the guest misses one or two phases of the experience, and
• maintaining a strong narrative with lighting design for the one matinee show we have.

Mostly older audience (50+) and students - observed during playtests of other shows in the same lobby.
According to client and frequent audience faculty members, we are to expect a greater ratio of older audience for this show.

As the user walks past a luggage station, a motion sensor detects their presence and the trunk opens, with a programmed light tracing the outlines of the props inside, encouraging them to interact with it. We would use directional speakers to play an audio recording of the character narrating, also triggered by the motion sensor.

The guests can explore the props inside - riffle through the characters' clothing, read their diaries and letters, examine their possessions, and thereby understand and empathise with their stories.

crafting user journeys and personas for our young and old audience, and making sure the experience feels complete even if they miss any or more of the three parts.

conducting extensive research into the characters' lives, who they were to others, and how they each spoke or wrote, and mimicking these to create stories for their journals, diaries, and pocketbooks.

creating a strong and engaging narrative for the whole experience, to ensure guests connect with these characters.

prop design and fabrication!

For the Entertainment Technology Center, I am designing our team's logo, poster, and half sheet, too.

Designing the Narrative
I spent a lot of time researching characters, collecting their life story as a real person and analysing their character in the musical, before selecting props to tell their story.

I designed paper props for print on Figma to fit the Art Nouveau time period and replicated many old tickets, luggage tags, bottle labels, while also making tabloids, music programs, and magazines from scratch.

I also designed and 3D printed old telephone receivers for us to attach our speakers to, as playtesting showed that people felt our original, anachronistic phone handsets looked out of place and weren't loud enough.

First, second, and third class stations, the Captain, the Musician, and the Marconi Room!

April 2025, the lobby is set up for the musical, and we learn surprising things from guests and how they interact with the installation!

The following videos were directed and filmed by Sarah Wille, our producer.

My role also involved designing the project's logo, poster, and the half sheets that would tell visiting guests at the ETC what our team does and what our project is about.

Presenting... Team Encore!

For weekly dev logs written by our producer, Fay Li, visit our website at https://projects.etc.cmu.edu/encore/