Mindplay
CLIENT
Situation Interactive
TECHNOLOGIES
WordPress, PHP, JavaScript, Gravity Forms
YEAR
2024
EXTERNAL URL
The digital platform for Mindplay — the Off-Broadway solo show from Drama Desk-nominated mentalist Vinny DePonto, produced by Eva Price (Dear Evan Hansen) and Thomas Kail (Hamilton). Custom WordPress theme with a ticketing calendar, a dark and sophisticated design system, and frontend work that translated the show’s mysterious, intimate aesthetic into something you could feel through a screen.
Drove development on this project at Situation Interactive.
Background
A sold-out hit from the producers of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen was coming to New York — and it needed a digital platform as precise as the performance itself.
Mindplay — the interactive solo show from Drama Desk-nominated mentalist and theatermaker Vinny DePonto — had already sold out runs at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and The Huntington in Boston before arriving Off-Broadway at the Greenwich House Theater in December 2024. The show was co-written by DePonto and playwright Josh Koenigsberg, directed by Andrew Neisler, and produced by Tony, Emmy, and Olivier-winning producer Eva Price (Dear Evan Hansen) and Tony Award-winning director Thomas Kail (Hamilton). The production explores memory, mentalism, and audience interaction — inspired by DePonto’s grandparents’ experiences with memory loss — and had drawn attention from the Washington Post (“enthralling feat of mind-probing prowess”), Broadway World, and the New York Theatre Guide. JJ Abrams attended opening night at the Geffen. With that caliber of producing team, press momentum from three sold-out regional engagements, and a New York premiere at a respected Off-Broadway house, the production needed a digital platform that could convert critical buzz into ticket sales and establish Mindplay’s brand identity for its highest-visibility engagement yet.
The site needed to be live ahead of the December 15 first preview and carry the production through its Off-Broadway run at the Greenwich House Theater.
Implementation
A custom WordPress build with a dark, sophisticated design system and a ticketing calendar tuned for an intimate Off-Broadway house.
I led development on a custom WordPress theme where the design challenges were the defining feature of the build. Mindplay’s brand identity — dark, moody, and precise — demanded a frontend that could carry a sophisticated color palette of deep navy, cream, and gold without sacrificing readability or accessibility. The design system used CSS custom properties to manage the color hierarchy across every component, with responsive typography scaling that maintained the site’s elegant proportions from mobile through desktop. The hero section featured a prominent black-and-white portrait of DePonto with the tagline “What’s on your mind?” — a composition that needed to feel cinematic on large screens and impactful on phones without cropping away the atmosphere. The ticketing calendar was the primary conversion component — an interactive, date-driven interface rendering the performance schedule at the Greenwich House Theater with availability states and direct purchase links routing audiences into the ticketing provider’s checkout flow. Press acclaim from the Washington Post, New York Theatre Guide, Broadway World, and Times Square Chronicles was surfaced through a structured quotes section that reinforced the show’s critical momentum. Gravity Forms powered newsletter signup collecting first name, last name, email, and zip code with privacy consent management. YouTube embeds delivered video content, and Schema.org structured data — WebPage, Organization, and BreadcrumbList — provided the SEO foundation for a show entering a competitive Off-Broadway market.
The design work on Mindplay was a satisfying constraint problem — building something that feels mysterious and atmospheric while keeping the code clean, accessible, and performant underneath.
Results
Live for previews, extended twice, and the digital home for a show that sold out its entire New York run.
The site launched ahead of Mindplay’s first preview on December 15, 2024, and served as the production’s primary digital platform through its entire Off-Broadway engagement at the Greenwich House Theater. The show officially opened on January 13, 2025, and was extended twice — first through April 20, then through May 11 — continuing the pattern of sold-out runs that had defined the production at the Geffen Playhouse, Arena Stage, and The Huntington. The ticketing calendar drove conversions throughout the engagement, the press acclaim section reinforced the critical consensus as new reviews published, and the newsletter integration built the show’s direct audience database through the New York run. The site at mindplaynyc.com now serves as the archival record of Mindplay’s New York premiere — a production backed by the producers of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen that arrived Off-Broadway with three sold-out regional engagements behind it and extended twice more in New York.
Mindplay is a project where the design constraints were the reward — a dark, atmospheric build for a show about memory and illusion, backed by some of the most successful producers in American theatre.
