Pa:nStori Production Thinks New York Needs a New Immersive Experience

PA:NSTORI PRODUCTIONS 2025: “At Your Scent” by Chaesong Kim, featuring Yeena Sung & Qi. Photos by Nathaniel Johnston.

By ANNA MIKAELA EKSTRAND May 24, 2025

As I connect with Soo Young Choi over the phone, I hear a siren on her end, and one on my end—”where are you right now?” I cut her off mid-introduction. “In Midtown,” she responds. I tell her I am in the Lower East Side. We laugh, both having thought for a split second that we might be on the same block. Such is the power of our senses, having the potential to create a shared experience across geographic boundaries.  

Choi decided to include ‘stori’ (a version of story) rather than ‘theater’ in her company's title to reflect her mission to create “non-traditional and no-genre-barrier type of live arts shows.” While Pa:n(판/ pronounced like Pahn) in Korean means a place or setup where something unfolds. And, since founding Pa:nStori Production, Choi has certainly managed to create a set-up where a new experience unfolds for her audience, not as the saying goes, in front of their eyes, but instead through their olfactory and auditory senses.  

At Your Scent, which had its first test-run in April, is a 15-minute scent and sound-driven storytelling experience, performed by two actors, and experienced by one audience member at a time who remains blindfolded throughout. “I am still struggling to find the right sustainable approach. But it will come to us as we go through all the stages,” she explains. Unlike some of the other blockbuster immersive theater shows in New York, like the now-closed Sleep No More, she wants the experience to remain intimate. For now, it is a nonlinear story of first love between two characters. They each tell their story, jumping back and forth between their teenage years and adult life. Anchored in New York, traversing multiple settings like an office and Bryant Park’s Christmas Market, one character also leaves the city briefly. Ample opportunities for a multitude of interesting smells and sounds.  

Those guests who came from the industry generally enjoyed themselves, Choi explained, finding it to be a new type of show. Many said the scents were effective in provoking their emotion, but were not sure if they caught every scent. Excluding one sense, sight, certainly keeps audiences on their toes, hyperfocusing on smelling, hearing, and feeling. “It felt like such a fun little game of guessing when the smells would come based on what was described. I was impressed by how many different smells there were,” one visitor recorded in their feedback.

PA:NSTORI PRODUCTIONS 2025: “At Your Scent” by Chaesong Kim, featuring Yeena Sung & Qi. Photos by Nathaniel Johnston.

Choi is continuing to develop the piece with her team, speaking warmly about her director Chaesong Kim, with whom she collaborated on a reading at NYU, Kim was then doing an MFA at Columbia, and her two actors, Yeena Sung and Qi. Sung is like Choi and Kim, Korean, while Qi is Chinese. ”Having the right people who share the same passion is the most important ingredient,” she explains using the movie The Lord of the Rings as an example. It was created by fans of the books and local volunteers to shoot the war scene. Teamwork makes the dream work, and creative input is key in creating something that has never been done before. 

Unsurprisingly, given New York’s high rent costs, finding a location is the most challenging part of the process. Pa:nStori Production aims to do another test-run of the show in July and a pop-up in August in preparation for their long-run, which will start in September. A problem-solver, she remarks: “I think it would be great if there is a platform where creators can find location sponsorships or where we can find information about unused or empty space which are non-traditional theater space.”

This is not Choi’s first foray into experimental theater. In Korea, after several years of producing musical theater, she took a job at Art Lab Festival. “It was a refreshing and mind-blowing experience,” she explains. Organized by Paradise Cultural Foundation every year, the festival finds and supports emerging artists pioneering in art and tech to produce commissions—”I who only knew traditional theater, was impressed and realized that this was my new path,” she says about her work to support bio-, AV-, media-, kinetic-, and other artists to create new types of arts in innovative ways. Founding Pa:nStori Production after graduating with her MA from NYU in Performing Arts Administrations was a natural progression. Although Choi finds that New York audiences are harder to satisfy than Korean audiences (here, audiences are more culturally blended), Choi is up for the challenge. The benefit is that New Yorkers are more open to experiencing totally new things, which is exactly what Pa:nStori produces.