NO SLEEPING

Dreaming doesn’t need a bedroom. It’s more that the bedroom needs the dream.

Or is it that the bedroom needs the dreamer, to become a place for dreaming?

NO SLEEPING evolved from the search for connections between historic homes that are open to the public and Deb Todd Wheeler’s relationship to the private, non-historic site of her son’s bedroom, which she has maintained since his unexpected death. She wrote a script that inspired a template for an interactive, multi-media performance. Todd Wheeler and Murad developed the template for NO SLEEPING as artists-in-residence at the Meetinghouse in Harvard, MA. 

The resulting work celebrates the photographic impulse to care and to commemorate, while ruminating on futures lost. The nomadic character of NO SLEEPING, composed of different spaces and participants at each telling, forms a winding walk through spaces of light and darkness.

The shapeshifting nature of grief guides this interactive performance, with an array of devices that use light in a photographic manner (historic, low tech, and the technology of now), to occupy the rooms of historic homes where someone remembered may have slept. Through spoken word, accumulated objects, soundscapes, projections, and performance, this thought piece on conservation is a devotional investigation of place, form, and memory. With the gentle direction of Sue Murad, the audience becomes part of the work by shifting from the mindset of passive watching toward collaborating. Those present become a part of immersive experiences, with each sense activated, including taste.

So far, the performances have been focused in Massachusetts, where they are based, in 2025, including the Codman Estate, the Loring Greenough House, the Forbes Estate, the Gibson House (upcoming October 15,16, 2025), and the Gropius House (upcoming November 12,13). The team’s next steps include a residency with creative programming at the Forbes Estate and performances at additional sites in the Spring of 2026.  

If you are interested in joining an audience at an historic site (or if you are an historic site interested in hosting NO SLEEPING), please fill out the form below.

NO SLEEPING Team:

Shana Dumont Garr

Deb Todd Wheeler

Sue Murad

Read more….

Cate McQuaid writes about NO SLEEPING in The Boston Globe, and Ocean in a Drop

Curator Shana Dumont Garr writes about NO SLEEPING in Medium.com