XP Op-Ed

Everyone’s a Storyteller, but Few Are Doing the Work

The word storytelling is everywhere right now. In decks. In bios. In strategy docs that never make it past slide twelve. The skepticism is earned. But in experiential, storyteller isn’t a tagline. It’s the difference between work that holds and work that fades. It’s structure, pacing, and discipline. I felt this immediately walking into Masquerade, an immersive adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera staged across six floors of a former retail building in Midtown Manhattan. STORYTELLING DONE RIGHT: MASQUERADE Before anything began, the story had already started. Guests gathered upstairs dressed in black, white and silver, masks in hand. A violinist played nearby. Actors moved quietly through the room, making eye contact before taking someone gently by the hand. Nothing was explained, but everyone understood how to behave. The structure was doing the storytelling. From there, the experience guided us through ballrooms, corridors and rooftops in a deliberate sequence. Each transition changed our proximity to the Phantom and revealed more of his world. Context came first and then emotion followed. At the beginning, I watched from the edge. Later, I stood beside Christine. Eventually, I followed the Phantom into darker spaces and encountered fragments of his past that reshaped...