The production ‘A Thousand Ways’ offers participants a connection during the pandemic

You can’t see “A Thousand Ways: A Phone Call,” opening Sept. 9 at Seattle’s On the Boards, because the world premiere production takes place over the phone.

You can’t just listen to it, either, but you can be part of it.

If you buy a ticket to the hour-long theatrical experience, you’ll receive a phone number to call at the time you’ve chosen. You’ll find yourself on the phone with another participant selected at random, and the two of you will be guided in your encounter by a recorded narrator.

“You and a stranger get connected,” said Rachel Cook, On the Boards’ artistic director. “I did one of the rehearsals, and I found myself trying to imagine who this other person was and even thought I recognized their voice as someone I knew. It’s almost like your brain is longing for that instant intimate connection with someone who is familiar.”

The “show” — the first in a planned trilogy of experiences about human connection during the global pandemic — is the creation of Abigail Browde and Michael Silverstone, a wife-husband team that makes theater under the name 600 Highwaymen.

The Brooklyn-based duo, who were in residence at On the Boards in 2016, is known for creating work that turns audience members into participants.

“We are exploring a radical approach to making live art, constructing events that create intimacy among a group of strangers,” Browde and Silverstone wrote in their press kit. “Developed using creative methods ranging from the mainstream to the peculiar, our work is a rigorously tuned investigation of presence and humanity.”

“We all possess a natural, physical instinct — and an ability — to communicate with one another, to connect,” New York Times critic Charles Isherwood wrote of “The Fever,” which the 600 Highwaymen tested during their time in Seattle. “We just aren’t in the habit of using it, except among a small circle of intimates. … ‘The Fever’ seeks to break down those unseen walls we all put up around us, to acknowledge that we are all here. Together. Now.”

“A Thousand Ways” was originally conceived as a single in-person performance in which two audience members connected in person, again guided by a recorded narrator.

It debuted in July at the Festival Theaterformen in Braunschweig, Germany. After staging it, Browde and Silverstone realized they wanted to make it the second part of a trilogy that would take its audience from the isolation of “A Phone Call” to an in-person experience and finally to a large-group gathering.

On the Boards is hoping to present the second part, “An Encounter,” in a physically distanced way in November, staging it at various times in the company’s two theaters. “I’m watching how museums are reopening right now, because it would be almost like a timed installation,” Cook told The Olympian.

There’s no telling when the theater will be able to stage the final part, “A Congregation,” intended to be a large gathering open to those who participated in the earlier parts and to others as well.

“The third act is really meant to be one of the first moments that we gather when we can gather again,” Cook said.

“It feels like we could be in this for the next year, if not longer,” she said. “I’m hopeful that this will be one of many projects that will have this iterative form that will carry us through.”

‘A Thousand Ways’

• What: The latest production from Seattle’s On the Boards is an hourlong phone conversation between you and someone else, most likely a stranger. The “show” is the first in a planned trilogy of experiences about human connection during the global pandemic.
• When: Sept. 9-27
• Tickets: $20-$35
• More information: https://www.ontheboards.org/performances/a-thousand-ways