On the city streets, it will still be 2020. But inside Dance Loft on 14, starting Saturday night, it will be the year 2040, and Americans will be reckoning with a domestic terror attack that occurred in 2030. The arts facility in Northwest D.C. is transforming into the National Museum of American Reconciliation, a fictionalized institution where scholars, politicians, and survivors have gathered for a dedication ceremony.

That’s the premise of Museum 2040 by Renee Calarco, an interactive play from 4615 Theatre Company that artistic director Jordan Friend calls “the most creatively daring thing” the indie company has ever done.

Like shows from local theater company TBD Immersive or in last year’s The Smuggler from Solas Nua, audience members aren’t just passive attendees. They double as the new museum’s invited guests—which makes it hard to describe the show to people, especially without spoiling the surprise.

“Oh my God, that’s been the big challenge. Short-term advertising is next to impossible for this show,” Friend says. “You put up a poster and people go, ‘What the hell is that?’”

4615 Theatre, which is concluding its third season, has experience with site-specific, immersive shows like this: The company took over a Bethesda pub for its last show, A Measure of Cruelty. For Museum 2040, they took the immersive experience online, creating a pretty convincing website for their fake Museum of American Reconciliation.

Each night, when Museum 2040 begins, audience members will spend the first half hour exploring the museum. (Capacity is capped at 30 people per show.) There will be “artifacts” on display and original video streaming throughout the exhibit. As attendees browse, the cast—portraying fellow guests, security staff, curators, and keynote speakers—will be spread out through the museum. Depending where an attendee is standing, they might witness interesting exchanges, or even chat with the actors.

“You’re in a fully lived out space that you’re simply the last ingredient in,” says Friend, who’s directing the show. “At its core, it’s challenging the conventions of what even constitutes a play.”

After the opportunity to explore the museum, the event shifts into a panel discussion, during which the actors will talk about what it’s like to live in the year 2040. Americans are assumed to have been experiencing aftershocks since the 2030 attack, Friend says, and the museum symbolizes an attempt to pick up the pieces and take stock of what happened 10 years earlier. The cast has been training in improv and memorized 15 pages of fictional history, and they’ll answer audience questions during the discussion.

At some point, it all goes off the rails. Something “exciting” happens at the museum, redirecting the course of the evening, Friend says—opting not to reveal more to keep the surprise intact.

Playwright Calarco initially wrote the monologue that would evolve into Museum 2040 about six years ago, as a project for The Welders, the local playwrights’ collective she helped found. Then, once Donald Trump was elected president, she realized that “anything I had invented in this fictional museum world was quickly eclipsed by actual events.” So she revisited the play and sent it to Friend about a year ago. They collaborated closely to turn it into the production that’s about to debut.

Museum 2040 is a complicated piece, Calarco says, and she hopes attendees will approach the event with the mindset that they’re truly living in 2040.

“I want people to walk out, if not with a sense of hope, then with a sense that things will be OK,” she says. “Mostly I want people to be able to see each other and recognize each other’s common humanity.”

The play is “insane,” Friend promises, but those worried that participating in a performance is outside their comfort zone need not stay home. The experience is designed so guests can be as immersed in or separated from the experience as they’d like, opting to tour the museum and keep to themselves or chatting up the actors.

Cast member Shaquille Stewart, who’s been performing for years, says he’s never been challenged to the extent that he is in Museum 2040. “What’s really cool is that we’re giving the audience the chance to come and be within our world, and draw their own narratives as to what the story is about and how they feel,” he says. “There’s a big risk involved, but at the same time, win or lose, we win. It’s going to make people have a conversation.”

Museum 2040 runs at Dance Loft on 14 from March 7-29. Tickets $20, $16.50 for patrons under 30. Runtime approximately 100 minutes.