Tales from Woodcreek co-creators Deborah Ann Woll and Ed Gass-Donnelly, alongside player Anjali Bhimani, discuss their one-of-a-kind adventure.
Tales from Woodcreek puts something extremely unique out into the world and redefines the actual-play genre. This innovative unscripted series, featuring eight hour-long episodes, merges the imaginative tabletop role-playing of Dungeons & Dragons with the immersive, puzzle-solving excitement of an escape room.
Hosted by the show’s co-creator Deborah Ann Woll (Daredevil: Born Again), each episode follows four players – including stars like Anjali Bhimani (Ms. Marvel), Jessica Henwick (Iron Fist), and Iman Vellani (Ms. Marvel) – as they attempt to break a witch’s curse. The series’ unique look and feel is thanks to filming on location at the historic Black Creek Pioneer Village in Toronto, Canada, creating a truly physical adventure.
Mama’s Geeky sat down with co-creators Deborah Ann Woll and Ed Gass-Donnelly, alongside player Anjali Bhimani, to discuss this brilliant hybrid concept, the joy of on-location filming, and how the show aims to be the perfect “gateway drug” for new D&D enthusiasts.
The Immersion of Filming on Location
Mama’s Geeky: What is it like for you guys to film on location?
Anjali Bhimani: Imean, it’s awesome! Look, it’s this wonderful combination of all the different media that I get to work in. And I am a big fan of crossing the streams. We’re on location, so we feel like we’re filming somewhere. We’re playing D&D, so we feel like we’re doing so much to it. So it’s fantastic. And the place that they found, my God, Black Creek… if you’re ever in Toronto, you have to go to this place.
Deborah Ann Woll: Ed and I, we talk a lot about immersion for this game. And how do we bring people into the present? And how do we switch up their expectations of what actual play in D&D is? Things like you’re not going to sit at a table in a circle… you’re going to sit in desks, or you’re going to sit on the floor. It’s going to have a smell to it. I love the number of times that I got to say, “You’re in a room much like this one, the things that you see around you are the ones that you should see in your imagination.”
Anjali Bhimani: I’m really bad at theater of the mind in terms of spatial awareness. I’m just bad at it. So actually being able to be in the room is a huge relief for me.
The Origin of the Brilliant Hybrid Idea
Mama’s Geeky: Where did this idea come from?
Deborah Ann Woll: Ed had seen my show Relics and Rarities that I did a long time ago where I used a lot of physical props. That was my kind of like baby step way of going that. And then when Ed and I started talking about this, we were like, well, how do we take this to the nth degree? We found Black Creek village and we were like, this is so inspiring. And once we pick our locations, that’s going to help us determine a little bit of what the vibe is. I had to go… Ed and I were like, well, what are we good at? What makes it unique for us? And it was this idea of physical, tangible, immersive theater.
Ed Gass-Donnelly: Frankly, ignorance is bliss sometimes because I don’t think we knew what we were doing. There was a profound sense of joy and discovery. I know nothing about reality TV. So what am I bringing to this as a filmmaker? It was an early conversation with a friend that introduced me to a reality TV producer. And that was where the confessionals were born. Looking at the show The Traitors, I was like, that’s a neat hybrid. The format just grew out of us. That was all discovery. We don’t need to compete with people who are doing this so well. Let’s make something that’s uniquely ours.
Welcoming New Players and the Horror Element
Mama’s Geeky: Iman Vellani, for example, is completely new to D&D. How fun is that for you, Deborah, to welcome new players to this world?
Deborah Ann Woll: It’s my favorite thing in the world. I love new players. They have not yet figured out how to optimize, min-max, and metagame your story. We wanted this to be an experience that you could enjoy watching the show, even if you don’t know how to play D&D. As long as all you understand is that high is a better result and low is a worse result. Iman does not know the rules of D&D, probably still doesn’t, but she’s an imaginative, creative person. I’ve always said, you already know how to play D&D. It’s what you did at five years old on the play yard. I always suggest people play first because I think if you start with the books, you’ll get overwhelmed. I want to get you obsessed with this first. Then you can learn how to play.
Anjali Bhimani: I feel like this is a lovely gateway drug because… they’re seeing it in a language that they’re already used to seeing other things. So it feels more accessible in that way.
Mama’s Geeky: Anjali, what was it like reuniting with Iman on this?
Anjali Bhimani: That was so fun. Any chance I get to spend time with her is just so, so wonderful. Shooting Ms. Marvel, I knew she was already such a special person. It was such a labor of love, and it was such a special time. But what made it so, so special, I think, for everyone, for most of us on that set who got to spend time with her, was Iman. And what an incredible person she is, and how game she is, and how ready to play she is, and how she doesn’t suffer fools, and how she’s just a really my favorite. One of my favorite things about Iman is that she is so young. We get to watch her for a nice long time. And this is where she’s starting from.
Mama’s Geeky: I do want to talk about the horror elements of this because I’m a horror girl. What was it like getting to include that?
Deborah Ann Woll: I love good horror stories. Things that are written well that have good stories. For me, I go, “Every single person when I say you’re standing at the top of the basement stairs, you see the creaky wooden stairs go down into the darkness and there are cobwebs above,” that’s all we need. Writing, acting, storytelling is telepathy. Making this horror story was easy because I know what scares me and I know that I can communicate that.
Anjali Bhimani: Inside my heart is beating like this. And on the other hand, I’m looking, I’m constantly looking for danger. I have to figure it out. I have to figure out the danger, find the danger, find the danger, rather than sitting back and just watching something.
The Most Rewarding Part
Mama’s Geeky: Ed and Deborah, is there something that was most rewarding for you, or that you were most proud of pulling off?
Ed Gass-Donnelly: Honestly, it was just seeing it frankly working, sort of crying in the back room because… we wanted so much to delight people. And it is like, it’s, it’s, it’s like a surprise party and a live theater and a magic show. And that was the magic of it. The live nature of it… you just felt so rewarding when things, you know, that they experienced.
Deborah Ann Woll: Ed and I spent a year… just trying to create the biggest, best surprise party we could. And the first time we had that first break that we could see that it was working and everyone immediately broke and went, like, everyone was so excited and we were like, okay, it’s good. It’s working.
Describing Tales From Woodcreek
Mama’s Geeky: How would you all describe Tales From Woodcreek to somebody who knows nothing of this world?
Ed Gass-Donnelly: Dungeons and Dragons meets reality TV meets escape room. I think the key for us is by having a new player almost exclusively every episode, you kind of get to live vicariously through people discovering the joy of what we love.
Deborah Ann Woll: It’s sort of an immersive adventure played live, experienced live. It’s an adventure, it’s a mystery, and the ideas for it to be immersive, but also completely open-ended and improvised.
Anjali Bhimani: I always add haunted house to that list.
Deborah Ann Woll: And magic show. There is a joyous sleight of hands that we pull off that I think is really fun to do.
Deborah Ann Woll: And the idea of keeping it within the 45 minute to 90 minute range is really important to us. I wanted this to be an experience that, for those of us who are more limited in our passive entertainment, that you could jump in and enjoy this. I would always rather people leave wanting more than checking their watch.
Ed Gass-Donnelly: Actually a neat stat that I haven’t told you, Deb or Anjali, this is the YouTube behind the scenes, technical thing. At least for our first episode. Dungeon Dudes, they’re normally, I think like 85%, 75%, or 80%. I can’t remember the exact number, but a high number normally watch their content on their phones. And for Woodcreek, it was like 40% TV, then computer. And phone was actually like the smallest. People are actually sitting and watching it. I was such a joy. I love seeing that stat. Because yeah, it is on YouTube, but it TV was the vibe we wanted.
Tales from Woodcreek premiered on October 31st on the Dungeon Dudes YouTube channel.
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Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. On Camera personality and TV / Film Critic with 10+ years of experience in video editing, writing, editing, moderating, and hosting.