It was based primarily on William Shakespeare's Macbeth, with additional inspiration taken from noir films (especially those of Alfred Hitchcock) and the 1697 Paisley witch trials.

[7][8] Sleep No More adapted the story of Macbeth, deprived of nearly all spoken dialogue and set primarily in a dimly-lit, 1930s-era establishment called the McKittrick Hotel.

Despite its aesthetics and theming, Sleep No More was not a haunted attraction, although it did feature dark and supernatural elements and audience members were warned that they might experience "intense psychological situations.

After a coat check, they would "check-in" to the hotel at a themed reception desk and receive a playing card, which was used to determine when they would enter the show.

This structure allowed audience members to view the story from multiple perspectives by choosing different characters to follow or rooms to explore in each loop.

Because audience members were released in groups staggered throughout the first hour of the performance, they were not able to view the entire first loop and typically began to enter during the ball that Lady Macbeth throws in Duncan's honor.

However, there were a few scripted moments where, upon making eye contact with a specific audience member of their choosing, an actor might give them a task, whisper in their ear, or lead them into a small, private encounter.

Many of the residences contained letters between characters that audience members were welcome to read at their leisure; some of these were written on stationary from the McKittrick and include its logo and address.

Trees, symbolizing the Birnam Wood prophecy in Macbeth, could be found in the ballroom, as a chess set in the hotel lobby, and in Malcolm's office.

Orchestral music was also played throughout and, in keeping with the inspiration from Vertigo and Rebecca, it came mostly from Bernard Herrmann's scores to Alfred Hitchcock films.

Notable songs include: Sleep No More was first produced at the Beaufoy Building in London in 2003 and was later renewed in a 2009 collaboration with Boston's American Repertory Theatre at the Old Lincoln School in Brookline, Massachusetts.

[20] April Fool's Day in 2012 and 2024 featured special performances called Sleep No More: Remixed, in which all music usually accompanying the production was replaced.

[22] The online participants were able to enter text via a web portal and receive real-time audio and visual input from the audience member's mask.

The experiment seems to have had numerous issues, including uncomfortable masks, technical problems, and participants missing cues to follow the intended story.

The Shanghai production of Sleep No More is housed in a disused building five stories high, renamed the "McKinnon Hotel", in the Jing'an District of the city.

The original cast list credits the following: Critics have favorably compared the production to other works from a wide range of media, with New York Magazine's Scott Brown referencing BioShock, Lost, Inception, and M. C. Escher, and The New York Times’ Ben Brantley referencing Stanley Kubrick, Joseph Cornell, David Lynch and Disney's Haunted Mansion.

[14] The production is mostly wordless, prompting The New Yorker's Hilton Als to write: "Because language is abandoned outside the lounge, we’re forced to imagine it, or to make narrative cohesion of events that are unfolding right before our eyes.

"[34] Testimonials for Sleep No More have also been given by such celebrities as Neil Patrick Harris, Brendon Urie, Leslie Odom, Jr., Evan Rachel Wood, and Aaron Paul, all of whom have also appeared as guest characters in the production.

[45] Further reporting has found similar issues in other immersive shows,[46] although the anonymity provided by audience masks in Sleep No More may have inadvertently encouraged such behavior and made it harder to identify perpetrators.

[47] Following this report, a line was added to the pre-show speech telling audience members to keep a respectful distance from actors and intimacy coordinators were hired in 2019.