FAQs

How does character “casting” work?

If you are allocated a ticket, you will be invited to fill out a form to give an indication of the sort of character you would like to play or themes you’d like to explore (or avoid!), and then you will be “cast” in a particular role - for example, if you like the idea of playing with genderbending, you might be given a character background for Viola from “Twelfth Night” or Rosalind from “As You Like It”; if you’d like to play someone with magical powers, you might be cast as one of the three witches from “Macbeth” or Puck from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and if you want to play an entertainer, you might be cast as the Player King or Player Queen from “Hamlet”, Feste from “Twelfth Night”, or Bottom from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

There are about twice as many player character sheets available for each playscript as player slots, although not all can be starting roles - if your character dies, you can be “recast” in any of the unclaimed roles, so it is advisable to bring at least one change of clothing! You will also be given information on “understudy” parts in advance, so you know what roles to prepare for if your first character dies.

How much do I need to know about Shakespeare?
Very little! You will be given a brief character background for who that character is and what has happened to them in their story so far at the point of the game beginning, as well as told who else is from the same story as you. Crucially, once the game times in, all of the stories have already deviated from canon - Macbeth never met Hamlet, Cleopatra didn’t know Romeo, and Benedick and Beatrice did not encounter the Faeries of the Athenian Woodlands in their stories as scripted. Your Shakespearean character and origin-story playscript is only a starting point - from there, it is highly probable that the known narratives will be entirely unrecognisable by the time we reach “time out”!

Which characters are available for me to play?

There are playable characters (and “understudy” parts if your first character dies) available from four comedies (“Much Ado About Nothing”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Twelfth Night” and “As You Like It”) and five tragedies squished together to make four (“Romeo & Juliet”, “Macbeth”, “Hamlet”, and then combining “Julius Caesar” and “Antony and Cleopatra” into a singular tragic Roman grouping). There are also NPC character sheets for roles in each of the above plays, as well as from “The Tempest” and “Othello” - those two plays’ characters are exclusively available to NPC plot crew, and characters from other works are not playable characters for this game.

Have you made any changes to the characters and plays?

Yes! For example, “The Tempest”, “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Twelfth Night” each have a character named “Antonio”; in the lore of “The Play’s the Thing LRP”, these are all one singular (NPC) individual. Likewise “Sebastian” from both “The Tempest” and “Twelfth Night” have also been merged into a single (NPC) role. As mentioned, the plays of “Julius Caesar” and “Antony and Cleopatra” have been blended into a single cast for a Roman tragedy for the purposes of the game. Other characters have been “blended”, like “Prince Paris Escalus” in “Romeo and Juliet”, or “Margaret Ursula” in “Much Ado About Nothing”. Several characters have been adapted for the game, and more info will be provided in character briefing packs.

What are the costume requirements?

Shakespeare has been performed in every variety of genre and theme - from Early Modern doublets, gowns and ruffs, to Steampunk, Dieselpunk and futuristic productions, to t-shirts and jeans and more minimalist wardrobes. As such, the only restrictions on costume are that there is no nudity, and that any weapons used are LARP-safe swords and melee weapons (no guns for combat use within the system). You are welcome to put in as much or as little time, effort and financial resources as you are willing or able to for your costuming; each character will be given a slight flavour/suggestions for the sort of thing to aim for (eg Hamlet should ideally wear black clothing, although this is not compulsory), but ultimately, all costuming choices (that don’t violate the no-nudity rule) are valid; at some point in the past ~450 years, it’s likely that whatever costume choices you make could fit into some theatrical production or other!

Do I need to speak in “Shakespearean” English?

The short answer is “no” - we are not expecting anyone to try and maintain Early Modern dialect, and especially not to attempt to spend a weekend speaking in blank verse/iambic pentameter. People in Elizabethan and Jacobean England also did not speak in poetry in their day to day lives, and there is no expectation whatsoever for your characters to attempt to do so. If you want to add particular flavour to your speech, then writing sonnets is a specific magical mechanic within the game (alchemy) and that’s an area where you can take the time to think about things like meter and rhyme if you’re keen for that sort of thing. It’s also up to you if you would like to incorporate any particular “Shakespearean” elements to Masques (magical plays-within-the-play) or monologues, for magical effect - but there is no expectation for your typical dialogue in-character to sound especially “Shakespearean” at all.

What if I really want to use thee/thou/thy/thine all the time?

There will be no mechanical benefit or consequence in-game for choosing to employ usage of this sort of language in your day-to-day encounters in-character. If you are keen to do so, here is a brief guide for how this works (although emphasising that this is entirely optional and not a requirement of playing this game):

Where “thee/thou/thy/thine” are used in place of “you/your/yours”, this is typically to either indicate an informal or more intimate relationship, or that the person you are speaking to is of lower status than yourself.
- Employing “thee/thou/thy/thine” when speaking to royalty (that you are not emotionally close to or of a similar status to) is a way to indicate a deliberate insult of inappropriate familiarity/derision, and speaking to an enemy with “thee/thou/thy/thine” is potentially a way to show aggression/an invitation to fight.
Similarly, “you/your/yours” is often used for more formal conversations, to show respect to someone of a higher status, or to show emotional distance. Speaking to a family member or lover with “you/your/yours”, (only if you have otherwise been using “thou/thee” rather than default modern “you”) could indicate some emotional distance/a breakdown or strain on that relationship, but it could also be interpreted as showing respect.

If (optionally) choosing to use “thou/thee/thy/thine”, here is a brief linguistics guide:

“Thou” replaces “you” as the subject - that is to say, if instead of referring to “you” you might use “I” in the first person, or “he/she/they” in the third person, then “thou” is the version you’re looking for. If the phrase would have been “you are”, then the verb “are” becomes “art”; “thou art a villain”.
“Thee” replaces “you” as the object - that is to say to you. If, in a sentence, you might have used “me” in the first person, or “him/her/them” in the third person, then “thee” is the version you’re looking for; “I must tell thee that I love thee”.
“Thy” replaces “your” as the possessive, where in the first person you might use the word “my”; “Give me thy hands”.
- However, if the next word begins with a vowel, you use “thine”; “thine eyes are like stars”.

“Thine” replaces “yours” as the possessive, where in the first person you might use the word “mine”; “My crown is thine”.
“Thyself” is the reflexive to replace “yourself”, the same way that one might use “myself” in the first person, or “himself/herself/themself” in the third person; “Look within thyself”.
If you are especially keen to utilise early modern grammar, then we recommend looking up other verb forms that are affected: e.g. the verb “to be” includes “art”, “be’st”, “wast” and “wert”; the verb “to have” includes “hast”, “hath” and “hads’t”; the verb “to do” includes “doth”, “dost” and “did’st” - and that’s not even considering modals for “cans’t”, “wilt”, “shalt”, “woulds’t” and such(!)

No one will penalise you for either not using archaic language, or for slipping up with it - but if you are especially keen to use “thou/thee/thy/thine” etc, it is usually easiest to imagine how the sentence would sound with “I/me/my/mine” if you ever want to “check”. However, simply using 21st century English is the expected “standard”.