The King's Players - Discussion/Planning Thread

[Mnemosyne]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Ah, well, I like the sound of this.


Couldn't that become an interesting plot complication?

I like where you're going with that.

As far as historical theater goes, I have no problem whatsoever with curious resemblances. Of course, the great era for travelling theater companies seems to be the medieval period, and I do think that the presence of theater in Gondor is either a recent development or a renaissance of sorts.

Since I'm imagining this as "popular entertainment" I do think that there are standard tropes in order to appeal to as massive an audience as possible. Think Shakespeare's bawdy humor, even in serious tragedies, or the modern-day need to insert a love interest in every action film... The most extreme example of this that I can think of is Bollywood. And I love the idea of the dragon, Nerwen.

The other main factor would be their source(s) of information.

And for that, I'm taking this as my cue:

Originally Posted by Ioreth, "The Steward and the King

Why, cousin, one of them went with only his esquire into the Black Country and fought with the Dark Lord all by himself, and set fire to his Tower, if you can believe it.

That, plus twenty years. Of course, in that time I imagine some more official histories have come up (though Minas Anor does not yet have a copy of the Red Book)--otherwise no one would understand why the holiday is called "Ring-Day."

I do think that there would be both actors and actresses. We also might want to think about stock characters, and whether certain people would always play the same part--the clown, the ingenue, the tragedian, etc.

On patronage: I could see us functioning with or without a current patron. But whoever that is would have to not know, or not care about historical accuracy! That could also be taken care of by having the troupe originally having started out somewhere like Dale... after all, Elessar isn't the only King...

Thank you all for your interest and suggestions!