Cut Him Out in Little Stars

Four actors rehearse a four-handed adaptation of Romeo & Juliet, with the prospect of uploaded consciousness on the horizon. One directs. Another meta-directs, using techniques borrowed from directed freeform. A larp about longing, nostalgia, and redoing things over and over until you get them right.

Long Description

Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.

Four actors (one directing) rehearse an adaptation of Romeo & Juliet (Joe Calarco's R&J: four schoolboys putting it on in secret). Scenes will be played and replayed, adjusted by the director as they see fit. The rehearsal will be played and replayed, adjusted by the meta-director (and perhaps the GM) as they see fit. We will be playing with different layers of fiction, with some asymmetries between players (e.g. one character plays Student #1/Romeo, but has no directorial or meta duties), though the larp ultimately is more concerned with the actors and their relationships to one another than the fiction they are creating.

Immediate setting is 21st-century modern, but with the very-near prospect of uploaded consciousness (which one of the actors intends to explore). Lovingly borrows its sci-fi elements from the TV show Pantheon (no familiarity required). Characters can be any gender, though they all have roles in the in-fiction play as schoolboys playing one or more specific roles from Romeo & Juliet (Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, Tybalt, etc). Pervasive romantic/relationship threads at various levels of the fiction. A larp about longing, death, being unable to let go of things, and redoing things over and over and over and over.