D&D slant crucial element in play
Character in Confetti Stage production re-examines family through role playing
Experience with the game Dungeons and Dragons and other nerd credentials aren’t required for attendance at “She Kills Monsters.” A penchant for fantasy and fun will do you just fine. Qui Nguyen’s one-act comedy is filled with elves, goblins and sorcerers plus some D&D terms like modules, campaigns and initiatives. The real-life portions of the show are set the mid-1990s when the game was rising in popularity and the main character is Agnus Evans. She’s very human and rather confused as she takes her first steps into the fantasy realm. A new production by Confetti Stage opens Friday and runs for six more performances through Sunday, April 2, at the Albany Masonic Lodge.
The 25-year old Agnus, played by Ash Visker, lives in rural Athens, Ohio, and is said to be average in every way. She teaches high school in the same school where she graduated and where her much younger sister Tilly, played by Sydney Davis, also attended. But Tilly is gone now, having died two years prior in a terrible car accident that also killed their parents. The sisters weren’t close, mostly because of the difference in their ages, and now Agnus is intent on learning more about who Tilly really was.
Among the effects her sister left behind, Agnus found a large notebook filled with lots of names, events and maps. She shows it to her friend Chuck, played by Alex Grandin, who quickly identifies what they’ve got is Tilly’s D&D log. Agnus insists that she wants to play the game, and Chuck agrees to be her Dungeon Master (guide). Venturing into Tilly’s campaign (scenario), Agnus encounters a magical but challenging realm that’s populated by a multitude of other worldly characters and creatures portrayed by the balance of the 10-member cast. Along the way, she uncovers her sister’s motivations, longings and secrets.
“You’ll find a lot of D&D players take notes on all the ways a story could go. There are choices at each crossroad that branch out to new adventures,” director Sean T. Baldwin said. “On
Tilly’s campaign, Agnus sees parallels to her sister’s story in things like being bullied and relationships she couldn’t talk about, also wish fulfillment.”
“She Kills Monsters” premiered in 2011 at the Off Broadway Flea Theater and soon became a popular phenomenon in regional theater. According to a New York Times report in spring 2020, within the decade after its debut, the show was produced just short of 800 times with about 80 percent of those productions being at schools and colleges. Locally, the Saratoga Children’s Theater staged it just last year.
Nguyen, the playwright, co-wrote the screenplay for the 2021 Disney-animated film “Reya and the Last Dragon.” He has also done projects with Netflix, Syfy and PBS and won a Daytime Emmy Award for the series “Peg+cat.” During the period when he wrote “She Kills Dragons,” Nguyen was a principal in the New York troupe known as Vampire Cowboys. The show’s wide success led to a young adult version of the script in which most of the characters are of student age. After the start of the pandemic, Nguyen adapted it again for an online version that’s set in 2020.
In the Confetti Stage production, Baldwin says his team is going for a strong contrast between the two worlds that Agnus navigates, something like the shift that Dorothy experiences going from dreary old Kansas to the colorful land of Oz. The lighting design is by Laura Darling, a versatile and busy local thespian who’s appearing in “The Revolutionists” at the Schenectady Civic Playhouse. Sound designer is Brian Starnes. Along with pop and rock hits from the 1990s, sitcom soundtracks of the era (think “Saved by the Bell”) are used during set changes.
While some in the cast and crew needed instruction in the particulars of D&D, most of them had a level of experience and Baldwin said the play’s connection to the game attracted a healthy turnout for auditions. He sees further evidence of a new popularity for D&D in current pop culture. One example is the Netflix suspense thriller series “Stranger Things” in which the monsters are given names straight out of the D&D playbook.
Maybe “mythology” or “pantheon” would be a term more acceptable to purists than “playbook” but there are indeed plenty of books out there to help you start your first campaign. Baldwin recommends three titles — “Players Handbook,” “Monster Manual” and “Dungeon Master’s Guide” — and said that D&D is well represented on podcasts such as “Critical Role.”
“You can thumb through the books or watch a campaign that’s streaming, or just do a trial by fire. Get some friends together and roll the dice,” Baldwin said. If you don’t have friends who are game, there are open D&D events regularly at Zombie Planet Comics & Games in Albany and at Bard and Baker: Board Game Cafe in Albany and Troy.
Perhaps part of the enduring appeal of fantasy games like D&D lies in the mysterious possibility that fantasy can facilitate growth. “It’s a form of escapism,” Baldwin said. “In the play, Tilly is discovering who she is but having trouble actualizing that in real life. So she gets to see what life would be like if I was someone different.”