8 Plays to Celebrate Your Inner Geek

Happy Embrace Your Geekness Day!

For those out there who have a passion for World of Warcraft, enjoy live action role play, or are a Comic Con enthusiast, here is a list of our top eight plays and musicals for you! What would conventionally be characterized as “geek theatre” lies a diverse genre of plays and musicals exploring human relationships and experiences through virtual worlds and fantasy. Celebrate today with one of these exciting reads that embraces the geekiness in all of us!

In Love and Warcraft by Madhuri Shekar: Evie Malone – gamer girl, college senior, and confirmed virgin – has it all figured out. Not only does she command a top-ranked guild in Warcraft with her online boyfriend; she also makes a little cash on the side writing love letters for people who’ve screwed up their relationships. Love is like Warcraft, after all. It’s all about strategies, game plans, and not taking stupid risks. Well, that’s what she thinks…until she actually falls for a guy. In real life. No amount of gaming expertise will help her out when she finds herself with a non-virtual, totally real, and incredibly cute boyfriend, who wants more from her than she’s willing to give. 3m, 3f.

Leveling Up by Deborah Zoe Laufer: From the award-winning playwright of End Days, Deborah Zoe Laufer, comes a story about three twenty-something roommates who are glued to their video games. They are masters of the virtual worlds behind the computer screens in their Las Vegas basement. When one of them uses his gaming skills to land a job with the National Security Agency launching actual drones and missiles, online battles begin to have real consequences. Leveling Up is a fresh, contemporary look at how we navigate the blurry line between worlds both virtual and real and what it means to grow up. 3m, 1f.

Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom by Jennifer Haley: In a suburban subdivision with identical houses, parents find their teenagers addicted to an online horror video game. The game setting? A subdivision with identical houses. The goal? Smash through an army of zombies to escape the neighborhood for good. But as the line blurs between virtual and reality, both parents and players realize that fear has a life of its own. 2m, 2f.

She Kills Monsters by Qui Nguyen: A comedic romp into the world of fantasy role-playing games, She Kills Monsters tells the story of Agnes Evans as she leaves her childhood home in Ohio following the death of her teenage sister, Tilly. When Agnes finds Tilly’s Dungeons & Dragons notebook, however, she stumbles into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was Tilly’s refuge. In this high-octane dramatic comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and 90s pop culture, acclaimed young playwright Qui Nguyen offers a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all. 3m, 6f.

Begets: Fall of a High School Ronin by Qui Nguyen: In this action-packed samurai story set inside the halls of an all-American high school, Begets: Fall of a High School Ronin tells the tale of Emi Edwards, a high school geekgurl whose fighting to overthrow the cruel shoguns of her school. However in her journey to right wrongs, will her own cravings for popularity and power corrupt her quest to save the school? Will she able to establish a new world order? Or will violence just beget more violence? 3m, 5f.

Six Rounds of Vengeance by Qui Nguyen: In a post-apocalyptic “Lost Vegas”, a young gunslinger named Jess December enlists the help of a mysterious samurai cowboy to help avenge the murder of her sister. However the gang they’ll be going against has powers that go way beyond just gunpowder and steel. To get revenge, they may have to become just as blood-thirsty as the monsters they’re facing. 3m, 2f.

Geek! by Crystal Skillman: With pissed-off Pikachus, steam punk armies, stood-up Sailor Moons and roller-blading monsters on the prowl, it’s easy to get lost in the Inferno-esque anime convention where the fans, the otakus, and the geeks prowl. But to score a rare meeting with their comic book idol, teenage outcasts Dayna and Honey will take on obsessive magic players, Jedis and elfs, cosplayers and convention guards – through all nine flights of Ohio’s Dante’s Fire-Con. But when the dark nature of their quest breaks through the fantasy of these girls cos-playing – they find that no game can mask the deep loss they’ve recently shared … unless they truly discover who they are. 2m, 4f.

Future Thinking by Eliza Clark: Middle-aged super fan Peter finds himself in a makeshift interrogation room at the mercy of Comic Con security after violating the restraining order placed against him by his favorite television starlet. Meanwhile, spoiled starlet Chiara is holed up in a hotel suite with her stage mom and bodyguard, trapped by the demands that come with being a rising star. Peter is determined to fulfill his destiny: a meeting with the twenty-three-year-old where he can deliver her an important and mysterious message. All Chiara wants is for her mom and her bodyguard to get lost, preferably together. Everyone has a fantasy, and soon they’ll collide with each other, and with reality. 3m, 5f.