[Monthly Contest Vote] September Playbill

[limetom]

Vote here. Contest thread elsewhere. As several people were dirty cheats and tried to post after the deadline, I have decided to punish them by including them in the voting. :) I've also set some fancy settings, like the poll expires without me doing anything. And nobody can see the votes until the poll has expired. I am a benevolent dictator.

Setting: Amethyst Isles of Rimecroft by Elemental_Elf

[ic=The Prance of Dragons]
This puppet theatre play originates on and has only ever been staged on the Songwillow isle. It is an inspiring musical created by an anonymous playwright, and is being performed by traveling puppeteer troupes. The play depicts the events that transpired after the awakening of the dragon Rueserond. Despite it's grim subject matter, The Prance of Dragons is decidedly upbeat in tone, celebrating the heroism and continued survival of the peoples of Songwillow in the face of adversity. It has become very popular among the lower class folks, who find it's optimistic flair a welcome relief from the hardships and peril of their lives.

The cast of characters includes the major heroes, political leaders and other notable personages of the time, portrayed as flamboyant puppet characters acted with exaggerated signature mannerisms. The play culminates in a spectacular finale featuring a choreographized battle between two mechanical dragon-puppets representing Viasarius and Rueserond, each of which requires a team of several puppeteers to operate. Being a musical, The Prance of Dragons includes numerous scenes and interludes of jovial singing accompanied by the playing of lutes and pipes.[/ic]

Setting: The Middle Lands of Keltor
This play is based on a story of the same name found in the Saga of Tazral, a six volume collection of stories from the life Tazral Kalistic before he became the first emperor of the Middle Land Empire.  These stories have been known and loved across the Empire for a bit over four-hundred years.  Stories from the Saga of Tazral are commonly adapted for plays and songs and painting and just about any other form of art in the Empire.  There are even bards that specialize in songs, poems, and the stories of the Saga.

[ic=Troll Bridge of Camdon County]
Largely a cautionary tale with a fair amount of fighting and humor, this the story of Tazral's adventures in Camdon County.  Set as three act play, the first act sets the stage and introduces the main characters, the Count, his court, the sable boy, the inn keeper, and the troll.  This act ends with the arrival and little needed introduction of our hero Tazral.  In the second act, things get complex and by its end the tax crazy Count has ordered Tazral arrested, lost half his riches to a wager with the troll under the bridge, and is living in the inn keeper's root cellar with two white rats and bags of gold taken from the taxes.   The final act shows Tazral, the hero, saving the people of Camdon from the inept rule of the greedy Count and his court, defeat the villainous troll on his bridge, return the inn keeper's inn to him, and knight the stable boy for his courageous acts of valor.  Tazral leaves Camdon County in a better state than he found it.
[/ic]

This story is popular as an everyman tale, having warnings to use ones common sense and heed the advice of those that know more than you do.  It is a bit of a morality tale but does not hammer the viewer harshly with its message.  While the general tale of the play is the same all over, the details do differ a bit from place to place.  This is largely due to what plays best with the local audience.

Setting: Bastard's Bastards

[ic=So Spins the Lonely Moons]Composed by the legendary invertebrate maestro Phunt the Spineless as an equinoctial present for the poly-hermaphroditic royal family of the Riagge Conglomeration, So Spins the Lonely Moons is truly the ancient virtuoso's magnum opus. An opera in seven parts that is equally an epic tragedy and a shocking grand guignol, it celebrates some of the most timeless of themes: honor and loyalty, an innocent love, a most forbidden lust, a betrayal, a murder, a loss, a rescue, every scene elevated by Phunt's notoriously-dark wit and brilliant wordplay. While achieved with great enthusiasm by its patrons in the Conglomeration, when the royal opera company began its decade-long tour of both the Inner Spheres and the Rim, the reaction was substantially more...confused. See, the guul, the most numerous species in the Riagge Confederation and sole constituents of its ruling houses, have no less than two biological sexes apiece which shift periodically according to a cycle that is innate to them and utterly confounding to just about everyone else, as well as some of the most elaborate and disconcerting mating rituals ever recorded, all of which is most prominently displayed during the sadomasochistic spawning orgy-turned-regicidal massacre at the opera's climax. So while So Spins the Lonely Moons was nightmare of opera aficionados and the bane of critics everywhere, it was an overnight sensation among the teeming masses of uncultured groundlings looking for fresh material to mock. During the original tour, it was often difficult to hear the atonal singing over the enthusiastic heckling from the cheap seats, though the crowds did mellow significantly after an overripe fruit chucked at the lead soprano was answered by shir security detail incinerating several dozen attendees. However, once the opera entered the public domain and no longer carried the threat of brutal Conglomeration reprisals, its popularity skyrocketed, especially along the Rim. It's nearly impossible to fire a coilgun and not hit a Rimworld playhouse doing an underground version of So Spins It's a particular favorite of Bastard's Bastards, who are responsible for some of the choicest heckles and most impressive post-performance riots. After a long campaign, there's nothing quite like finding a cozy little pub, getting hammered on beer not made from your own piss, and watching a troupe of amateurs is guulish costumes ranging from gaudy to grotesque wail notes their vocal cords weren't designed to reach while either engaged in savagely full-contact stage fighting or pantomiming sexual acts as absurd as they are explicit. Phunt themselves actually molted long before they could ever see the piece of lowbrow exploitation their masterpiece has been degraded to, though rumors abound that their polyps have been spotted attending some of the more extravagant of Rimworld productions.[/ic]

Fun fact, this famous line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is no longer intelligible to modern English speakers--though nobody has told them that. Juliet is actually asking "Romeo, why are you Romeo?", meaning a member of the Montague family, the sworn enemies of her family, the Capulets.

New contest will be up soonish, so for all you procrastinators (read: everybody), you'll have another go soon enough.

[LD]

"prominently displayed during the sadomasochistic spawning orgy-turned-regicidal massacre at the opera's climax. "
I admit, that is one of the most unique plays I've heard about :fear:
Seems like Rocky Horror.

[Fortunato]

As several people were dirty cheats and tried to post after the deadline, I have decided to punish them by including them in the voting. :)

:D

[Fortunato]

Congratz Superbright!

[limetom]

Congratulations to Superbright, the winner of last month's contest!

A new contest will be up soon-ish.