The Show Must Go On…
During the Siege of Orgrimmar, years ago, two visionaries saw a world beset by fear of tyranny and lacking in spirit and good humor. From the ashen cradle of the Tirisfal Glades, and the mind and pockets of a man from Silvermoon City, talent from far and wide was brought together to find a solution to the world’s woes, but through the art of performance rather than the art of war.
Thus began the Tirisfal Theatre, a group of performers who have long held the belief that service to one’s people is to leave them with hope and high spirits, with laughter and song, with spectacle and wonder.
Whether it be by the soul of a play, or the heart of a fireworks show, one thing is certain; when the Tirisfal Theatre is in town, you know fun is about to be had.
Who Are We?
Summary
Who are we? More like who aren’t we! Actors, actresses, musicians, dancers, writers, directors, and folks from all walks of life! We’re a theatrical performance guild with an established history on Wyrmrest Accord!
Established by Father Irreverent of the Church of the Forgotten Shadow, and Lord Atos Sunhart of the Silvermoon Thespian Society prior, the Tirisfal Theatre Troupe has been performing for Wyrmrest Accord for nearly 7 years as of October 2020. In 2019, Atos stepped down from leadership and passed the mantle to Director Fehl, who led the troupe until recently when she too had to focus on IRL priorities. Atos has returned to the role of Director as of August 2020, with renewed purpose and passion. While long hiatuses have been somewhat typical in the past few years for us, we are back with renewed purpose and direction, and ready to bring the show back to Azeroth and beyond!
First and foremost, we are a roleplaying guild, with events taking place primarily mid-week, and sometimes on weekends for particularly large shows - all events typically in the evenings between the hours of 6 PM server and 8 PM server starting time. We function based on the server’s time and plan our events around a median of which all cast members can make, because we are, as our name suggests, a guild that performs plays.
The plays we do are mostly written in-house, though we have several from outside the guild as well. What makes us unique is the fact that all of our plays are written and performed with a certain expectation and mark of quality. We rehearse things such as placement, line delivery, and the use of toys, spells, and other in-game effects to provide a unique visual aid for our stories. It isn’t something as mundane as reading off of a script, or even copying and pasting, as we do tend to trail off into improvisation from time to time as well, making no two shows truly alike.
Another thing that sets us apart as a guild is that we allow membership that does not have to leave their current guild to perform with us! With the advent of programs such as Discord and features like the community manager, the guild is more for…show, more so than anything else. While officer ranks are required to be part of the guild itself, members can be from any other guild and not have to quit to be a part of us.
This also means we accept Alliance membership, though some of our events do take place in Horde territory, as that is where many of our characters are tethered. That being said, we do try to make sure our events are in neutral areas as often as we can, even if a few events might slip through the cracks.
It should go without saying, but we are also an all-inclusive guild comprised of mature people and have a zero-tolerance policy for drama, hate speech, etc. Most if not all of us are adults who have no desire to deal with bigotry or immaturity of any sort, and we’re not here to tell people to play nice, so please…play nice. On that note, if a member of our guild or community exhibits such behaviors, please notify one of us with a screenshot of the behavior and we will deal with it promptly.
What Do We Do
Summary
As mentioned previously and…well, more or less all over the guild’s ad, we perform plays, both written in-house and from submissions. Over the years, we’ve done over thirty different shows, with the biggest and most well-known productions being but not limited to;
- The Hellsqueal Trilogy ( a comedy about the life and downfall of former Warchief Garrosh Hellscream )
- Beautiful Beast ( a WoW-ified take on the classic story of Beauty and the Beast. Sorry, Karazhan fans! No talking dinnerware in this one!)
- The Tale of Zombirella ( a tale of a young Forsaken woman seeking her true love by seeing where the missing appendage fits. No, not that one, dirty mind! )
- Days of our Elves ( a spoof of over the top roleplaying tropes mixed with over the top soap opera storylines! )
- How Garrosh Swindled Winter’s Veil ( Yes, it is exactly what you think it is )
- It’s A Wonderful Unlife ( Another holiday-themed parody of the classic story of “It’s A Wonderful Life”, complete with cannibalism! )
- Wrap of the Lunch King ( A collection of short Scourge-themed comedy skits ripe for abuse around Hallow’s End! )
- Tales From The Burning Region ( It’s like Wrap of the Lunch King, but for demons! )
- Cooking With Tyrants ( Garrosh hosts a cooking show with various guests, what could go wrong? )
- The Altruist ( A precautionary tale about being generous to those who would take everything you have and are )
- Waiting For Gul’dan ( A story about immense boredom between expansions, contextualized in-character, of course)
And much, much more! These are just some of the larger plays we’ve done in the past. Our archives consist of dozens of shorter performances, and we’ve even done a few one-offs here and there! In addition to plays, however, we also do other forms of entertainment! Fashion contests (transmog tournaments, as we call them), Comedy Clubs, and parties galore! We’re always looking for new ways to engage and entertain with the people of Wyrmrest Accord, as well as those from other servers who desire to phase in for our events and see what it’s all about.
In addition to our major productions, we perform smaller plays as well as part of our ‘street performances’, which are usually promotional towards our major productions or other events. There really is no ceiling to what we do, and odds are, if we think an idea sounds entertaining and fun, we’ll probably do something with it.
Who Are We Recruiting?
Summary
The Tirisfal Theatre has traditionally kept its ranks small, as we found it was easier to manage a cast of only a handful of members and create events that allowed all of them to have a shot in the spotlight. However, we’re looking to change things up a little bit in the future, and as such, we are now, until stated otherwise, always looking for people who align with our goals as a guild. These goals include but are not limited to the following;
- Provide entertainment for the people of Wyrmrest Accord (Duh!)
- Bring a unique experience that folks will remember fondly for years to come!
- Give players who are either new to RP, anxious about it or don’t RP but are curious something to bridge them towards our community.
- Give a common ground topic for RPers to meet one another, forge friendships, etc. that will enhance their RP experience and immersion.
- Give to our community and take part in other people’s events as often as we can afford to, and be a reliable group to be called on.
While the ability to make our events as often as you are able (showing initiative) and following directions are important, these are what we aim for. We are seeking people who above all want to uphold these goals and provide their own creative touches to what we do. Someone could be a great actor with flawless delivery, and yet if they don’t hold a desire to give their best effort to the community and instead desire only to have a following from working with us, that’s not exactly someone we’re looking for.
Friendly. Creative. Passionate. These are words that describe the type of people we want, OOCly, even if the character one plays is not always such.
If you desire to apply, you need only contact Atos via Discord (GLA#0318) or an in-game mail to arrange a meeting, and we will give an interview and trial run for your character. This trial run is basically a month where you are invited to show up at events, interact with us both in and out of character, and we see if you’re a nice fit for our group. Through this, we hope to gauge your desire to be a part of the guild, as well as how well you interact with our members. Please know that even if you don’t make it into our ranks by the end of your trial period for reasons related to IRL keeping you away from event participation, it will not be held against you and you will be allowed to try again. Full details on the process will be given at the time of your interview.
Some in the past may have recalled a time when we did auditions using a set of short scripts. While we still use these during the interviewing process, it’s more of a tool to introduce you to how we operate with the plays, as this is an important aspect of performing with us. You will be instructed on the basics of the ‘chat bubble rule’ for line delivery, some common guidelines we follow, etc. Before your interview, you will be given a choice of a few scripts that you can use, alter, highlight, etc. for the performing part of your interview, should the role you’re applying for require it.
All in all, though, we’re pretty laid back, so you really don’t have much to worry about! So be sure to get out there and break a leg with us!
FAQs
Summary
Q: Do you do request performances for other events?
A: As stated earlier in the post, yes, we do take requests from other groups and events to perform at specific times and dates, provided we can get the manpower for it. This is sometimes not possible, and usually, we’ll get back to you pretty quickly if we can’t take the time you’ve outlined for us. We do not charge for appearances and never will.
Q: Wait, what happened to Zephyrwise/Denfelath, the previous director? Who are you?
A: Fehl, whom I appointed as the new director of the Tirisfal Theatre back in 2019, had become significantly busier than anticipated, and running the troupe along with everything else was taking a toll on her health. She has worked hard for the troupe and deserves a rest, so I have returned to the role of director with a renewed passion and circumstance that allows me to continue as I had in the past. If you’ve never met me, hi, I’m Atos, and it’s a pleasure to meet you!
Q: How often do you guys do big shows, like Hellsqueal?
A: Larger productions, in the past, were focused on far too prominently in the troupe, and resulted in a lot of lost momentum when we had to make sure everyone could make a specific date. It was also the cause for many of our events being rescheduled or outright canceled. Our aim moving forward is consistency, and thus, we will likely have fewer major productions done throughout the year, but to campaign and advertise them a little more frequently via more sporadic events and appearances. We also did this so that we could help other events out more often, as this was a massive obstacle in the way of us helping other events historically.
Q: Are you guys planning another Big Hallow’s End Bash?
A: For those who don’t know, The Hallow’s End Bash is an event we’d usually do. It was an annual event held on the third Friday of October (most years, anyway) to commemorate our very first public performance at Razor Hill, effectively our guild anniversary. While this year is going to be a little too hectic to host a Bash, we will be doing a show. We will consider doing another annual party, as despite how taxing they are, we’re constantly drawn back to the idea of this beloved one-night event, packed with events, prizes, stories, and unique shows.
Q: What do you do if you have an event on the same night as another major event?
A: As stated before, our events are made with the schedules of our crew in mind more than anything. Sometimes, this means we’ll coincide with another major event. While splitting an audience can sometimes be a hassle, I’m of the belief that having multiple major events in a single night to choose from is a sign of a healthy RP community more so than anything, and that there are enough people eager for something to do to that no event will be truly lacking. In short, we will press on with the event if we cannot find a better night.
Q: What other projects are you all working on? How often do you come out with new content?
A: As most of our plays are created in-house and follow a certain quality standard set by the guild, production can sometimes be quite slow. However, we try to have something new out as often as we can and have several plays that are about to be given either a thumbs up or thumbs down from the cast. Hopefully, the coming year will see an increase in our content variety, as we’ve done primarily comedy plays or rehashes of existing plays.
As for other projects, we are currently trying to get in-game machinima recordings of all of our plays, filmed IC-ly like a movie that will be placed on our YouTube channel (which needs a pretty big touch-up, I won’t lie)
Q: Do you guys have a social media page I can follow?
A: We sure do! Though they’re gathering dust a bit and might see a phase-out in some cases, we have the following;
Bear in mind, not all of these have been kept up to date, as we tended to focus mostly on the Tumblr page for awhile. Updates will come soon. These are also posted in the Social and Additional Media/Contact section of the post.
We are currently also finishing a public Discord server, as well as an in-game community!
Social & Additional Media / Contact
Twitter
YouTube
Tumblr
Discord Contact: @GLA#0318
In-Game Mail: Atos (Horde)
Special Thanks
Crest designed by Jaylith
Hellsequel Poster by Gotosh
Upcoming Events & Appearances
(Please bear in mind all events are given their dates and times according to Wyrmrest Accord’s server time, which is Pacific Standard Time (PST), and almost no events we host will take place in war mode shards)
Summary
Our 2024 schedule is still being finalized! Please note that our events -officially- start in March, though at any time we may decide to have a pop-up performance somewhere in the world!
, because it always feels good to receive a bouquet of roses .