Troupes

 

The Brinjevi Academy of Dance

The Academy of Dance in Brinjevi is a school of dance and the performing arts know around the world for the quality and rigour of their education, the prestige of their instructors and graduates, and above all for their enthralling performances. The school mounts quarterly performances, one in theatre, one in dance, one in opera, and a fourth which varies in format from year to year. The performances are mounted by the students of the school, joined by renown master performers from around the world (often graduates themselves). Each year, the graduating class ends their year by taking the best of their shows on a world tour (which usually takes two to three years to complete.

The Circus of the Sun

A huge traveling circus in Ayodesh - bards, performers, animals handlers, etc.

The Grand Calighenna Opera Company

details

The Merry River Players

The Merry River Players are a collective of several dozen small bands of travelling players, performers and musicians that principally work in the towns and villages of the Fhialane Grasslands of western Waeyron. The many independent troupes that make up this group maintain a small theatre on a hide of land they hold just outside of Shear. Here, all of the travelling troupes regroup annually at year end, setting up a village of tents and wagons and celebrating the arrival of the new year with large performances and raucous parties. Members of the different troupes will rehearse together, exchanging and refining their material, repairing costumes, resupplying and swapping between different troupes before they all set out again in the new year.

While the performances of the Merry River Players are appreciated across the region, it is taken as a given that many of their number are shady characters. Petty crime - particularly theft, robbery and confidence scams increase sharply whenever a troupe passes through. In a practical sense, the thieves, robbers and con-artists who travel among the troupes are stealing from the wealthiest people they can, and typically spending the spoils in the taverns, inns and bawdy houses they frequent. While this is infuriating to the local authorities, who always increase the guard and crack down on infractions when a troupe passes through, it is tolerated by the population and the townsfolk for the trade and business it brings. Many of the more popular and frequently performed plays among these troupes feature characters who are charming thieves with hearts of gold who steal from the elite and make fools of them while spending big and living large among the peasants.

Aside from Shear, where they are nominally 'headquartered' the Merry River Players stay out of the large cities of Waeyron which they consider to be 'Upjohn turf'.

The Merry River Players are also a Crime Syndicate.

The New Poglia Traveling Players

After the Orcish conquests and the devastation of Poglia, the Poglia Theatre Company was reformed under the patronage of the Empress Lucillia Vindis into a traveling theatre company. The company presents two new shows a year, and has eight troupes which travel the world, presenting them in major cities. Each troupe mounts the two new shows, as well as two popular shows from previous years

The Poglia Theatre Company

The famous theatre company that Lucillia Vindis was a member of.

The Southwall Players

The Southwall Players are a collection of perhaps twenty independant groups of travelling players operating under a sort of franchise model. The original Southwall Players formed in the Late Imperial Era under the famous playwright Anatol Leanu, and spent forty years touring Golanicja and Odovic, performing his brilliant and influential plays.

After the death of the great playwright, the Southwall Players struggled to produce new works anywhere near the level of quality established by their star, and so sought to expand their audience by allowing other independant troupes to license their name and perform these 'emerging classics' across the continent. While this had the effect of diminishing the quality of the performances, and of relegating much of the troupes work to be considered nostaliga, it also turned out to be enormously profitable, and at the same time, exposed the plays to a much broader audience.

Over a couple of centuries, the plays of Anatol Leanu have become the canon of Golanicjan and Odovician theatre. In addition to performing these classics all across the continent, a few troupes also travel them on other continents. Occassionally, one of the troupes will also mount a successful new play. When this happens, the troupe is generally invited to bring the city of Odovic at the base of the southern end of the Southwall Ridge, where they perform the play for several weeks, and the Maestrae from troupes across Golanicja and around the world come to see the performance and to vote for its recognition and inclusion in the 'official' repertoire of the Southwall Players.