Worlds Elsewhere Theatre Company Presents:
Musica Universalis Book 2 Regenerational Trauma

Watch on Youtube (Playlist) ✦ Premiered

Because sometimes, retelling the same stories can hurt.

Worlds Elsewhere Theatre Company is pleased to present its first project this year: a TTRPG Actual Play collaboration with Fantasy Worlds Elsewhere to raise money for this year’s projects at WETC!

The Music of the Spheres is once again under threat, this time being directly attacked rather than stolen, and the repercussions are being felt throughout all levels of Story, exacerbated by the apparent death of the Author. Filling the vacancy and determined to resolve this, a being called the Historian summons a new team of heroes and tasks them with traveling to the enemy who has been coordinating these attacks – an entity known as the Producer.

The path for our chosen heroes leads through an ever-shifting forest that seems to adapt not only to those they meet along their journey but to the players themselves, forcing them to grapple with their transformative capabilities in the hopes that they can harness them against the Producer before it is too late.

Regenerational Trauma is an exploration of the transformative power of public ownership and retelling, and what is lost and gained in the process. The module has been homebrewed within the Kids on Bikes play system by our Game Matrix, Sam Marchiony, based on the original FATE module devised by FWE regular Conor Duffy, and stars FWE members old and new, as well as some guest appearances from the WETC Rep.

Musica Universalis Book 2 - Chapter 1: The Historian’s Archives
Musica Universalis Book 2 - Chapter 2: The Enchanted Wood
Musica Universalis Book 2 - Chapter 3: The Haunted Wood
Musica Universalis Book 2 - Chapter 4: The Artificial Wood
Musica Universalis Book 2 - Chapter 5: The Fortress

Company Artistic Statement

Theatre, given its nature as a medium made of people in space, has always been a first victim during times of plague. When the COVID-19 pandemic spread through the world at the start of the year 2020, theatres closed, and millions were left unemployed. Worlds Elsewhere Theatre Company was founded during this terrifying time. It is our mission to create theatre without a theatre - to create a space online that can serve as a theatrical one. Our company shall create an online space that serves the same function that theatre has served for millennia – as a place of catharsis and healing.

About This Production

As Musica Universalis was about commodification, so too is Regenerational Trauma. More specifically, it is about the reaction that we, the audience, have when we see a transformative retelling of a beloved story, whether with anger (yes, it’s probably the one you’re thinking of), joy (it may be the one you’re thinking of), or horror (it’s exactly the one you’re thinking of). I wanted to spin that reaction on its head and get into the experience of the characters going through that change. What is it like to experience your story evolving into something completely different from what it originally was, if such a thing even is definitive?

Inevitably, it seems, retelling the same story can hurt. But hurt can also be how we grow and improve, and it is in that spirit that this adventure begins with the apparently literal Death of the Author. With the guide from the previous adventure no longer available, our cast of characters is instead set on their quest by the Historian through the woods of Story, to the fortress of their new enemy… The Producer.

This is a story about a battle against capitalist hegemony, a battle for stories, good and bad and in-between, to all have their chance to thrive.

~ Sam Marchiony, Module Writer and Game Master

Cast and Crew

Players

Jasmine Garcia (fae/faer, she/her) as Medusa (she/her)
based on Greek mythology

Addie Greenberg-Sud (she/her) as Alice (she/her)
based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, as well as folklore ATU Type 310 “The Maiden in The Tower”

River Lane (she/her, they/them) as Loki (he/him, they/them)
based on Norse mythology

Ellie McConnaughy (she/her) as Wendy Darling (she/her)
based on Peter Pan and Wendy by J. M. Barrie

Maeya Nowak (she/her, they/them) as Skierka (they/them)
based on Balladyna by Juliusz Słowacki

and
Sam Marchiony (she/her, they/them) as The Game Matrix

Guest-Starring as Non-Player Characters

Callie Castle (they/them) as Orpheus (she/her)
based on Greek mythology and modern interpretations thereof, particularly Hadestown by Anaïs Mitchell

Ilana Greenberg-Sud (she/her, they/them) as The Snow Queen (she/her)
based on “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Andersen, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, and others

Shamila Karunakaran (she/her) as Suriya / Snow White (she/her)
based on folklore ATU Type 709 “Snow White” and 709A “The Sister of Seven Brothers”, especially from the tales “The Jealous Mother” from Morocco and “Rimonah of the Flashing Sword” from Egypt

Belinda Roddie (they/them) as Bluebeard (he/him)
based on folklore ATU Type 312 “Maiden Killer”, most especially La Barbe Bleue by Charles Perrault.

Michelle Turner (she/her, they/them) as The Lost One (they/them)

Pam Palsat (she/her, they/them) as Virgil (he/him)
based on the historical figure Publius Vergilius Maro, as well as his depiction in the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

Production

Director and Module Author: Sam Marchiony (she/her, they/them)
Original Musica Universalis Module By: Conor Duffy (he/him)
Producer: Ilana Greenberg-Sud (she/her, they/them)
Technical Director: Addie Greenberg-Sud (she/her)

About WETC

Artistic Director / Co-Founder: Ilana Greenberg-Sud
Director of Digital: Addie Greenberg-Sud
Acting Director of Finance / Co-Founder: Kyle Kallgren

Worlds Elsewhere Theatre Company is based in New York City, Seattle, and the Central California Coast,on lands home to the Munsee Lenape, Duwamish, and Coast Salish peoples.

In addition, cast and crew members of Musica Universalis are located on the lands of the following peoples:

Anishnabeg
Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ
Chippewa
Coast Salish
Duwamish
Erie
Ho-de-no-sau-nee-ga (Haudenosaunee)
Jumanos
Kaskaskia
Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo)
Massa-adchu-es-et (Massachusett)
Mississauga
Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation
Miwok
Mohican
Munsee Lenape
Naumkeag
Patwin
Paugusset
Pawtucket
Pequonnock
Seminole
Schaghticoke
Suisune
Tawakoni
Wappinger
Wendake-Nionwentsïo
Wendat
Wichita

We acknowledge that this land came into government possession through acts of genocide, as part of our commitment to work towards addressing the impacts of those acts in our pursuit of social justice, and to foster a world where such injustices are truly consigned to the past.

Tribe names provided by Native Lands Digital

For more information, consult #HonorNativeLand — US Department of Arts and Culture

Project Attributions