"Initiative certainly does new things with material that could have been familiar. It arrives, after a lengthy workshop period, at a time when Dungeons & Dragons seems resurgent in visibility, thanks in part to the Netflix smash-hit Stranger Things, which uses D&D players (and game-derived terminology) in its own 80s-set fantasy-adventure-horror story. (There's even a Stranger Things prequel play on Broadway.)"
"More subtly but equally bold, the show doesn't begin with a tight-knit nerd crew role-playing together before life pulls them in separate directions, a standard narrative for these types of stories. In fact, no one in the show plays the game until late in the first of three 90-minute acts, when Riley (Greg Cuellar) acts as Dungeon Master for his younger friends Em (Christopher Dylan White), Tony (Jamie Sanders), and Kendall (Andrea Lopez Alvarez)."
Initiative is a five-hour off-Broadway coming-of-age epic structured in three 90-minute acts with intermissions. The length is intentional to foster audience commitment and to allow new dramatic possibilities. The play draws on Dungeons & Dragons fandom and arrives after a lengthy workshop period amid a resurgence of D&D visibility, partially fueled by Stranger Things. The play rejects cultural clichés by setting the story in the early 2000s rather than the 1980s and by delaying the introduction of the game until late in the first act. Principal characters include Riley (Greg Cuellar), Em (Christopher Dylan White), Tony (Jamie Sanders), Kendall (Andrea Lopez Alvarez), and Clara (Olivia Rose Barresi). Playwright Else Went is non-binary and uses they/she pronouns.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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