The Game of Play 2024
The Big Party for your celebration!
The Game of Play is a new innovative board game from The Manchester Shakespeare Company.
It’s the antidote to the general feeling of apathy that grips the country. It’s time to cheer ourselves up with a Game of Play Party!
It’s a great way for actors, non-actors, performers, singers and anybody else to show off their talents and enjoy themselves without spending loads of money.
Actors, non-actors, anybody! Keep your performance skills sharp and your minds engaged. Bash those blues with laughter! The Game of Play is guaranteed to improve your mental health, boost your confidence and enjoy a great, fun evening with friends and family.
Show off your skills, practice your improvisation, perform your favourite song, poem or monologue. Avoid the fickle hand of Fate! Enjoy the benefits of luck! Revel in the thunderous applause from your friends. Be the first to reach centre stage and win the DAFTA!
The game of play waits for your booking!
Contact Gina and John mcrshakespeareco@gmail.com
Coming Soon to Your Living Room!
We're really exited to announce the imminent arrival of the project we've been working on since we were trapped in the house during the terrible Covid 19 pandemic. It was Gina's idea to invent a game that could be played by anybody who wants to perform, but lacks the confidence. The Game of Play is a fun way to develop your confidence, your talent and develop your skills in a fun way!
We’re making an exciting, fun performance-based board game. that can be played by 2-8 players. The object of the game is to progress through the 3 acts of the play to be the first to reach centre stage and be awarded the 'DAFTA'
In order to reach this goal, the players must navigate the hazards of theatrical life, including auditions, luck, fate, scandal, forgetting your lines, ‘breaking a leg’, trapdoors, electrocution and falling scenery!
The board represents elements of the theatre world. There are 3 concentric circles with landing squares representing Acts 1, 2, and 3, respectively. The centre of the board represents ‘Backstage’ and ‘Centre Stage’ under the spotlight.
Each player takes on a character. These are based on characters from our successful productions: ‘Robbo Goodstuff from ‘Summer Dreaming’ and ‘Andrea Palemusht’ from ’12 Nights’. In order to progress towards the stage and win the DAFTA, plays must perform ‘Auditions’ in the form of Song, Drama, Verse and Comedy. Their auditions are judged by the other players by showing their ‘Clap’ or ‘Boo’ cards. There is plenty of opportunity for skulduggery and plot twists as the Luck and Fate cards come into play.
The game is based on our journey and our experience.
Since we met at an audition for a cabaret show band over 30 years ago, we have been on one long adventurous journey Singing and playing and travelling the world by land and sea.
So far, this journey has included (among other things): Performing Cabaret, Musical Theatre, writing commercial musical Theatre Shows, escaping a civil war, qualifying as college lecturers, Teaching, building and running a theatre venue inside Afflecks Manchester (3MT) Founding The
Manchester Shakespeare Company, writing, directing, and an producing new plays and performances, nurturing new talent, producing podcasts during Covid, an unexpected autism diagnosis, a 1970’s musical based on ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and now a board game! We can't wait to launch it.
