the tradition began in 1958. eager to prove that theyād toughened as a result of three-and-a-half years of alderidgeās rigorous theatre program, the fourth-years selected one weekend early in their second semester to retreat into the woods surrounding campus. there, they slept in tents, endured the cold, and made memories that would last far beyond graduation day. several more fourth-year cohorts took up the retreat in the years that followed, until eventually it was a non-negotiable rite of passage, well-known throughout the theatre department.
there was, of course, the tragic event of the 1970 retreat. the students were severely under-prepared, resulting in the pneumonia-related death of jennifer andrews and several other severe cases of frostbite. following these events, alderidge made the decision to ban the fourth-year retreat; but this made theatre students even more ardent in carrying on the tradition. while the school continues to frown upon it to this day, the students now know to come well-prepared for the cold-- and the class of 2020 is certainly not planning to be the first to chicken out.
with the weekendās forecast predicting clear skies and reasonable warmth for this time of year, the students gather their tents and supplies in anticipation of the weekend. while it looks promising in some respects, there isnāt nearly as much excitement surrounding it as everyone thought there would be--- with the retreat coming on the heels of the recent police report, the air is thick with tension. what will a weekend of isolation in the woods with the whole fourth-year cohort bring?
welcome to ensemblehqās act i finale. the event will begin on sunday, august 2, at 1pm est, and run for approximately two weeks (although this is flexible and will be officially decided once things have gotten into full swing). in addition to regular event threads on the dash, every character will be involved in a choices-based thread on discord which will not only determine how the event ends, but affect plot progression going forward! see below the cut for more details, and please let us know asap if you will not be able to participate in the discord thread (in this case, we wonāt assign your character to a group).
at the start of the event, characters will be split into five groups (maybe fewer if multiple people arenāt able to participate). theyāll be as mixed up as possible to group people together who donāt normally interact a ton!
each group will be given a channel in the discord server, a specific scenario in which their characters have found themselves, and a choice to make.
as the group threads commence on discord, admins will interject at certain points with further choices! they might be directed to a specific character (weāll @ them if thatās the case), or meant for anyone in the group to jump onto.
there are multiple potential outcomes for each group, and every outcome will have an affect on our plot in one way or another. so just respond to the scenarios ic, and letās see what happens!
the group discord threads will be running concurrently with normal dash threads for the event, and youāll have the whole duration of the event to complete them. we encourage short replies to these threads, and they will be counted toward activity as well! so weād really like everyone to participate unless youāre in need of a hiatus during the event.
no one! pat yourselves on the back yāall. also,Ā let me just take a quick moment to say how lovely it is to see all your threads on the dash, i know i speak for both em & i when i say that weāre absolutely inspired by how youāve brought these skeletons to life and the beautiful, heartbreaking, hilarious plots youāve created with each other. we canāt wait to see what you do next!!!
last week, detectives interviewed fifteen theatre students at the alderidge school of arts, all of whom worked closely with orson hobbs. these interviews revealed several previously unknown facts which are informing our investigation into mr. hobbs murder going forward.
first, we can confirm that prior to mr. hobbsā house being vandalised, he hosted an unofficial after party for an unknown number of fourth year theatre students. the identity of students who attended the party is currently unknown, but we suspect it was the majority of the year.Ā
second, mr. hobbs was a difficult, controversial individual who was known to have antagonistic relationships with several of his students. we also have cause to believe that mr. hobbs may have regularly consumed illegal drugs. during our interviews, we discovered that mr. hobbs also had inappropriate relationships with his students, which included at least one romantic affair with a fourth year theatre student, whom we are not naming for privacy reasons.
third, we continue to be unable to verify whether the individual who vandalized mr. hobbsā house is the same individual, or individuals, who murdered him.
finally, the department has identified five people of interest through the interviews, all of whom were mentioned by their peers. these individuals are mathias knight, josephine flores, madeline le, chandler rosen and hudson williams. we currently have no evidence that these individuals were involved in mr. hobbsā death, but believe they may have additional information that is of value.
summary of information:
hi all! anything stated below is currently known by the police, but is not known in character. weāve included this short summary to give the group an idea of what went down in the interviews and to facilitate plotting ooc and ic! weāre reaching a point in the overall plot at which things can start to go a variety of different ways, so if this gives you any larger ideas for your character-- whether you want them to become more of a suspect, come forward with new information, anything really-- please come talk to us about it and hopefully we can incorporate.Ā
if you think something should be added below or have any questions, please let us know!
HELEN accidentally confirmed that an after party to the official after party was held at orsonās house the night he was murdered.
SAFFI, HARRY, JULIAN, JASON, MATHIAS and JONAH all alluded to orsonās challenging nature/personality and his status as a polarising figure among alderidge students.
GRACE mentioned that orson was known to cross boundaries with his students. NATE and JOSIE confirmed that orson was having an affair with chandler.
ZAHRA stated that josie and mathias were two of orsonās favourites, and NATE referred to them as orsonās ālapdogs.ā
NATE suggested that orson regularly consumed drugs and that this is well known by alderidge and its students.
CHANDLER suggested that mathias was involved with orsonās murder, stating that he had anger problems and could have been mad about his casting in last semesterās play. ZAHRA suggested that mathias and josie may have been responsible for vandalising orsonās house, suggesting they were both displeased with their parts in last semesterās play. ZAHRA also noted that their whereabouts after the party (the first one) were unknown. NATE suggested that josie and mathias might have additional information about orsonās murder and also noted that he did not see them at the party either. MATHIAS confirmed that he and josie left the party early, but did not explain further.
ZAHRA informed the police that orson planned to expel mads from the program and suggested that she felt better off with him gone. MADS stated that on the night of orsonās death, she turned in at 12am, but HARRY contradicted this by revealing that the two of them saw each other around 4am.Ā Ā Ā
whilst noting that several students had cause to vandalise orsonās house, JASON singled out hudson, stating that he was mad at orson for pairing the two together.
hi, all!! given that our first task was quite writing heavy, we thought weād do something lighter for task nombre deux and have some fun exploring our charactersā social media presences! unlike the audition task, this one is entirely optional and there is no limit to the number of task posts you can make. go wild on photoshop if you are able and inclined, but if not, there are tons of free generators out there for fake social media posts! weāll link you to a few below the cut to give some options.
this is really just meant to spark creativity and muse, so have fun with it! the only rules are that everything should be tagged with #ensembletask, and that posts pertaining to this task should cease by july 30th. although honestly, thereās really nothing stopping you from making social media edits after that; they just wonāt be part of this fun task window.
finally, we want to throw in an unrelated reminder to please DM us your characterās responses to the police interrogation questions as soon as possible! weād like to have everyoneās collected by this friday, july 17th.
see below the cut for some fake social media generators that donāt require photo editing!
after a weekend spent recovering from auditions, each new cell phone notification sends a rush of fear into every theatre student. could this be it? did they send the cast lists? the third-years awaiting decisions for āpericlesā and the second-years wondering which spare roles theyāll be slotted into are certainly nervous, but for the fourth-years, the cast list for āmacbethā will mark the final note on which they complete their time at alderidge. and they havenāt the vaguest idea what to expect.Ā
at 10:00pm on sunday evening, theatre department emails light up the phones of all the students and they see the words ācast listā... but the announcement is only for āpericlesā, not āmacbeth.ā why hasnāt heidi made her decisions yet? the fourth-years wait by their phones for a follow-up email, but it doesnāt arrive by 11:00, or by 11:30. what could be taking so long?
midnight strikes in birnam at the exact moment everyoneās phones light up once more. the email comes directly from heidi, rather than the no-reply theatre department address, with an attachment and an informal message from the director herself:
Hi all,
It was a true joy to see you audition, and I absolutely canāt wait to work with each of you on our beloved Scottish Play. These choices werenāt easy, but I have the utmost confidence that every one of you will shine in the role youāve been given. Read-through will take place Tuesday at 6pm in FAB 104. Rehearsal schedules will be distributed then; please email me any prior engagements from now through opening night by 8pm tomorrow. Now get some sleep, donāt forget we all have class bright and early!Ā
Love, Heidi B
and finally, itās the moment of truth as everyone opens the attachment.
ā CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FOLLOWING STUDENTS upon their enrollment in the alderidge theatre departmentās fourth-year class! please send your account within TWENTY-FOUR HOURS and make sure youāve gone through our post-acceptance CHECKLIST. we canāt wait to see you on the dash!
SAPPHIREĀ āSAFFIā JACKSON as THE STATUE (fc: indya moore)
CHARLIE, you presented saffi to us so cohesively, in the end i was left with such a clear image of them as the statue and it makes me so excited to see what theyāll bring to the group! saffi is someone with such a painful past, but it all ended up tying into her life at alderidge; what particularly got me was the thread woven throughout of wanting to be beautiful, only to have it used against them by orson in the end. and god, donāt even get me started on the relationship with her mother, iāll cry i swear.
yes. their exact number & timing will depend on the pace and needs of the plot, but i would estimate theyāll be released between six and eight weeks.
āhappy saturday!! just a reminder that weāll be closing the submit today at 5pm EST, so there are just under seven hours left to submit an app for our open role, the statue!
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