here's the order of operations as we know it right now:
primus attacks houses royce and davinos and leaves town. ethrand and trimus are left to mount a cover up. given yanessa's behavior towards aranessa, there is a chance she was aware this was happening.
simultaneous to the attack on house royce in the city, the golden orchard (left vulnerable due to aranessa's absence and callowyn's recent death) is attacked and destroyed. tachonis forces are beaten back but alba davinos is afflicted with wraith's touch and the orchard is lost
filoneus halovar specifically requests azune investigate the palazzo because he believes he's of the creed. azune makes sure einfasen thinks he's doing the double agent thing. the schemers create the scenario where grotto is able to tell harondus it was an attack by the priestly houses.
a couple of days after this, otto einfasen speaks to both julien and aranessa. he asks thaisha if her order has any involvement and she says no. petra and ryah are summoned to klippenblicke shortly after the seekers arrive. it's presumed through hints that greta wrote to them behind otto and ingrid's backs. greta has also apparently worked in the stahlkeep at some point, because romina knows her and keeps in regular contact.
otto calls a meeting of the leaders and primus is MIA, leading to frustration. ingrid asks if she needs to send word to aranessa and otto says no. cordelia einfasen begins hinting to ingrid she ought to marry ethrand. ingrid finds this suspicious.
azune plants occtis's signet ring as evidence in the amariya cormoray investigation. demodus writes down everything he remembers from the palazzo
a few days later, primus sends word directly to otto that he'll be arriving back in dol-makjar the following trader's day, which is the day of the play. the heads of houses will meet that day. there is no indication primus or otto has any idea about the play.
romina tells the schemers that there are murmurings of "betrayal" around the stahlkeep. she interprets this as harondus believing they (house einfasen or the sundered houses broadly) have been betrayed by primus.
yanessa wants to delay opening night and doesn't have a strong preference for when it should be held, she'd rather her propaganda be in place. the players are being told this by the GM as a way to confirm that these two events are not linked. they have no investment in the play happening the night of the meeting.
harondus wants to see azune the night or morning before the meeting to present hard evidence of what happened at the palazzo and says the fate of the world is at stake.
the reality is simple: otto called a meeting to get clarity on what happened at the palazzo davinos. primus was, likely, in the underworld and thus did not respond for several days while ethrand badly lied about where he was. he reappeared and the meeting was scheduled for the day he'd be back in the city, which happened to be the night of the play. the sundered houses are not performing a big ritual of some kind, they are having it out over house tachonis destroying house royce
harondus's behavior (though it hasn't been thoroughly insight checked) indicates that he finds the destruction of house royce to be an existential threat. however, given lady einfasen seems to want to intermarry with house tachonis, it is unclear where house einfasen's priorities will land, as otto himself remains inscrutable