ABOUT THE PLAY

Just what is a gamer? Submit your answer HERE, and the best responses will be posted on our site. Keep it clean!

HISTORY
Gamers began as Brian Bielawski's Graduate Thesis Project at the Old Globe/University of San Diego. Asked to write and perform a 15 minute solo-show, Brian enlisted the help of his friend and professional writer Walter G. Meyer, and together they created "/out of character." Little did they know that 15 minute performance would lead them to write a short film and a television show and the full-length play we celebrate here.

SYNOPSIS
Work sucks for tech-support operator Steve Jaros. He’s overqualified, underpaid, and around-the-clock dealing with vacuous customers, a Medusa-like boss, and an arrogant cubicle mate. But what they all don’t know about Steve is that he is about to save an entire kingdom from death at the hands of their murdering neighbors. He is about to lead an army of thousands into a dangerous land to take back their source of power. He is about to become the most powerful warrior ever to live among men . . . online. With the help of a blue dwarf, a dark sorceress, and a disobedient page-boy, Steve (a.k.a. Boreus the White Knight) must lead his people to victory over the elven kingdom while answering phones and hiding his true identity from his patrolling supervisor. Can Steve successfully live in fantasy and reality at the same time?

Finally, somebody's telling OUR side of the story.
by Brian Bielawski

GAMERS began as my graduate thesis project for the Old Globe Theatre/University of San Diego’s professional actor training program. As far as I am concerned, it is imbued with magical properties. The first time I performed Gamers (formerly titled /out of character), I was approached by a producer wanting to make it a short film and then a television show. The second time I performed it (at my old high school), I was invited back as a guest artist to lead the theatre students in a weeklong writing/acting workshop. I hope that Fringe 07 is my chance to create that magic in my new home of New York.

I feel that most of the magic is there because Gamers is based on my family. Entirely. (Think about all the implications of that as you watch it.) The rest of the magic comes from the whole gaming population for whom it was written. Long considered “weird” or “immature,” gamers often get the short-end of the social stick. I created this piece to show that maybe, just maybe, gamers operate on a higher mental plane where the limits of the body and the “real world” are overthrown by the imagination. I have to think that way. After all, I’m one of them.

Believe it or not, I originally wanted to write a piece about the evils of online gaming - a serious drama. As only a smalltime gamer myself (cards, boardgames, etc), I had watched my hard-core gamer friends and family 'waste' so much time online that they seemed to lose touch with reality, which cost a few of them their jobs and strained their relationships. But before I began writing, I knew I would have to play myself so I could understand the world.

A month later, I found myself writing a comedy and loving the new world of fantasy that had opened before me. Where I had only seen the negatives before, actually playing opened my eyes to hundreds of positive things these games have to offer: social networks, problem solving challenges, a chance to healthily live out fantasies. We've all heard of the kid in the wheelchair who creates a powerful fighter and saves the day, right? Well, that kid's name is Jason Rowe, and he's one hell of a gamer.

Jason alongside his avatar: Rurouni Kenshin

THE TEAM

	BRIAN BIELAWSKI (Creator, Steve/Boreas) OFF-BROADWAY: The American Pilot directed by Lynne Meadow (Manhattan Theatre Club); The Rules of Charity (Theatre By the Blind). REGIONAL: As You Like It, Comedy of Errors, Winter’s Tale, Two Noble Kinsmen, Antony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night, and Macbeth directed by Darko Tresnjak, Patricia Conolly, and Paul Mullins (The Old Globe Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Noises Off! (Brownville Village Theatre); Mame, Light Up the Sky, Little Foxes (The Summer Place). SHORT FILM: Felix Culpa (Progress 22 Films). TELEVISION: Guiding Light (recurring). EDUCATION: MFA (The Old Globe/University of San Diego); BFA (The University of Evansville). brianbielawski.net myspace.com/brianbielawski
	WALTER G. MEYER (Co-writer) has a degree from the School of Journalism at Penn State. He has freelanced for numerous newspapers and magazines including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, Out, and the Los Angeles Times. He has co-written two books. Going for the Green: Selling in the 21st Century and Day is Ending: a doctor’s love shattered by Alzheimer's disease which was optioned to be a movie based on his script. He has had several of his other screenplays optioned and his agent is currently trying to sell his first novel, Rounding Third. Walt has done stand-up comedy and teaches for a comedy traffic school. Walt was recently interviewed about Gamers for Curtain Rising Magazine. (pp. 23-24) WalterGMeyer.com myspace.com/sandiegowriter
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