| Made of awesome…a pitch-perfect comedic performance that captures the essence of computer-gaming geeks around the globe. - Josh Sherman, nyTheater.com GAM3RS co-written by Brian Bielawski and Walter G. Meyer has been performed at MIT, ASU, UCSD, UMW, the New England Institute of Art, Leisure World (Leisure World???) and in theatrical runs in NY, L.A. and San Diego Watch this space for details and stay tuned-- GAM3RS is soon to be a web/TV series! |
Here is some more of what the critics had to say:
The best play about elves and dragons since Hamlet. I guarantee this won't be the last time you
hear of Gamers, so you may want to become a fan now. That way in a year or two you can say "Oh
yeah, well I liked Gamers before anyone even knew what it was, n00bz! - William Haley,
Destructoid
This tour-de-force, performed perfectly, involves a guy who makes a living doing tech support
but whose passion is an interactive game involving thousands of online players. Highly
recommended…3 ½ stars - Hy Bender, HyReviews.com
It packs more inside gamer/techie/webhead jokes into an hour than seems possible without
leaving the "outsider" part of the audience behind, and thus everyone gets to have a good time
- Gregory Wilson, curtainup.com
Could hardly be improved upon - David Lefkowitz, Theater News Online
The best play about elves and dragons since Hamlet. I guarantee this won't be the last time you
hear of Gamers, so you may want to become a fan now. That way in a year or two you can say "Oh
yeah, well I liked Gamers before anyone even knew what it was, n00bz! - William Haley,
Destructoid
This tour-de-force, performed perfectly, involves a guy who makes a living doing tech support
but whose passion is an interactive game involving thousands of online players. Highly
recommended…3 ½ stars - Hy Bender, HyReviews.com
It packs more inside gamer/techie/webhead jokes into an hour than seems possible without
leaving the "outsider" part of the audience behind, and thus everyone gets to have a good time
- Gregory Wilson, curtainup.com
Could hardly be improved upon - David Lefkowitz, Theater News Online
| Brian Bielawski during a dress rehearsal for GAM3RS at MIT in March, 2009 |
| Walt checking lights and sound cues for the performance at MIT. |
The full review by Josh Sherman
that perfectly explains the play:
Bielawski (with co-writer Walter G. Meyer) have crafted a gem of a theatre piece that can is
made of awesome, as his character Steve might put it. In a pitch-perfect comedic
In a blackout, the character of Steve begins with an epic description of how his band of
followers, the Knights of Albion, have too long struggled underneath the rule of the elves,
and today will be his St. Crispin's Day-esque assault to reclaim the thieved relic from their
evil clutches. When the lights come up suddenly, we see that Steve is a tech-support guru
for the fictional Solvitech, on a headset in a cubicle surrounded by Mountain Dew bottles
and wearing a deliciously funny Homestar Runner hoodie. Quickly the situation is explained
to an unseen co-worker that Steve is leading a phalanx of knights, mages, gnomes and
dwarves on a real-time assault on the Elven region—this of course, in a video game slang
that mirrors the wildly popular Worlds of Warcraft online role-playing. Steve has chosen a
workday, a Tuesday morning, so that the elves (technically, the gamers playing the elves)
will never see it coming (or be at work).
Of course all hell breaks loose on that day at the office (Steve couldn't beg off work from his
evil boss, Ms. Krakower). He can't get the computer to work fast enough, he's interrupted by
a zillion idiotic tech support phone calls, his mother wants him to apply to M.I.T., and it's his
two-year anniversary with his girlfriend Jenny, which he of course forgot to buy a gift for. And
Krakower wants to fire him at the first available opportunity. Steve winds up juggling phone
calls and instant messages while still leading the real-time assault on the elves, and in the
process, takes himself on a revelatory journey of his own.
So why does the piece work on so many levels? For starters, Bielawski absolutely inhabits
the role of Steve, nailing every bit of Leet-speak and geek-centric pop culture references
imaginable (Star Trek:The Next Generation, South Park, Borat, etc.) and with the right
balance of snark and pathos. The drama…keeps things ebbing and flowing for Steve—as
opposed to falling into that trap of having it at a high-strung level throughout. There are so
many jokes that work during the show because Bielawski understands that while Steve is a
definite nerd for playing in a fantasy world, he's also human, which gives him both character
flaws and a heart.
There are several million hard-core gamers who will understand both the nuances of the
language and the joy of total immersion in another world. Whether its sports, theatre, bridge
club, or everyday life, a person who is immersed in any subject makes that perception his or
her reality. And this lets Gamers achieve a universality that many plays with weightier
subject matter often flop at. If this play isn't one of the hits of FringeNYC, I'll order my orcs
and mages to attack at once.
Written/created by: Brian Bielawski & Walter G. Meyer
that perfectly explains the play:
Bielawski (with co-writer Walter G. Meyer) have crafted a gem of a theatre piece that can is
made of awesome, as his character Steve might put it. In a pitch-perfect comedic
In a blackout, the character of Steve begins with an epic description of how his band of
followers, the Knights of Albion, have too long struggled underneath the rule of the elves,
and today will be his St. Crispin's Day-esque assault to reclaim the thieved relic from their
evil clutches. When the lights come up suddenly, we see that Steve is a tech-support guru
for the fictional Solvitech, on a headset in a cubicle surrounded by Mountain Dew bottles
and wearing a deliciously funny Homestar Runner hoodie. Quickly the situation is explained
to an unseen co-worker that Steve is leading a phalanx of knights, mages, gnomes and
dwarves on a real-time assault on the Elven region—this of course, in a video game slang
that mirrors the wildly popular Worlds of Warcraft online role-playing. Steve has chosen a
workday, a Tuesday morning, so that the elves (technically, the gamers playing the elves)
will never see it coming (or be at work).
Of course all hell breaks loose on that day at the office (Steve couldn't beg off work from his
evil boss, Ms. Krakower). He can't get the computer to work fast enough, he's interrupted by
a zillion idiotic tech support phone calls, his mother wants him to apply to M.I.T., and it's his
two-year anniversary with his girlfriend Jenny, which he of course forgot to buy a gift for. And
Krakower wants to fire him at the first available opportunity. Steve winds up juggling phone
calls and instant messages while still leading the real-time assault on the elves, and in the
process, takes himself on a revelatory journey of his own.
So why does the piece work on so many levels? For starters, Bielawski absolutely inhabits
the role of Steve, nailing every bit of Leet-speak and geek-centric pop culture references
imaginable (Star Trek:The Next Generation, South Park, Borat, etc.) and with the right
balance of snark and pathos. The drama…keeps things ebbing and flowing for Steve—as
opposed to falling into that trap of having it at a high-strung level throughout. There are so
many jokes that work during the show because Bielawski understands that while Steve is a
definite nerd for playing in a fantasy world, he's also human, which gives him both character
flaws and a heart.
There are several million hard-core gamers who will understand both the nuances of the
language and the joy of total immersion in another world. Whether its sports, theatre, bridge
club, or everyday life, a person who is immersed in any subject makes that perception his or
her reality. And this lets Gamers achieve a universality that many plays with weightier
subject matter often flop at. If this play isn't one of the hits of FringeNYC, I'll order my orcs
and mages to attack at once.
Written/created by: Brian Bielawski & Walter G. Meyer
Walt directing the pilot with DP
Max Well and star Brian Bielawski
Max Well and star Brian Bielawski
| DVD of full-length play and the TV pilot. $18 |
| "Made of Awesome" T-shirts $20 |
| "Made of Awesome" Mug $8 |
| "Go Bickle an elf" T-shirt $20 |
And follow the adventures of our hero Steve/Boreas on GAM3RS the web strip:
Some of the many good write-ups of GAM3RS during its recent
San Diego runs:
On SanDiego.com
San Diego runs:
On SanDiego.com
On Examiner
In the Coventry (UK) Telegraph
A blog of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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GAM3RS is performed each year
as part of the rapidly growing
gaming festival that runs concurrent
with Comic Con in San Diego:
Gam3rCon
as part of the rapidly growing
gaming festival that runs concurrent
with Comic Con in San Diego:
Gam3rCon