When one vignette comes to life, a hack actor goes from bit-player to leading light. And a short story spawns a novel idea.
In City of Vipers, my protagonist crosses the Players’ Square, where a troupe of hack actors perform propaganda pieces celebrating the Emperor’s great victories.
So what happens after the assassination of the Emperor, when empire ends?
The Curtain rises
Enter Rikhart Chanley, the great actor-manager in the great tradition of Richard Burbage, or Vincent Crummles. Like every idea I have, this is character-first.
What does a delusional actor-manager do for an encore when his meal-ticket to greatness vanishes overnight? When his entire repertoire becomes worthless? When the public call him a collaborator?
Did the Great Artist lose his artistic integrity along with his moral compass?
The old man’s vanity and ego blind him to the truth. And he has more pressing concerns.
Saddled with a grumpy, elderly, inept stage manager, a broody young buck of a method actor, and a pretty young thing with poison in her veins, what else can the Great Actor do but go on tour for the first time in a decade?
Wither next?
The impoverished troupe of second-rate actors goes slumming around the former empire, flogging third-rate plays to an uncaring audience.
But what if they pick up an aspiring young actress? She’s really talented, but seems to know nothing about the theatre. So little, that Grissa the stage manager insists “she’s a spy.”
“Don’t be absurd, Grissa, she’s not a spy.”
They receive a surprise invitation to perform at a nobleman’s castle, about which the newcomer evidently knows everything.
On the way, the troupe is attacked by bandits, and the newcomer mercilessly kicks their asses down the road.
“I told you, she’s a spy.”
“She is not a spy.”
But as they approach the castle, even the maestro begins to have his doubts.
And Chanley and his actors are exactly the wrong protagonists for the plot…