The Official D&D Stage Show The Twenty-Sided Tavern is gearing up for a national tour, but not before some legendary performers join the adventurers. This week the guest is Becca Scott, a veteran actress and tabletop creator with more credits than I can list here, but you might know her from Vampire The Masquerade: LA By Night and various Geek & Sundry shows. I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time and was lucky enough to sit down with her to talk about her newest role in The Twenty-Sided Tavern, including her tips for beating stage fright, how to use love to tell a story, and why sometimes its ok to go cry in a corner.
Dan Arndt: You’ve obviously got a lot of experience with live play with performance, but how are you preparing for your time at Twenty-Sided Tavern?
Becca Scott: Utter panic.
No, just really excitement. I feel like I’ve been really prepared by the Twenty-Sided Tavern team. They have a process for doing this, they know how to bring on guests and make them feel welcome. I have documents about the schedules, they’re putting me up, they’re going to get me from the airport, they’re going to give me all of the characters. I’ve been researching and studying tapes of previous shows. They gave me character sheets, which are so much simpler than your normal character sheet because we’re not walking around with about a piece the paper and we’re not sitting in a chair. We’re moving around and the audience is doing the rolling some of the time. I’m really really excited just to get into rehearsal right before my first show and figure it out as we go because that’s an improvisor’s bag, baby.
Have you done audience participation stuff before? How do you think you can handle that as part of your game as a D&D and a performer?
Becca: I’ve never done anything like this except for live RPG actual plays at Gen Con with the Gen Con crowd that bought tickets. And I’ve run to Call of Cthulhu games (don’t tell D&D) and the energy of having that many bodies in the room that are all waiting with bated breath — you get the instant reaction. You don’t have to wait for the media and social media reaction, months later. It’s in real time. I’m getting feedback of what is working and what people are loving and what they’re not, which is, for a performer, absolute adrenaline pumping goodness.
The first time I ran a campaign or a session on stage, I just impromptu said, “You know what, if you ever hear anything too horny, can I just get some snaps from the audience?” And it became this whole bit of anything that could be misinterpreted, somebody in the audience would catch on to, or as people call stuff out. And I just love that the audience is also a character in the show for live performances.
I got my start in theater, we’re all theater kids with our theater degrees, but it had been a long time since they’ve been on stage doing one of those, this is going to be a whole other level. I don’t have the table to protect me. Just have to, move around the stage and in my body and be a vessel for what the audience wants to see in a way that I think is going to be so much fun.
You mentioned prepping around your character. Can you tell me anything at all about your Twenty-Sided Tavern guest role of The Warrior?
Becca: I will be preparing three different versions of The Warrior. These are based on pre-established characters. So, I’ll spend some time beforehand making them my own, deciding kind of if I have a unique take on that, but I am particularly excited for the Tabaxi Pirate. A cat pirate, what isn’t there to love?
I’m excited to sink my teeth in. It’s also takes a lot of pressure off of these rotating performers and probably puts the mind at ease of the producers to have all that work taken care of. You don’t have to generate a character from scratch. They have fun bits worked into the choices of characters that are already created. So I just feel like you slip on the glove and you’re bringing your own unique self into what’s already created.
You have been a cast member on games and performances but you’ve also been a guest performer, whether it be for actual play or for Twenty-Sided Tavern. I’m wondering how you integrate into a cast that already exists? You’re coming in as someone with knowledge of that performance but also your own take — how do you mesh in with that?
Becca: I think that it may seem intimidating to step into a cast that already has a rapport with one another, but I love to go with the flow, hear the bits, continue with the bits, so they know that I’m down for wherever they’re going to take things. And in actual plays, typically my move is to just pick somebody I’m in love with. There’s my secret sauce. Is that going to work in this particular setting? I don’t know. But I find if you find unique character games that maybe have nothing to do with the other parts of the actual play, but you have another player character that you have a unique connection to of that’s my sister.” Or, ” we grew up together. Or, ” they are my nemesis, but clear that with the other player beforehand.” I don’t know if this has that time, but it’s something that I can be doing backstage and in my own mental backstory to kind of make me feel like I know where I stand in relation to the other characters because that’s where you get unique, interesting, funny character moment and that’s always the hardest part.
Do you ever feel scared or trapped when someone throws you a curveball at the table or on the stage? How do you adapt to that?
Becca: I used to get so in my head and socially anxious before any performance of what will people think then one day I woke up and I was just like, “what? I don’t even care anymore. It’s fine. I’m having fun.” And I think that the secret to improv and to actual play is to listen. I mean, it’s so simple and so hard especially when you’re a guest, there’s a little bit of anxious nerves. I don’t feel nervous in anticipation, but when you’re on stage for the first time, there’s your heart rate beats speeds up. and the thing to remember is that you don’t have to just fill space and talk because the impulse is just, my god, I have to do something. But if someone else is doing something and you really observe it and take it in and think about how you as a person and then through the lens of you as a character would actually react, then no one can ever throw a curveball at you. If someone says something that is absolutely off-putting, look, I’m gonna say, “Wow, that was really weird, and I’m going to go stand over here. and if you want to fight me, we could do that.” I think that any unique reaction or if you’re ever dear in headlights of “What just happened?” I think it is absolutely reasonable to say, “I have no idea what to say to that. How could you?” and storm off, cry in the corner. I feel like just having a big emotional honest reaction always the right choice.
Is there anything that you’ve learned about your performance or anything that you think that you might be able to add to your tool belt from your time guessing with Twenty-Sided Tavern?
Becca: I am sure I will learn so much. These performers have been doing this in rotation, know all the things, and I’m going to be floored by all of them. I’m sure it will be an absolutely enriching experience and I’m so excited to try something so new and different.
You can catch Becca as The Warrior in The Twenty-Sided Tavern through April 29. You can find tickets and more info here.
Images via The Twenty-Sided Tavern
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