It’s extremely hard to argue with the idea that Final Fantasy 14 is, at the moment, among the best of the best when it comes to MMOs. The game exploded in popularity ahead of the release of Final Fantasy 14's 6.0 expansion, Endwalker. It has attracted players with many different ways of engaging with the game, from raiders to roleplayers to home decorators, but perhaps one unexpected group that flourishes within the game is performing artists.

Over the years, the performing arts scene in Final Fantasy 14 has evolved from using referenced pop music as the basis for a roleplaying performance to include full productions using external websites like Cytube to time user-written macros of speech and action to music in order to put on full concerts and elaborate skits. Groups like A Stage Reborn even put on full plays. It’s against this backdrop that Curtain Call enters the scene, with the theater troupe lead ChilliFarmer, also known as Chili, discussing their plans with Game Rant.

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What sets Curtain Call apart from other stage performance troupes in Final Fantasy 14 is the group isn’t doing Shakespearean plays. In fact, they aren’t doing any plays from the real world, as Chili is writing their first production now. Each show Curtain Call plans to put on will be written by one of the group’s members and developed through workshopping the script with the rest of their cast and crew. As Chili explained,

“I honestly think the game’s main scenario quests make me think of modern theater. It’s like television, and that is what your playwrights today write. They are the people who are writing television, they're also writing plays, they do both. So that's what we want to do. Our shows are going to be like family dramas set in Final Fantasy 14, a comedy, or just any play set in more of a modern setting.”

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Though the group doesn’t rule out doing a real-world play in the public domain, they prefer to develop their own material. Chili explained that the way the Final Fantasy franchise is written is very in line with modern theater, so it serves as a ripe source of inspiration. Final Fantasy is a very cinematic franchise after all, particularly in the last 25 years, and it will be interesting to see how Curtain Call combines all of this in its productions. Modern plays, meanwhile, are under copyright protection, and Chili explained that presents serious problems for a theater based in a virtual space, which doesn’t charge real-money admission fees.

“In Final Fantasy 14, the problem with that is that new works typically are not in the public domain. Legally, you can't really do that unless you go off and ask permission, but there's no way to actually ask permission via Twitch streaming, there's no way to do that via their forms. It just becomes really complicated. It's also expensive.”

There are other advantages to using Final Fantasy 14 as a medium, explained a fellow group lead who goes by Ahro’zi, colloquially Ahro. It’s an accessible platform to use both to put on performances and to teach stagecraft to others who may not be familiar–both in the context of the game and with real-world theatrical applications. Even elaborate set design and visual effects are relatively easy to accomplish, Ahro explained.

“We're trying to make it easy, trying to get as many people in the door. I really encourage folks that this is accessible. It isn’t like, ‘Oh, you have to have a large house, and you have to have a fully built stage.’ It's like, ‘Hey, you want to have a small little show for your Free Company or whatever? We're going to teach you how to do it. We're going to give you the tools on how to set it up, boom, you can do it yourself.’ We want to be a learning platform as well as the culmination–the sum of all the learning that you've done in an actual big show.”

As for what the first play will be, Chili was evasive. He did say that he is nearly done with the script’s second draft and plans to workshop it with the rest of Curtain Call soon, but did give the vaguest of hints. “I don't want to say too much about it, because there are a lot of spoilers, but I will say that it is set in Ishgard,” Chili teased. “There are some visitors, I'll say it's set in Ishgard, and there are some visitors.”

Curtain Call is actively seeking members, and while they do conduct in-game workshops, people who aren’t currently subscribed to the game (which costs US$14.99 per month) can participate on the group’s Discord.

Final Fantasy 14 is available for PC, PS4, and PS5.

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