As an MMO and part of a longrunning franchise, Final Fantasy 14 attracts all sorts of players. Some are interested in its fantastical outfits, while others focus on the farming simulator that is Island Sanctuary. Still, others play it for the endgame raiding and hardcore Ultimate content. For the new theater troupe Curtain Call, however, the game’s best strength is how well it works as a digital stage for performances.
Curtain Call’s leadership ChiliFarmer, Tromad, and Ahro’zi sat down with Game Rant to explain what makes Final Fantasy 14 such a good game for the fine arts and what sets their new troupe apart from other performing groups in the game’s expansive community. The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q:: Let's start off with introductions. Can I get what role you have in Curtain Call and the name you want to go by?
ChiliFarmer: I'll go first. I am ChiliFarmer. I'm the artistic director, and you can just call me Chili.
Tromad: I'm Tromad. You can call me Tro. My role is guest relations and front house, and I just make sure that the logistics of like bards and the guests roaming around are kept in check. By force if necessary, not kidding.
Ahro’zi: Hi, I'm Ahro’zi. So with this, I am the choreographer for all the macros and stuff. I'm also the technical director, so all the fun little effects that happen on stage that we may need. Just call me Ahro.
Q: How did you each get into Final Fantasy 14?
Chili: It was a long journey. I played Kingdom Hearts when I was little and that exposed me to Final Fantasy. I loved it, and then I played MMOs. I played Toontown when I was younger, and I wanted to find more MMOs. Eventually, I played Guild Wars 2 and I always knew about Final Fantasy 14, but I couldn't afford the subscription until I graduated from college. I was like “let's try this out.” That was 2019, I played it, really got into the story, and yeah, I was hooked.
Tro: I've been playing MMOs since Everquest, and it was always back-to-back, like Everquest, Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, and so forth. I had never really played a Final Fantasy game. I poked at Final Fantasy 7 when my friend had it for his PlayStation, but I never really got into it until Final Fantasy 9 and 10. Then, I tried Final Fantasy 11 and that was a terrible experience for me. When Final Fantasy 14 came out, and I was like “you know, this looks different.” Popped in, it was 1.0. It was bad. I left, waited until Stormblood, gave it a go again, and have been here ever since. It is my primary go-to game now.
Ahro: I used to play a lot of Guild Wars 2, but I fried myself out trying to grind out things on that game. I did 100% completion of the map and went, “that was super fun, but now I need something else to do” and just around the corner was Shadowbringers. I was like “let me search the MMO market a little bit, but this looks really cool.” This trailer is really cool. I saw on Twitter that someone did a Fan Cam for their OC doing Red Mage actions because I heard they were showing off stuff that was in Stormblood. I was like “alright, cool. I'll try it out.” It was pretty easy to convince me to do it.
Q: How did Curtain Call get started?
Chili: I had always wanted to start a theater, and I've always kind of juggled around with the idea of doing it. A while back, I tried to start something similar that was going to be called the Factory Theatre Company, but it never got off the ground at all. I didn't really even organize it, but it was going to be Nier-themed and designed like a factory, like you're building a show. But then finally, one day, Ahro was actually in the process of securing spaces.
And I was like, “Okay, I'm going to do this, we're going to make the theater, we're going to make this happen.” And then Ahro came up to me like, “let's make a theater.” And I was like, “Wait, yes, this is what I've been thinking. This is what I was actually going to approach you about. Hey, this is perfect.” So then we just sat down, we wrote up everything that we wanted the theater to be, and then we just started working. It was kind of a perfect timing situation.
Tro: I was kidnapped by Ahro.
Ahro: Okay, we're going to have to do some additional context. Part of the Final Fantasy 14 performing arts scene is performers dancing to pop music. Yes, that was me and my group, but that's not entirely separate from what this is, this is for a theater aspect. And while I really enjoy the other side, this is focused entirely on actual theatrical performing. I was like, “it'd be fun, let's go to the one person that I know immediately that's pretty theatrical. Hey, Chili, would you like a new project? I have an idea for a theater. And I'll let you take the reins for it.”
Chili: Yeah, we were just kind of thinking alike at the same time. We were both having the same idea and discovered it through a conversation.
Q: What kinds of productions will Curtain Call put on?
Chili: We're focused on creating new works and new plays. Mainly, I always wanted to focus on new plays and expose more people to modern plays. 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, and it's also expensive.
But we wanted to just write our own shows that are basically modern theater in the setting of Final Fantasy 14, which 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. Less Shakespeare, less older plays—we're not married to not doing those, but our focus is developing new plays, even people who want to write a play and we can develop it. That's a huge focus for us.
Q: You touched on how Final Fantasy’s writing really lends itself to this. What else makes Final Fantasy 14 a good medium for Performing Arts?
Ahro: Using Final Fantasy 14 as a medium is interesting in the sense that pretty much anyone can do it. It's really, really accessible to folks. Like even starting at level one, you have a set of emotes, and as long as you're willing to put into practice, anyone can go on the stage. I like to compare it to how a lot of folks can clear Ultimates with one hand, having certain ailments that make it difficult, or not on the same type of playing field, with a lot of the game you can approach it from a lot of different walks of life. It's incredibly flexible. But everyone has the same set of tools as everyone else, and everyone is equal for the same amount of content and preparation that everyone else can do.
Chili: I think one great thing about Final Fantasy 14 is that the macro system is really great, where you can make macros which a lot of theaters do, like people who’ve done the macro pop dances. You can do the same thing in theater, where you can, you know, time dialogue to actions. And the housing system is so expansive, you can do so many things. There's the lighting, it's very theatrical, it's like being on a film set. The subdivision system I think is so unique to any other game that I can think of because you can lock your house, there's this community aspect, like going to a theater, you're going to a building, you're waiting in line, you sit in the space. There's something really special about that.
And I can only think of other games like Roblox or something. I haven't really played that, but I've seen things about it where people are experiencing creations and stuff, but Final Fantasy 14 has this community aspect, especially the subdivision and the housing content that creates this ability to create an experience that is nothing I've experienced online.
Q::Touching on the housing system, though, it's kind of a mixed bag as any player of Final Fantasy 14 knows. Did you have any trouble getting property?
Chili: Well, I think the great thing is [the new datacenter] Dynamis. The whole expansion of the new datacenters has opened up an opportunity for us to be able to get property because there are large plots that have been sitting. Several of these places have been sitting for months and months and months because just no one's over there, ao it lent us the opportunity to grab those plots. Since there's data center travel, anyone on the North American data centers can come visit us very easily. That was a great thing. Before that, though, we probably would have been very hard.
Q: What server are you on?
Chili: Dynamis Maduin. Goblet Ward 7, Plot 43.
Q: Are there other limitations Final Fantasy 14 gives you in what you're trying to do?
Ahro: We suffer from a lot of flickering issues outdoors. People would pop in and out. With indoor housing and with a good usher system, you can kind of limit the number of people that come in, that way you don't have flickering issues.
Another limitation is leveling jobs. That'll take a little bit if you want to use the skill that's high-level, but you have a level 15 character. Another really, really painful limitation can be item slots in housing. Oh, I would love to have an extremely detailed venue, but I have to spend more than 50 slots on walls alone. Oh, well, there goes a fourth of our item slot inventory. Great. So minus stuff like that, there’s stuff that doesn't seem like it's going to be an issue that becomes an issue, like when you're trying to organize a large group of people in one specific area for a polished product.
Q: The item slots issue is something rumored to be increased in the next expansion, what are some things Curtain Call is really hoping to see in 7.0?
Chili: I would love to see a better preview system so that you're able to maybe preview several housing items at once. I mean, it doesn't have to be able to preview everything at once. I would love a full preview system, but I just really want to see how a few items work together before buying. So maybe, you know, you can put five items together, especially if you want to create something that isn't in the game like you want to clip several items together and see how they look together. I like that for my scenic designs. I like to work with creating some artistic-looking elements. So being able to maybe preview more than one item at once so that I can see how that looks together. So I can see different colors together.
That the cap for item space might increase is amazing. I mean, that's huge.
Ahro: Like indoor training dummies? That'd be cool.
Chili: Yes, that indoor training would be amazing.
Ahro: That way everyone can use all their skills inside.
Tro: Personally, I would like to see the ability to change up interior layouts. You have your stairs going up, and down and there's a giant opening where they meet up with the balcony that wraps around the inside. I hope that at some point, there's some way they allow us to sort through a variety of different internal designs for that, so we're not all relying on the same staircase being in the same place right in the middle where I want to put my stage! That's really my big thing. I'm actually really happy so far other than those pillars. I just can't stand those pillars! Why are you there, pillars?
Q: On a more personal level, are there things you're hoping for in 7.0, like a location that we might go to or a new job class?
Chili: I'm hoping for Meracydia, as it was a location mentioned a lot lately. It'd be really interesting, especially with everything that's happened in the story so far, and the holes that were left from different storylines that I want to see tied together. That's definitely one place I would love to go, and of course, I eventually want to go to other worlds. I love that: visiting other places and seeing how their worlds work on a systematic level and how people interact and how everything is different, or maybe how it's connected to real life. Final Fantasy 14 does that a lot, it connects things to real places.
I'm hoping that Island Sanctuary will have housing eventually. It could act as a housing fix, maybe they add a cottage or something so that alleviates a lot of the housing stress.
Tro: I think I want to see technology. We saw the starship [Ragnarok] take us basically across the galaxy. I want to see technology. I want to see us go from a medieval-looking society to something where we're akin to Final Fantasy 7. I know that kind of sounds dorky for a fantasy MMO, but we just had the Garleans. They had buses! There were cars. I want a car in my yard. And by golly, I want technology inside my venue.
Ahro: This is for me, I really want more lore about Bozja, but that's not relevant to the year. I think that what I really, really, really, really, really, really, really want to see is more development for Blue Mage and for other limited jobs. I remember when Endwalker was being teased, and we all expected a Beastmaster job. “Oh, yeah, we're definitely getting that.” We didn't, but that'd be really cool. Another thing, completely silly, however, let's get some blitzball at the Gold Saucer already? Yes, please.
Tro: Where's my Blitzball?
Ahro: Oh, man, that'd be so much fun.
GR: There is a roleplaying blitzball league, so the desire is clearly there.
Tro: I think it was the blitzball rally where they did a macro performance that got me into macro dancing. Like I was just a new player wandering around. I saw that. That's wild. I want to do that.
Ahro: You know, how cool would it be if we get Blitzball prizes at Gold Saucer? You could buy a uniform, with different uniforms of blitzball teams? That'd be so cool.
Chili: I would just say it'd be cool if we had a whip user, like Quistis from Final Fantasy 8? That'd be a fun class.
Q: There is a fairly rich performing arts scene in Final Fantasy 14, like those Blitzball rallies. Have you worked with other performing groups?
Chili: I've kind of been around different performing arts theaters. They're there. I saw Lalalfels of the Caribbean, both Part One and Part Two, and that was really fun. I'm familiar with A Stage Reborn and have seen some of their shows on YouTube, so I was already very familiar with the performing arts scene. I've seen a bunch of different macro dance teams perform at different festivals in-game which is a whole other entertainment scene in Final Fantasy 14. And there are lots of venues putting on in-game these huge server-wide events run by the community.
That's what really got my brain working like, “Oh, wait, we can do this here.” I've worked in theater. That's what I did when I graduated college, I worked in professional theater and sound design and working backstage and doing a little bit of performing, but not really. I wanted to bring what I knew to the theater scene in Final Fantasy 14, because there was an element that I felt was… not missing, but there was a hole there. I think there was a lot of incredible theater being done, but I wasn't seeing the shows I was going to go see at my local regional theater or this play that's being developed. I was only seeing stuff like Shakespeare and a very specific genre of theater. Older theater stuff that’s in the public domain, which is understandable, because that's all that they can put on. And they did it very well.
That was the thing, it was all really entertaining. I was like, “This is great. But also I want to expose people to other things because there are people in 14 that just don't ever go see theater. Wait, there's more than just Shakespeare! So let's expose people to all theater.” When I was seeing everything, I was really inspired by it. It was really amazing, and I want to see people put on more different forms of theater!
Tro: I would say for me, I started out as a macro dancing back in like 2018. It naturally developed that you got all those macros, and you're already on stage. So why not do a couple of sketches? I did a couple here and there. They were short 30-minute skits, but they were always fun to me. Then, I started doing Bard work and all that in Final Fantasy 14, and that got me connected to different groups within the community that were all about performing arts.
The more I got involved, the more I started helping different groups with their logistics. This performance needs bards, it's okay, I know where to find them. That performing group needs a couple of macro dancers, okay, I know where to go to get those. And so now I'm more like a node. I know where to go and find different people because I've connected to all of them, and that's kind of my experience.
I have no experience other than going to a couple of plays outside the game itself, but my exposure to performing arts has really grown since I've been in Final Fantasy 14. I just really enjoy the performing arts here. I try to grow it with friends and people who just swing by. It's like a bar. It's with the dancers. There's a play. There's a skit, they'll check it out. Here it is.
Ahro: I do a lot of event organizing for my own organization and for helping out with a bunch of other different organizations. Normally if you look in the credits of some bigger stuff, I’m probably in there. I've helped with the Eorzean Event Committee and I helped with the Eorzea Aquarium. You’ll see me bouncing around.
I'm not really a person that has connections, like Tro, but it put me in a position where I've seen a lot of people and their walks of life and what they're interested in–all the stuff that they bring to the community. What if we all worked together on different things? Could be really cool things? So that's normally what I get myself into, always playing the coordinator between everyone. So I naturally am thrown into stuff that way.
Q: You did your first workshop, how did that go?
Chili: It was great. It was actually for our mainstage show that we'll be putting on. It was done before we announced our theaters, so it was in-house but it was really great. It was encouraging to hear feedback on the play. I'm writing the play, and I was able to just have our admin and then some other people we brought on read it and was able to hear feedback–not directly to me–and just hear them talk about the play. I was able to take notes about how they were receiving it and what they were picking up on, and what kind of topics they were talking about. What characters did they like, what characters maybe they weren't drawn to? Do I need to develop this character a little bit more? It was really helpful. We'll be having another workshop pretty soon because I am in the works of writing the second draft of the script.
Q: Can you give a quick synopsis of what the first show will be?
Chili: 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. And that's really all I feel like I can say. There are some visitors, I'll say it's set in Ishgard and there are some visitors.
Q: Is there a roleplay element to what you do? Or are you just focused on the show?
Chili: We're mainly focused on the show, we don't have any roleplay. People are welcome to come and roleplay at the theater, but of course, there wouldn't be any role-playing happening while they're watching the show. But it's welcome. If people want to come as your character and find some people to roleplay in our theater, in our space outside the theater, et cetera. It's always welcome, but it's nothing we're focused on developing
Q: Is there anything else about what you're working on that you want to share?
Ahro: I got it. So we're doing shows and stuff like that? That's, yes, absolutely. But I do want to emphasize that we are a learning platform because a lot of the resources that it seems for stage performances… what makes the stage and what are stage directions and all that other stuff require a lot of on-your-own type of learning, and you have to look up guides.
Now, we're trying to make it easy, trying to get as many people in the door, trying to figure, say, “Hey, this is for anyone and everyone. Go ahead, get it. Come on, the water's fine. We'll teach you, it'll be fun.” 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.
[END]
Final Fantasy 14 is available for PC, PS4, and PS5.