Rehearsal and Operation of Girlie Shows

It's December 1943. The Allied forces are entrenched in southern Italy, fighting their way north toward occupied Rome. Your squadron of soldiers embarks upon a grueling five-day march from Naples to where the US Fifth Army is stationed in Cassino. When you arrive, you will put on a show. But not just any show: a girlie show.

"Rehearsal and Operation of Girlie Shows" is a larp about US soldiers putting on a girlie show (what we would today call drag) during World War II. Players live through five days of marching, fighting, and girlie show rehearsing as they travel through a war-torn Italian countryside and create their own costumes and makeup for their upcoming show. Over the course of the game, they will have the chance to reflect on their soldier's gender, sexuality, and relationship with violence.

• Content warnings: violence, war, military, casual misogyny/homophobia
• Number of participants: 4-12 soldiers, plus a Commanding Officer
• Duration: 75 minutes of bootcamp, 75 minutes of play
• Staging requirements: a large open space for marching, ability to play two pieces of music (“Semper Fidelis” by John Philips Sousa; “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky)
• Tools required: clear tape, such as Scotch; construction paper, various colors; a roll of plastic wrap for every four players; scissors, at least one pair for every two players; band-aids, various sizes; whistle or other noisemaking device

This larp is a hack of Benediction by Laura op de Beke, originally submitted for Golden Cobras 2023.