Key themes: Memory, family, home

Designers: Ruth Trenery-Leach, Will Osmond, Mo Holkar (UK)

Presented by: Will Osmond (UK)

Number of participants: 12

Duration: 4 hours

Genre/style: Nordic-influenced freeform

Run before at: Playtest at The Nursery, London in July 2017

Content warning: Death, haunting

About the larp

This house hasn’t always been old or so empty. For a long time, many decades ago when your great-great-grandparents moved in, it was vibrant, full of life and conversation. Back then it didn’t need the wake of a funeral to fill it with family. And during the Blitz, how everyone came together to sing and dance to keep their spirits up.

It all happened here, in this house. The memories and ghosts of those times past permeate the very walls. Yet all seems forgotten now. The life of this house has changed so much…

In Life of a House, you will play three different members of a household in different eras – the Victorian period, World War II, and contemporary times. This is a low-key, realistic drama about a place and the people who have inhabited it. You will explore what it means to be part of a family and a community, and how such dynamics have changed over time and according to the social mores of the period.

Though I played my first larp at the age of 11 as a drama exercise, it took me another 24 years to rediscover it as part of my PhD research into immersive theatre. After playing a number of larps with The Immersivists, I convinced my supervisor that larp is far more interesting, so the focus of my research shifted. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past year! Mostly playing, but also designing, playtesting and organising larps with the amazing friends it has been my privilege to make in this community. There is still so much I need to discover, but I am drawn to larps in which I can shape the story through my character’s actions – the more sandboxy the better – and ones in which I can immerse and really feel as the character.