The Justice Players
“You’ve gotta be original. Because if you’re like someone else, what do they need you for?” — Bernadette Peters
You’ve probably seen them, if you’ve traveled in the city or visited a park. The stage full of actors, of minimal to moderate ability, putting on weird spins on theater classics like “Superhamlet”. Sometimes, they’re doing a play based on some recent events in the superhero world. Maybe you kept going. But sometimes, you stopped to watch. Because whatever it was, it was something.
The Justice Players started as two friends who had useless superpowers. They wanted to be heroes, but couldn’t find ways to apply what they had. But some people don’t know how to fail, and they decided to hype themselves up to any audience that would watch. Nobody cared about their self-aggrandizing. But when they did a one-off comedy re-enactment of a famous story, people loved it.
Today, the Players see it as a challenge to put “useless” powers to use in stagecraft and performance. Psychic wood shaping? Not a power that’s going to stop a bank robbery, but a great power if you need to build a theatrical set. A prehensile, flexible mouth? The city’s premiere hero team won’t be calling, but you can train yourself to make almost any kind of sound effect your show needs. The troupe only accept new members with such seemingly-useless abilities. They’ll teach you acting, and if you can’t act, they’ll teach you stagecraft. And then you’ll go on stage, and maybe find what it’s like for the public to love you after all.
Using the Justice Players
The Players take themselves seriously. They know they’ll never be big heroes or famous thespians. But they love what they do, they work hard to do it, and that sincerity makes them more popular than they’ll ever truly realize.
Their shabby sets and middling acting talents make them easy to overlook. Play up that seeming mediocrity and contrast it against the earnestness that makes them do what they do.
Plots
- Someone need details on a recent event in the superhero world. The Players, who deeply research their stories, know something important.
- Heroes need a one-of-a-kind specialized power, only to find that one of the Players has it. On the flip side, a villain needs to exploit such a power, and heroes must race to stop them.
- A Player discovers that their powers have “useful” applications after all. They want to debut as a superhero. Will the heroes help? Does it work out?
Dialogue
“Uneasy lies the head that wears the mask.”
“Lord, what fools these heroes be!”
“Of course we love doing this. You think we’d be out here, at night, in the rain, on the weekends, doing all this exhausting shit, just so 23 bored people can show up for the show, if we didn’t?”
Comic Book Panels
An actor stands on a wooden stage, wearing a second-hand costume and holding up the skull of Yorick. A stagehand is stationed on some scaffolding to the side of the stage. They hold out their hands, and a bright light shines out of the palms and illuminates the actor.
Backstage, one Player is holding pieces of wood together. Another one is exuding glue from their fingertips to bind them. They aren’t looking at the work - they’re intently reading a script placed on a bar stool next to them.
A pair of Players are meekly passing out flyers at a local superhero convention. The flyers advertise the Justice Players’ next show and their schedule throughout the season. Few people take a flyer, but a few people compliment the pair as they pass.
Variations
Medium
The Players are positioned as a classic acting troupe, building sets and performing in parks or third-rate theaters. What else might they do?
- In the modern world, the Players will put performances on video sharing sites like TikTok and YouTube. A version of the Players might even be exclusive to such platforms.
- In a more retro setting, the Players might also appear on sporadic television broadcasts, or appear on weird UHF stations.