Play, Performance, and Identity Play helps define who we are as human beings. However, many of the leisurely/ludic activities people participate in are created and governed by corporate entities with social, political, and business agendas. As such, it is critical that scholars understand and explicate the ideological underpinnings of played-through experiences and how they affect the player/performers who engage in them. This book explores how people play and why their play matters, with a particular interest in how ludic experiences are often constructed and controlled by the interests of institutions, including corporations, non-profit organizations, government agencies, religious organizations, and non- governmental organizations (NGOs). Each chapter explores diverse sites of play. From theme parks to comic-book conventions to massive, multiplayer online games, they probe what roles the designers of these experiences construct for players and how such play might affect participants’ identities and ideologies. Scholars of performance studies, leisure studies, media studies, and sociology will find this book an essential reference when studying facets of play. Matt Omasta is the Director of the Theatre Education & Applied Theatre programs at Utah State University. His recent publications appear in Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre & P erformance, Youth Theatre Journal, The International Journal of Education and the Arts, and Theatre for Young Audiences Today. Drew Chappell is an interdisciplinary researcher whose articles appear in Qualitative Inquiry, Children’s Literature in Education, and Youth Theatre Journal. His edited volume Children Under Construction: Critical Essays on Play as Curriculum was published by Peter Lang. Drew teaches theatre at Chapman University and California State University Fullerton. Routledge Advances in Theatre and Performance Studies 1 Theatre and Performance in 9 The Provocation of the Senses Digital Culture in Contemporary Theatre From Simulation to Stephen Di Benedetto Embeddedness Matthew Causey 10 Ecology and Environment in European Drama 2 The Politics of New Downing Cless Media Theatre Life®™ 11 Global Ibsen Gabriella Giannachi Performing Multiple Modernities Edited by Erika Fischer-Lichte, 3 Ritual and Event Barbara Gronau, and Interdisciplinary Perspectives Christel Weiler Edited by Mark Franko 12 The Theatre of the Bauhaus The Modern and Postmodern 4 Memory, Allegory, and Stage of Oskar Schlemmer Testimony in South Melissa Trimingham American Theater Upstaging Dictatorship 13 Feminist Visions and Queer Ana Elena Puga Futures in Postcolonial Drama Community, Kinship, 5 Crossing Cultural and Citizenship Borders Through the Kanika Batra Actor’s Work Foreign Bodies of Knowledge 14 Nineteenth-Century Theatre Cláudia Tatinge Nascimento and the Imperial Encounter Marty Gould 6 Movement Training for the Modern Actor 15 The Theatre of Richard Maxwell Mark Evans and the New York City Players Sarah Gorman 7 The Politics of American Actor Training 16 Shakespeare, Theatre and Time Edited by Ellen Margolis and Matthew D. Wagner Lissa Tyler Renaud 17 Political and Protest Theatre 8 Performing Embodiment in after 9/11 Samuel Beckett’s Drama Patriotic Dissent Anna McMullan Edited by Jenny Spencer 18 Religion, Theatre, and 28 Art, Vision, and Nineteenth- Performance: Acts of Faith Century Realist Drama Edited by Lance Gharavi Acts of Seeing Amy Holzapfel 19 Adapting Chekhov The Text and its Mutations 29 The Politics of Interweaving Edited by J. Douglas Clayton & Performance Cultures Yana Meerzon Beyond Postcolonialism 20 Performance and the Politics Edited by Erika Fischer-Lichte, of Space Torsten Jost and Saskya Iris Jain Theatre and Topology Edited by Erika Fischer-Lichte 30 Theatre and National Identity and Benjamin Wihstutz Re-Imagining Conceptions of Nation 21 Music and Gender in English Edited by Nadine Holdsworth Renaissance Drama Katrine K. Wong 31 Nationalism and Youth in Theatre and Performance 22 The Unwritten Grotowski Edited by Angela Sweigart- Theory and Practice of Gallagher and Victoria the Encounter Pettersen Lantz Kris Salata 23 Dramas of the Past on the 32 Performing Asian Twentieth-Century Stage Transnationalisms In History’s Wings Theatre, Identity and the Alex Feldman Geographies of Performance Amanda Rogers 24 Performance, Identity and the Neo-Political Subject 33 The Politics and the Reception of Edited by Matthew Causey and Rabindranath Tagore’s Drama Fintan Walsh The Bard on the Stage Edited by Arnab Bhattacharya 25 Theatre Translation in and Mala Renganathan Performance Edited by Silvia Bigliazzi, Peter 34 Representing China on the Kofler, and Paola Ambrosi Historical London Stage 26 Translation and Adaptation in From Orientalism to Theatre and Film Intercultural Performance Edited by Katja Krebs Dongshin Chang 27 Grotowski, Women, and 35 Play, Performance, and Identity Contemporary Performance How Institutions Structure Meetings with Remarkable Ludic Spaces Women Edited by Matt Omasta and Virginie Magnat Drew Chappell This page intentionally left blank Play, Performance, and Identity How Institutions Structure Ludic Spaces Edited by Matt Omasta and Drew Chappell First published 2015 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2015 Taylor & Francis The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Play, performance, and identity : how institutions structure ludic spaces / edited by Matt Omasta and Drew Chappell. pages cm. — (Routledge advances in theatre and performance studies ; 39) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Play—Social aspects. 2. Games—Social aspects. 3. Fantasy games— Social aspects. 4. Role playing—Social aspects. 5. Identity (Psychology) I. Omasta, Matt, 1980- editor. II. Chappell, Drew, editor. GV14.45.P54 2015 790—dc23 2014037573 ISBN: 978-1-138-01677-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-78068-9 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra To our families, with whom we first learned to play. This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments xi 1 Introduction: Play Matters 1 Matt Omasta AND DREW CHAPPELL 2 Warriors, Wizards, and Clerics: Heroric Identity Construction in Live Action Role Playing Games 22 DANI SNYDER-YOUNG 3 Homo Ludens and the Sharks: Structuring Alternative Realities while Shark Cage Diving in South Africa 33 MICHAEL SchwartZ 4 Playfully Empowering: Stunt Runners and Momentary Performance 44 Terry DEAN 5 The Future of Family Play at Epcot 55 JOHN NEWMAN 6 Mormons Think They Should Dance 67 MEGAN SANBORN JONES 7 All the Dungeon’s a Stage: The Lived Experiences of Commercial BDSM Players 79 DANIELLE SZlawieniec-Haw 8 Cheering is Tied to Eating: Consumption and Excess in Immersive, Role-Specific Dinner Theatre Spaces 91 DREW CHAPPELL x Contents 9 Becoming Batman: Cosplay, Performance, and Ludic Transformation at Comic-Con 105 KANE ANDERSON 10 Plaza Indonesia: Performing Modernity in a Shopping Mall 117 JENNIFER GOODLANDER 11 Britpicking as Cultural Policing in Fanfiction 128 ERIN HORÁkovÁ 12 Dramatic Manipulations: Conflict, Empathy, and Identity in World of Warcraft 142 KIMI JOHNSON 13 Afterword: Who are You? 152 Matt Omasta AND DREW CHAPPELL Editors 161 Contributors 163 References 165 Index 177 Acknowledgments We wish to thank the many scholars who participated in our working groups on play and performance at the American Society for Theatre Research and Association for Theatre in Higher Education conferences, including the con- tributors to this volume. Thank you to Johnny Saldaña, Sharon Chappell, and Jocelyn Buckner for their feedback as we developed this manuscript, and to Andrea Brandley for her assistance in preparing the Index. Finally, we are grateful to Routledge and our dedicated editorial team for their assistance throughout the production process. This page intentionally left blank 1 Introduction Play Matters Matt Omasta and Drew Chappell In The Wizard of Oz, Toto races to a corner of the Wizard’s chamber and pulls back a curtain, revealing a quite ordinary-looking man. His back to Dorothy’s party, the “Wizard” frantically pulls levers, turns cranks, and speaks into a microphone. The lion, scarecrow, tin man, and young girl from Kansas sud- denly realize the magic they’ve experienced – and need to help them – exists only in their imaginations, sustained by their (supposed) needs and some impressive theatrical tricks. The Wizard admits he is a “humbug,” a fraud who has kept up an act since a tornado deposited him in Oz years before. The man reveals how he came to play the role of the “Great and P owerful,” explaining he ordered the denizens of Oz to build an Emerald City and, within it, the palace that became his performance space. Nonplussed