What do Wikipedia, Joe Biden, and Ms. Frizzle have in common? They all find themselves on a reality television set in the Queen’s Players winter show.
Queen’s Players kicked off their winter run with a bang on March 19 at The Mansion. Running from March 19 to 22, and 26 to 29, “Field Tripping Balls; Munch Ado About Nothing” combines musical hits, outrageous characters, and unapologetically raunchy comedy—all in the name of charity. This winter’s show was one to , featuring an interesting mix of characters—from a dragon to a middle schooler on a field trip—trapped inside a reality television set gone completely off the rails.
Director Nick Neokleous, MSc ’25, shared how he wanted the show to follow a sketch style while connecting the scenes through one common element.
“The scenes don’t necessarily have to connect [to each other] as much, and so that’s sort of what I wanted to go with, and I was like, well, what would lend itself super well to that, and I figured one thing everybody knows is reality TV,” Neokleous said in an interview with The Journal.
Combining scenes loosely based on reality TV staples like Survivor, Family Feud, and The Bachelor, the show felt both familiar and unique, with a hodgepodge of characters that stayed with the audience throughout, creating memorable scenes, such as St. Patrick as a judge on Dragons Den.
The randomness of the characters gave the production team a lot to work with in of comedy. From jokes about William Shakespeare creating a dating app, to Wikipedia being a know-it-all, the characters were exactly what you would, and wouldn’t, expect.
The show’s unexpected twist on reality TV favourites was made apparent when Wikipedia herself moderated a game of family feud between a dinosaur, a moth, and Joe Biden against an engineering student and a New Jersey housewife in the opening scene.
Another stand-out moment was a scene based on the reality TV show Naked and Afraid, where participants must survive naked in a deserted location, which quickly devolved into the characters roasting one another, and then the entire cast coming together to roast their director.
The atmosphere in The Mansion’s upstairs venue was unlike any other student performance at Queen’s. Even with ample seating, the crowd spent most of the night on their feet, dancing and cheering on their friends.
The musical performances ranged from covers of Blondie’s decades-old “Heart of Glass” to recent favourites like “The Spins” by Mac Miller and Empire of the Sun.
Despite being all covers, the music directors wanted to put some unique twists on the songs performed. Whether this was by altering the endings or adding a few new notes here and there, the performance solidified the fact Queen’s Players is unlike anything else.
“You come to the show and you’re like, I’ve never heard this version before,” Magan Schierau, ArtSci ’25, music director, said.
A part of the unique energy of Queen’s Players has to do with the diversity of talent, and personal investment each cast member brings to their role. Each performer is tasked with writing their own scripts, adding a personal touch, and getting the actors visibly excited about the parts they get to play.
“Players is the perfect place for creative minds to come together and put on a show that just doesn’t exist anywhere else,” President Liam Vachon O’Hearn, MA ’25, said.
Above all, the production is a celebration in of a good cause. After each run of shows, the club’s board picks a few local charities to . Vachon O’Hearn shared how important it is to Players to as many aspects of the community as possible.
“Pitching all your money towards one charity can be really helpful, but we like to think of our version of the arts as king of uplifting the community as a whole, which ends up being something that we want to spread our money around rather than focus it in one place” Vachon O’Hearn said.
The Players decide which charities to after the show’s run. They’ve shown love to many local charities in past years, including Martha’s Table, the AMS Food Bank, and Joe’s Music Mill.
The winter show highlighted this community aspect, with a palpable feeling of camaraderie between the audience and the cast , Queen’s Players put on yet another performance to .
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