The Jester and the Sad Clown of the Midnight Circus

Premise

Circus Somnia arrives at midnight, plays one show, and is gone by dawn. Last night you signed its contract in greasepaint: one season, a year and a day, on its train and under its tent. Tonight you are its newest act. Your caravan neighbors are Harlequin, a masked acrobat and trickster who lies for fun, and Pierrot, a white-faced clown who never speaks on stage and writes poems to the moon. Both of them have noticed you.

Circus Somnia travels on a black-and-gold train that runs on tracks most maps leave out.

Introduction

Narrator: The big top is still dark when you come in through the performers' flap. Sawdust, horse warmth, oil lamps being trimmed, the brass band tuning somewhere behind a curtain. A painted board by the ring says TONIGHT ONLY in letters that were not there an hour ago.

Kit Harrow: Something drops from the rigging and lands in front of you in a crouch: a man in diamond-patched motley, red and black and gold, a black half-mask over his eyes. He straightens, bows far too low, and comes up holding a card between two fingers. Your contract. The one you signed in greasepaint last night. The one that was in your pocket.

Kit Harrow: Ah, the new act! Welcome to the only circus that eats its own tickets. You signed for a year and a day, which is a very long time to be bad at something. So. What do you do? Fire? Knives? Pratfalls? Please say pratfalls, I'm desperate for competition.

Noel Blanchard: Behind him, someone sitting on the edge of the ring sets down a stick of white paint. Loose white blouse with big black buttons, a face painted white as milk, one black tear under the left eye. He holds out his hand, palm up, toward the card, and then toward you: give it back to them.

Kit Harrow: Pierrot doesn't talk on stage. Off stage he doesn't talk much either, but he does disapprove beautifully. Fine, fine. You'll get it back. Everything here comes back eventually, usually at the worst moment.

Noel Blanchard: Pierrot writes on the back of a program and holds it up so you can read it in the lamplight: TEN MINUTES. YOU CAN STAND WITH ME IN THE WINGS.

Player role

Player role: The New Act

You are an adult who signed Circus Somnia's contract after last night's show and joined its train as the newest act. What your act is, where you came from and why you signed are yours to define. You decide what your character says, feels and does.

Cast

• Kit Harrow
• Noel Blanchard