Lords of Misrule Theatre Company: Where Punk Meets Play

Every summer, Salt Lake City delivers some killer community events: the Utah Pride Festival, the Days of ’47 Rodeo, the Craft Lake City DIY Fest and, for those deeply embedded in the creative underground scene, the unmissable Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival. The annual festival brings together experiences from aerial silks to puppeteers to new works produced by local actors. Among the many theatrical experiences this year, few are as chaotic and genre-defying as Dungeons of Misrule, the newest experience from the Lords of Misrule Theatre Co.

“The idea of Lords of Misrule is free, and anyone can take it. Go ahead, bite our style.”

Founded in 2019 in response to the closure of The Road Home shelter, the Lords of Misrule was born out of urgency and purpose. Creative Director RJ Walker debuted the company with a parody of A Christmas Carol, inviting audience members to directly influence the performance by donating to support the unsheltered. That ethos has remained core to the company’s identity ever since. “We wanted to explore themes like anarchy, chaos, mutual aid and criticism of power structures,” Walker says. “We believe in DIY theatre as a vehicle for direct community action.”

“There are a lot of themes about failure, trying again and overcoming challenges.”

This year’s Fringe show, Dungeons of Misrule, is built on the bones of MÖRK BORG, a doom-metal-inspired tabletop game known for its brutality and difficulty. The company’s 2024 run using this system was a hit, with most performances selling out. For the 2025 edition, the team has leveled up to CY_BORG, the cyberpunk version of MÖRK BORG, infusing the show with themes of technological dystopia, oppressive corporations and synthetic rebellion. Each performance unfolds as a unique, improvised storyline where audience members roll the dice to determine narrative outcomes. 

Director and company member Connor Bond serves as the show’s Game Master and director, narrating the story and outcomes resulting from the audience’s dice rolls. These rolls double as donations to Genderbands, a local nonprofit supporting trans healthcare. The donations allow audience members to change the game — forcing the actors to adopt new characters, change their behavior, or perform unpredictable challenges. “When a character dies, the actor runs backstage, grabs a new costume, and jumps back in,” Bond explains. “There are a lot of themes about failure, trying again and overcoming challenges that just sort of happen naturally from this.” 

“We wanted to explore themes like anarchy, chaos, mutual aid and criticism of power structures.”

“The process for this show specifically is really unique because the players have no idea what’s going to happen. We throw them in blind and see what they do. Me and the Non Player Characters (actors who play all the adversaries and enemies that the Players run into) have been cooking up these scenarios together, playing through them and refining them based on what it feels like to play.” Bond says. “It’s more like designing a video game than it is writing a story. The stars of the show have no idea what even happens in it!”

Improvisation isn’t just a tool for the Lords of Misrule — it’s a philosophy. “Even our scripted shows are just guidelines,” Walker says. “The audience can change everything with a single donation.” In previous shows, sword fights have turned into dance battles, and dramatic monologues have transformed into Elvis impersonations. The company’s refusal to hold auditions furthers their belief of radical inclusion. 

“If you’d like to join our merry band of misfits in the cast and crew, we don’t do auditions! We hate them! Everyone hates auditions! Also, we don’t care how good you are at monologues or reading sides. We don’t even care about your gender or what you look like when it comes to casting. We’ll just edit the script to fit you — that’s the magic of devised theatre. Chemistry beats talent every time, so we cast based on chemistry,” explains Walker.

“We believe in DIY theatre as a vehicle for direct community action.”

Every Saturday from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., Improv Avenue — a group led by one of the Lords of Misrule’s members — hosts a free improv jam and acting workshop at The Beehive. If you want to be cast in the Lords of Misrule, the company recommends that you start attending these workshops and let the facilitator know you’re interested in being in shows. “If you’re interested in tech, still come to Open Improv or the free Tuesday open mic nights and talk to the host and facilitator,” Walker says. “There is no shortage of tech needs in our venue for Lords of Misrule or other shows.”

Though the company operates on a shoestring budget supplemented by local grants, their impact has been anything but small. Over the years, they’ve raised funds for organizations such as the University of Utah Prison Education Project, Save the Kids from Incarceration and Our Unsheltered Relatives (OURs), with plans to contribute to the Salt Lake Community Bail Fund in the future. 

“The audience can change everything with a single donation.”

Where traditional theatre companies strive for institutional growth, the Lords of Misrule have different ambitions. “We probably won’t ever be the size of SLAC [Salt Lake Acting Company],” Walker admits. “However, the idea of Lords of Misrule is free, and anyone can take it. Go ahead, bite our style, do theatre in your area that raises money for the people doing good in your community. Heck, I’ll send you a script. Licensing is free so long as you’re fundraising for a good cause and you credit the original cast and crew. Our growth as a theatre company may be limited to DIY and underground spaces, but the growth of our idea has revolutionary potential.”

The Lords of Misrule will be performing at The Beehive, located 666 State Street, for the 2025 Fringe Festival. There, you can join in on Dungeons of Misrule for the following misadventures: SUBWAY FROM HELL on Friday, July 25 at 7:00 p.m., BLOODBATH LIVE! on Saturday, July 26 at 7:00 p.m. and SPACE INVADERZ on Sunday, July 27 at 3:00 p.m.

Read more performance and theatre stories from SLUG:
Mad King Productions Aims To Be a Theater Company for Adults
Play Review: The Antipodes