a module for ten 0th level characters
in the castle of
eternal sunset
by charles green
i remember it all.
A play that changes with each performance, based on the roll of the dice: In the Castle of Eternal Sunset follows two teenage boys as they play their final session of Dungeons & Dragons on an autumn day in 2004. As the teenagers roll to see what happens next, their different possible futures slowly unfold, both in and outside the game.
During the play, audience members will be prompted to read aloud fragments of text from their seats, determined randomly by the fall of the dice. The texts contain the hundreds of different possibilities of how the boys’ lives might unfold. Their fates, then, are never fixed until the die rolls each performance, setting them on their path - and the audience speaks their futures into being.
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
January 18
University of the South
Sewanee, TN
university tour.
additional performance dates to be announced.
PRESS
PREVIEW: ArtsKnoxville // November 2025
meet THE TEAM
CREATIVE
Playwright Charles Green
Director Ethan Graham Roeder
Stage management Savannah Smith
Music Selections from Here and Here Before by Kelsi Walker
CAST
Dungeon Master Brady Craddock
Player Hogan Wayland
First Take Co. is committed to championing the work of local independent musicians for each of its projects.
CASTLE features instrumental selections from Kelsi Walker’s album Here and Here Before. You can listen to previews of Kelsi’s music here, and find her full discography and information on her website.
about the music
bios
BRADY CRADDOCK | Dungeon Master
Brady Craddock grew up in the small town of Union City, Tennessee, where he began performing at the local community theatre when he was nine years old. He moved to Knoxville in 2017, where he earned his B.A. in Theatre from the University of Tennessee in 2021. Local credits include A Christmas Carol (2017–19) and The Madwoman of Chaillot at the Clarence Brown Theatre, as well as All’s Well That Ends Well and The Flick with First Take Co. Most recently, he appeared as Howie Newsome and Sam Craig in Our Town, Harry “Jazzbo” Heywood in It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, and as John Brooks and Mr. Dashwood in Little Women at River & Rail. He is grateful for the opportunity to be working on this project with First Take. When he’s not on stage, he can be found teaching classes at the Knoxville Children’s Theatre and tending bar at The Public House.
ETHAN GRAHAM ROEDER | Director
Ethan Graham Roeder is a Southern Appalachian theatre maker & actor steward currently pursuing his MFA in Actor Training and Coaching at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. His research explores immersive & interactive performance, with particular emphasis on literary adaptation, actor musicianship, and site-responsivity. London: Phoenix Arts Club, Camden Fringe Festival, Rose Bruford College. Regional: Boise Contemporary Theatre; River and Rail Theatre; Clarence Brown Theatre; Great River Shakespeare Festival; Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Playwriting commissions include the University of Tennessee and the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Recent directing credits: I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change; The Flick. EG is the founder of First Take Co.
HOGAN WAYLAND | Player
Hogan is a recent graduate from the University of Tennessee with a BFA in Theatre. He has performed at the Clarence Brown Theatre in many shows, including Hair (2023), Inherit the Wind (2025), and A Christmas Carol (‘23, ‘24, ‘25).
CHARLES GREEN | Playwright
Charles Green is a poet and playwright. His works include P o l a r i s (a tragedy expansion pack) [National New Play Network/Kennedy Center – MFA Playwrights Workshop], In the Castle of Eternal Sunset (Brick Aux), +r0y (Shakespeare's New Contemporaries - Finalist), Genocide: A Love Story (Theater 503 New Play Contest, London— Semifinalist), The Dybbuk of Dachau (The O’Neill Center’s National Playwrights Conference— Semifinalist), American Zion (Finborough Theatre, London— Finalist), Death in Texas (USC Outstanding Drama Award), The Angel & the Icebox (Manhattan Repertory Theater), Mrs. Marlboro (Pittsburgh New Works Festival— Finalist), and A Desert Fugue (City Garage Theatre). Charles is an MFA graduate of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and is currently pursuing a PhD in Theatre and Performance at Columbia University.
Your questions, answered
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Great question! If you’d like to experience the show spoiler free, stop reading here: otherwise, read on to see just what will go down!
Each participating audience member will be assigned a number (or numbers) between 1-20 and handed a corresponding booklet.
Throughout the play, the actors will roll a die and call out a number.
If your number is called, you will turn to the corresponding section of your booklet and read a passage out loud to the group.
There is no expectation of performance: you don’t need to act! Just read the text as it’s listed on the page.
There will be an example round before the play begins to practice.
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There is no expectation that you will participate — although we do encourage you to give it a shot! Before each performance, we’ll check in to see if you’d like to participate, and will explain how the play works in more detail.
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We’re just thankful you’re joining us on this journey! We do have a few tips that we’ll reiterate on the day of the performance:
Read slower than you think you need to.
Speak louder than you think you need to.
If there’s a word you don’t know, give it your best shot!
When you see a break in the line of text, let yourself take a breath.