RUEN

Rendez-vous

A long-form thriller where the audience casts an Evil Character who lures 3-5 guests to an isolated location. Part One introduces each guest through everyday scenes; Part Two traps them together for a high-stakes rendez-vous.

Players

4–8

Duration

20-30 min

Difficulty

Intermediate

Full description

Setup and Launch

Ask the audience to pick one performer as the Evil Character. Then ask them to pick 3-5 other performers as the guests. Finally, get a location suggestion — isolated places with multiple rooms work best (abandoned factory on an island, old mansion, decommissioned ship).

Establish upfront: the form has two parts — introduction scenes followed by the rendez-vous itself.

Flow

Part One: Meeting the Characters

Play 3-5 scenes, one per guest. Each scene shows a guest in their everyday life — their world, their relationships, what matters to them. The Evil Character appears in each scene and delivers an invitation: be at a specific place at a specific time. No reason given.

The key acting challenge: build enough reality in each scene that the guest has a believable reason to accept a mysterious invitation. Maybe they're desperate, maybe they're curious, maybe the Evil Character frames it as something they can't refuse. The audience needs to buy it.

Part Two: The Rendez-vous

The guests arrive at the location one by one. They don't know each other — expect confusion, suspicion, tentative alliances. Once everyone is gathered, the Evil Character reveals the stakes: by the end of the night, all guests but one will die.

From here the guests try to figure out why they've been chosen and how to survive. The location should feel inescapable — locked doors, remote island, no phone signal.

Supporting performers not cast as guests can play characters who inhabit or haunt the location — a caretaker, a ghost, someone who's been trapped there before.

Three possible endings:

  • One guest survives and is released by the Evil Character
  • The guests discover why they were summoned and are "forgiven"
  • The guests overpower or outsmart the Evil Character and escape

Key rules

  • Two-part structure — Keep a clear split between the character-introduction scenes and the final rendez-vous. The form's impact depends on grounded setup in Part One contrasting with high-stakes payoff in Part Two.

  • The Evil Character always issues the invitation — In every introduction scene, the Evil Character personally delivers the invitation. This is the recurring thread that stitches the separate scenes into one story.

  • Three to five introduction scenes — Stay within 3-5 scenes in Part One. Fewer and the rendez-vous feels underpopulated; more and the audience loses track of who's who before the climax.

  • Build believable reasons to accept — Each guest needs a credible motivation to show up at a mysterious location. Plant that motivation in the scene before the invitation arrives — financial desperation, unfinished business, curiosity about the unknown.

  • Make the location inescapable — The rendez-vous only works if leaving isn't an option. Establish physical barriers early in Part Two: locked gates, no boats, storm cutting off the road.

Format structure

Context

Resources

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