GAMERS at Valencia High School Drama Department

GAMERS was written by playwright Scott Barnhardt, who—like many of us—became fascinated by the strange, hilarious, and sometimes chaotic world of online gaming. What started as an idea about esports and internet culture quickly grew into a full theatrical story about friendship, identity, competition, and what happens when the digital world starts to feel more real than real life.

Barnhardt developed GAMERS while studying playwriting at UCLA, drawing inspiration from the online communities, gaming personalities, and larger-than-life avatars that populate the internet. The play blends comedy, satire, and a bit of heartfelt chaos to explore how people create identities online—sometimes heroic, sometimes ridiculous, and sometimes wildly different from who they are in real life.

The show was workshopped and performed in several new play festivals, including presentations at UCLA and other theatre events celebrating new work. It even earned recognition as a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, one of the most respected programs for developing new plays in the United States.