Felicia Day reveals The Guild movie update, as musical version lands in London

Felicia Day’s iconic web series The Guild is transferring to the London stage for one week only, having been transformed into a musical! And beyond that, Day is planning a Guild movie.

In our latest Arcade Hang interview, we got the chance to ask Day how exactly The Guild's unlikely transition into musical theatre happened, as well as hearing from her co-star in the musical, Anjali Bhimani.

“The Guild: The Musical is so exciting,” Day told us in the interview, which you can watch right now in the video player above (or over on YouTube).

Day continued: “I'm just like a girl who works on my instinct, and about six years ago, two playwrights who were in a playwriting workshop were like, 'Hey, we wrote a song for The Guild as part of our workshop. Can we option it?'

“And I was like, 'Let me listen to the song.’ Because I grew up on musicals. I was home-schooled, and the reason I'm an actor is because I did musicals across the Southeast, as like, Orphan Number Seven. So I was excited about it, and I loved their song, and I was like, 'Okay, let's do it'.

“So I let them option it, and of course, I get sucked in more and more, and I become a producer, and I work with them. They're scrappy, New York actors, and they're so good, and it's taken so long. We did a reading in LA and I was able to get Dean Johnson, this amazing, very established London director on board and now we're doing it.”

At the time of writing, there are only a few tickets left for The Guild: The Musical’s week of London shows, and you can find them on The Other Palace website right now. It’s running from Tuesday until Thursday this week, in a work in progress state.

Explaining where The Guild musical fits in the series, Day explained: “The musical kind of takes a lot from the first and second seasons, and exorcises some things that I'm like, ‘Whoa.’

“When I watch my first work, I'm like, ‘That is not a joke I would tell now, thank you very much’. There are some dated things about it. And it's nice to be able to have that sort of edit, and also maturity, and also have somebody else take the reins.

Looking back on the origins of the web series, Day said: “ The roots of The Guild are that I wanted to show mainstream people… like, I love creating bridges for things, you know?

“The Guild was showing the world that, as a female, I can play a game, and this is the reality of gaming, and not the cliche of gaming that every time up until then, even now… I'm sure all of us have watched gaming shows. Again, it just reinforces the stereotype.

“That may not be reality to me. Reality to me is The Guild. We are all from different backgrounds, different ages, different sensibilities, and yet this thing brings us together.”

And what’s it like, after all these years, for Day to step back into the role of Codex (aka Cyd) and revisit that era of her life?

“ I had a terrible anxiety disorder," Day recalled, “which actually caused me to do The Guild. You know, I was a very semi-successful actor in that I would go and I'd test for so many TV series".

“I would be second choice, always, and I would choke. People would want me to go, but my anxiety disorder, which was undiagnosed at the time, was so all encompassing that I would choke every time.

“But it's been an amazing process to learn about myself, to be gentler, and I think my anxiety disorder disorder did get me so far, because The Guild was made with nothing.

“I did the website, we did a PayPal button on the website, that I made, to actually fund the second season. It was before Kickstarter was invented.

“There were no resources for creators back then. I would have to be like, ‘I wanna do this’, and we'd have to somehow source it and it would be janky and we'd have to do so much work.”

Day added: “My philosophy is like, I'm just trying to enjoy myself, and Codex is a great character and just like slipping into her is like slipping into an old skin of somebody who needed a lot of help.

“But that's kind of what the show is about. About somebody who's in a bad place. Who needs to build functional relationships around her. And through her online world, she's able to do that.”

“What really drives the story is the connection between all of the characters and how they are using games, not to disconnect, but to connect,” Day continued.

“And I think that's something that a lot of people, particularly older generations, don't necessarily understand. It is a real boon that we have, in the gaming community, is that people actually get to connect and become more human because they get a chance to connect with other humans.”

And with this run of London shows only lasting a brief week, what’s next after this?

As Day told us: “ Next year is the 20th anniversary of The Guild, which is insane, so the aim was always… two years ago, I was like, ‘Well, for the 20th anniversary I want the movie to be out, the reunion movie, and I want this play to be staged’.

“And so we're doing a crowdfunding this summer for the movie. It's already written. I'm already planning. And I'm hoping that we get to fundraise and get to do the movie and have the play out there at the same time.”

As we hear more about that movie, we’ll be sure to let you know! And if you’re free this week, head over to The Other Palace website to grab your tickets for The Guild: The Musical.

See more Arcade Hang interviews on YouTube:

• Devora Wilde talks Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 future
• Neil Newbon talks Dungeons & Dragons & Dramas
• Karlach actor Samantha Béart talks Baldur's Gate 3 and more
• House of the Dragon star Abubakar Salim chats Dead Take
• Glenn Moore, Sarah Keyworth and Pierre Novellie talk Button Boys podcast

Check out more of our Gaming coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.