New Britain native gets medievalTuesday, July 29, 2014 9:43 PM EDT
By SCOTT WHIPPLE
STAFF WRITER
NEW BRITAIN — Rosemary Klotz should be proud.
Her daughter, New Britain High School graduate, Adria Kyne, has been selected after a national search to be one of 12 contestants on a new TV reality the show, “The Quest.” It will premier this Thursday at 8 p.m. on ABC.
Klotz active in city arts, has worked for Mayors Don DeFronzo and Tim O’Brien. The show, which was filmed in a European castle, is set in medieval times in a mythical kingdom. It is expected to appeal to viewers of the popular “Game of Thrones,” as well as fans of “cosplay” (costume play) and “LARPing” (a type of role-playing game where participants act out their characters without audience or script).
Kyne, whom Klotz affectionately calls “the nerd,” is a 1989 NBHS graduate, now living in Massachusetts. Her mother says Adria has been involved in the nerdy world of LARPing and costume play “since before it was trendy among the nerd community. She has always been a nerd and makes her living as a search engine optimization specialist.” (Kyne started her career with Microsoft in Seattle.)
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Klotz says Adria grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons with her Dad and his G.E. engineer buddies and made her own costume when she was only 3..
“She insisted on being ‘Wonder Woman’ for Halloween,” Klotz says, “and she’s been on a quest for adventure ever since.”
Kyne traveled to China by herself when she was 22 with enough money to stay a month; she got a job teaching English, stayed a year and learned Chinese before returning to complete her Masters in Chinese Studies.
Speaking by phone from Massachusetts, Kyne says she heard about the new show from an email list that serves the Boston-area geek community.
“They were looking for cosplayers and LARPers to have the adventure of a lifetime,” she says. She went to the audition with friends and was asked to create a six-minute video. Later she was flown to Los Angeles to meet the producers. The video was shots of her pursuing some of her hobbies: cosplay, LARPing, weightlifting and archery.
Klotz and Kyne say “The Quest” is different from other reality shows in that it is part scripted with paid actors and part unpredictable with competition among the 12 contestants called “Paladins.” Klotz admits she has never been a fan of “reality” TV, “this show does sound unusual and does not involve the negative back-biting and conniving strategizing among contestants that characterize other contestant shows.” Kyne believes she was selected for the show because its producers wanted “a 40-something mom” to compete against people in their 20s and 30s.
Reflecting on her teenage years, Kyne says New Britain “has amazing, rich resources in the arts. New Britain High has great opportunities for kids interested in the arts.” Kyne says she played violin in the school orchestra and was the Lady of the Madrigal Feast. “New Britain supported my imagination and helped me dream,” she says.
On “The Quest” you can expect to see Kyne riding horses, shooting crossbows, solving puzzles and sword fighting.
And Klotz says there is now another nerd in the family.
“Adria is the mother of my grandson, Freeman — a budding nerd like his mother,” she says.
http://www.newbritainherald.com/articles/2014/07/29/news/doc53d84aa6dba9f311740123.txt