Basic Trope: There's someone important coming to watch your performance.
- Straight: Theo and his theater troupe have to put on a show, in which Henrietta the High Queen will be in attendance. They're very pressured to make it good.
- Exaggerated:
- Not only Henrietta, but her husband Harry the High King and noble squire Lance will be watching too.
- Royalty from all around the world come to watch Theo's performance.
- The demigod Supreme Ruler of the Universe is showing up to watch Theo's play.
- Henrietta is showing up to watch a preschool play.
- Downplayed: Someone who represents Henrietta will be at the show; if it's good, he'll tell her about it and earn her applause, but if the show is unimpressive, she won't hear about it.
- Justified:
- Henrietta loves theater and the subject of Theo's play interests her, so of course she'd want to show up.
- The performance was commissioned for Henrietta's Birthday. note
- Inverted:
- Theo and his troupe show up to watch Henrietta's play.
- Henrietta will be in the cast of the play.
- Someone particularly unimportant, like Pietra the Parking Lot Attendant, is going to watch it.
- Subverted: At the last moment, it turns out that Henrietta is unable to attend the play.
- Double Subverted: But the king, Harry, takes her place.
- Parodied:
- Henrietta is the visiting Queen of Cloudcuckooland. She interprets the cast members' mess ups as real parts of their culture.
- Henrietta checks the play listings daily, showing up to even the most amateur performances just for fun.
- Zig-Zagged: Henrietta's coming to attend the play, but then the play gets postponed, so she sends Harry there instead, but he's busy and can't go, so Theo invites Lance, but he doesn't come, but the President of Ruritania does show up.
- Averted: Henrietta does not show up to the performance.
- Enforced: Henrietta is based on a real famous person who has personally voiced their distaste for the show. The writers, not wanting her to decry their show, make an episode featuring a stand-in of her that the characters want to impress.
- Lampshaded: "There's going to be royalty in this audience tonight, so give it all that you've got!"
- Invoked: Someone on Theo's troupe sends out an invitation to Henrietta in the hopes that she'll show up.
- Exploited: Theo's troupe is mostly slackers and do the bare minimum, so he's hoping that having a royal presence will pressure them into shaping up.
- Defied: Theo denies Henrietta entrance to see his play.
- Discussed: "I hear this play's so famous that even Queen Henrietta went to see it!"
- Conversed: "How do you think these theater kids got the Queen Herself to show up to their crummy old play? This show's so contrived!"
- Played for Horror: Henrietta is a Blood Knight, and if Theo and his troupe mess up, there'll be lethal consequences.
Go back to the main trope page, but remember, The Queen Will Be Watching!
