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Ope Wide the Gates and Let the Festival Begin! · Large Nerdron Collider

0:10
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Large Ner Drunk Collider the podcast.
0:13
Speaker 1: It's all about the geeky things we love in this
0:15
Speaker 1: world and how excited we are about them. I'm Ariel Castin,
0:18
Speaker 1: and with me, as always, is the king of the
0:22
Speaker 1: Shaggy Dog story. Jonathan Strickland.
0:26
Speaker 2: All right, so there are these people known as the Vikings.
0:29
Speaker 1: You can't We're not there yet.
0:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I can't. I'm not going to tell that joke.
0:34
Speaker 2: I mean, I'll probably get people asking me to tell
0:36
Speaker 2: the joke now that I've started it, But trust me,
0:40
Speaker 2: you do not need to hear the joke. It's much
0:43
Speaker 2: better in person anyway. And Ariel, bless her heart, has
0:48
Speaker 2: had to hear that story approximately two hundred times.
0:52
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, honestly, if people want to hear the joke,
0:56
Speaker 1: which is alluding to the fact that Jutu Listener's suggestion,
1:01
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about some of our RedFest experiences,
1:04
Speaker 1: which is where Jonathan tells a lot of those stories.
1:06
Speaker 1: But if they want to hear the joke, they can
1:10
Speaker 1: do so by looking up one of her old LLNC
1:12
Speaker 1: videos on YouTube.
1:13
Speaker 2: So that's true, that's true. We took some video someone
1:16
Speaker 2: shot at the at the Renaissance Festival of me of
1:20
Speaker 2: one of the many times I told that joke. By
1:22
Speaker 2: the way, it's a joke that I would uh edit
1:26
Speaker 2: quite a bit if I were telling it now, and
1:28
Speaker 2: because there's some there's some stuff that has not aged
1:34
Speaker 2: well and probably never should have been in the joke
1:36
Speaker 2: in the first place, but probably, Yeah, it was a
1:40
Speaker 2: different time, and we'll talk about that too, with the
1:42
Speaker 2: Renaissance Festival stuff. But before we get into all of that.
1:46
Speaker 2: Unbeknownst to me, but beknownst to Ariel, she actually came
1:49
Speaker 2: up with a thirty seconds or less story. But I've
1:51
Speaker 2: already told her that because there's only one of them,
1:54
Speaker 2: I'm not going to bother with the music. We're just
1:56
Speaker 2: going to talk about. So Ariel, what was the interesting
2:00
Speaker 2: quirky story you found?
2:02
Speaker 1: I mean technically two technically two stories we're gonna talk
2:05
Speaker 1: about before we get into Renfest. But that's yeah.
2:07
Speaker 2: But the second one wasn't really a thirty seconds or
2:09
Speaker 2: less That was more of a discussion.
2:11
Speaker 1: But I bet it would only take thirty seconds or
2:13
Speaker 1: less to talk about anyhow, So yeah, I didn't just
2:18
Speaker 1: on a whim. I went through and looked at you know,
2:21
Speaker 1: our normal sources for geeky news in case there was
2:25
Speaker 1: anything we could talk about, and there was a story.
2:27
Speaker 1: CNN Travel reported that over one hundred people got trapped
2:32
Speaker 1: inside of Agatha Christie's former home while on a tour.
2:36
Speaker 1: A storm knocked a tree down and I think took
2:39
Speaker 1: power out. It sounds like the beginning to one of
2:44
Speaker 1: her stories.
2:45
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah. Agatha Christie best known for her murder mystery stories,
2:51
Speaker 2: many of which have been adapted into other forms of media.
2:54
Speaker 2: And I was joking with Ariel while, you know, when
2:57
Speaker 2: she told me this before we started recording. I said, yeah,
3:01
Speaker 2: you know, if it were a real Agatha Christie story,
3:03
Speaker 2: there'd be significantly fewer than one hundred people to rescue
3:06
Speaker 2: by the time the whole thing was over.
3:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and I want to correct it just stranded
3:13
Speaker 1: them there. I don't think it took out the power,
3:15
Speaker 1: but still.
3:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, being stranded in a murder mystery novelist's
3:21
Speaker 2: home because of weather is in fact the setup for
3:26
Speaker 2: a murder mystery. So it was. It was very fitting
3:29
Speaker 2: and you could argue coincidental, but still an amusing story,
3:35
Speaker 2: especially since at least some of our mutual friends seem
3:40
Speaker 2: to think we're already in spooky season and that Halloween
3:43
Speaker 2: is right around the corner.
3:44
Speaker 1: You know, I appreciate their enthusiasm, but I, like, I
3:48
Speaker 1: don't want to I don't want to wish any days away.
3:51
Speaker 1: Like That's the thing is, time is short, and I
3:53
Speaker 1: so often go, how are we already at this time
3:56
Speaker 1: stamp in the year. And so you know, I enjoyed
4:00
Speaker 1: bookie season. I enjoy apple cider and crunching leaves and
4:03
Speaker 1: cooler weather. But I'm going to enjoy what I have
4:05
Speaker 1: right now.
4:06
Speaker 2: I mean, if it meant that we were getting temperatures
4:10
Speaker 2: and like highs in the seventies starting tomorrow, I would
4:13
Speaker 2: be putting the jack o' lanterns out right now. I'm
4:15
Speaker 2: going to tell you because it is hot.
4:20
Speaker 1: Well, you know, when it's cold, I wish for hot
4:25
Speaker 1: weather so I could go swimming, which I'm planning to
4:27
Speaker 1: do this weekend. Yay.
4:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, my office is an air conditioned and so I
4:35
Speaker 2: just think you should stop being so cruel toward me.
4:38
Speaker 1: Okay, I will do that, and we will also move
4:41
Speaker 1: on to the next thing we wanted to talk about
4:43
Speaker 1: before Renfest, and we might make this a shorter episode.
4:47
Speaker 1: Just so Jonathan doesn't melt. You know, we're both a
4:49
Speaker 1: bit long winded, so we'll see if that happens. The
4:51
Speaker 1: other notable thing in the news today or this week, no,
4:55
Speaker 1: I guess today is appropriate. Yesterday we got news that
4:59
Speaker 1: i ATSY Broadway might go on strike, and today we
5:05
Speaker 1: got news that there is a tentative agreement, so hopefully
5:09
Speaker 1: strike won't happen.
5:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. The IACI is the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage
5:14
Speaker 2: Employees and they actually have different divisions and different contracts.
5:19
Speaker 2: So this particular contract is called the Pink contract, covers
5:24
Speaker 2: around one thousand, five hundred union members who are in
5:30
Speaker 2: departments like stage hands or makeup or wardrobe, that kind
5:35
Speaker 2: of stuff. So obviously shows need these people in order
5:39
Speaker 2: to operate, and these are folks who are like top
5:42
Speaker 2: of their game. They are absolute pros. And their agreement
5:47
Speaker 2: with the theatrical producers in Disney had expired pre COVID,
5:55
Speaker 2: but then, of course COVID really did a big number
5:58
Speaker 2: on live theater. Their old contract terms were extended a
6:04
Speaker 2: couple of times, and then they were heading up to
6:07
Speaker 2: a point where they were having trouble reaching agreement with
6:11
Speaker 2: the producers. That's a common thing to say these days,
6:16
Speaker 2: and that they had a list of demands they wanted
6:19
Speaker 2: met they couldn't come to an agreement. So there was
6:22
Speaker 2: this chance that Broadway could have gone dark starting Friday
6:26
Speaker 2: July twenty first, when this episode has gone out, but
6:28
Speaker 2: we're recording it on the twentieth. And as Ariel mentioned,
6:33
Speaker 2: they've reached a tentative agreement, but that actually has to
6:35
Speaker 2: go to the union as a whole, and the union
6:39
Speaker 2: members need to vote on it before it becomes active.
6:44
Speaker 2: And so there's still a chance that the union will
6:46
Speaker 2: reject this new agreement, and that there's still a chance
6:51
Speaker 2: that we could see a strike in the future, although
6:53
Speaker 2: it'll probably take a while because all the union members
6:56
Speaker 2: first have to receive the agreement before they can vote
7:00
Speaker 2: on it.
7:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this would also not it wouldn't just affect
7:05
Speaker 1: Broadway there well, one, it wouldn't affect all of Broadway.
7:08
Speaker 1: There are like two Broadway shows that aren't under that contract.
7:13
Speaker 1: But also it would affect touring shows, a lot of
7:17
Speaker 1: touring shows at least. So I stand behind I at
7:25
Speaker 1: Sue and trying to get better working agreements. It's going
7:29
Speaker 1: to be an interesting summer if every avenue of entertainment
7:32
Speaker 1: shuts down.
7:34
Speaker 2: I mean, you'll still have local theater because local is different, right,
7:38
Speaker 2: because this doesn't have to do with local theater unions
7:42
Speaker 2: or anything like that. So you'll have that, although like
7:47
Speaker 2: in the state of Georgia, unions, being in a union
7:50
Speaker 2: sometimes means that you don't get theater work anyway. Because
7:55
Speaker 2: Georgia's a right to work state. There's only a couple
7:57
Speaker 2: of union oriented theaters in the state.
8:01
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, that's why I switched to film and television,
8:05
Speaker 1: because you know, I really wanted to pursue acting as
8:08
Speaker 1: a career. You know, work pursuing being a working actor
8:12
Speaker 1: is not easy, but it is much much harder if
8:16
Speaker 1: you are just staying in the stage. Yeah, because there's
8:18
Speaker 1: only a couple they tend to have. They do fair
8:21
Speaker 1: auditions and that's all great, and they bring new people in,
8:24
Speaker 1: but they tend to have, you know, people that they
8:26
Speaker 1: know and that they love and that they use each season,
8:27
Speaker 1: providing those people are available and fit the roles. So
8:30
Speaker 1: it's also a lot fewer roles that you get to.
8:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there are more union members than there
8:38
Speaker 2: are roles that are available, right, Like, Yeah, when you
8:41
Speaker 2: look at the union houses in our city. I know,
8:46
Speaker 2: I think Shakespeare Tavern has at least certain some union
8:50
Speaker 2: and then I know Alliance Theater does, and there might
8:53
Speaker 2: be others that also have union, but most are non
8:57
Speaker 2: union houses. And in fact, you know they would rather
9:02
Speaker 2: not cast union performers because that would mean they'd have
9:06
Speaker 2: to meet certain minimum requirements in order to have a
9:09
Speaker 2: union member as part of the cast. Yeah, and a
9:12
Speaker 2: lot of houses just either don't want to or can't
9:15
Speaker 2: afford to do that. And so it also means, to
9:18
Speaker 2: Ariel's point, that if you want to be an actor
9:21
Speaker 2: in Atlanta, either you are fighting tooth and nail for
9:25
Speaker 2: maybe a couple of dozen roles that you could potentially
9:29
Speaker 2: play in a year against every other union actor in
9:33
Speaker 2: the state or your non union but that means you're
9:37
Speaker 2: also probably not being paid, or if you are being paid,
9:41
Speaker 2: your compensation is so small as to not even necessarily
9:44
Speaker 2: cover your gas to get to and from the gig.
9:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I think there are a few more union
9:50
Speaker 1: theaters in Atlanta than just those two. There were at
9:54
Speaker 1: least before the pandemic. I would have to go and research,
9:56
Speaker 1: and I did not do their research before today. Because
9:58
Speaker 1: it's been about five years since I've been in stage theater.
10:02
Speaker 1: I'm actually in a play opening next weekend. But yeah,
10:10
Speaker 1: a lot of theaters want to pay. There are people
10:13
Speaker 1: at some sort of reimbursement, but they just can't afford it.
10:16
Speaker 1: Even like on Stage, which is one of the bigger
10:19
Speaker 1: theaters that usually pays their actress as stipend. They're struggling
10:22
Speaker 1: because funding after the pandemic has gone way down in Atlanta,
10:28
Speaker 1: and also audience numbers haven't gone back up fully, so
10:34
Speaker 1: it's just a really hard time. Definitely, go support your
10:37
Speaker 1: local theaters during this time. Definitely do it. I'm going out.
10:40
Speaker 1: Not only am I in a play, but I'm going
10:42
Speaker 1: out to support local theater next weekend. So do it.
10:48
Speaker 2: Out of curiosity, where are you going to go see?
10:50
Speaker 1: I'm going to Dad's garages Friday night birthday show.
10:54
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, cool. You know it's funny because I
10:57
Speaker 2: haven't even I didn't even tickets for that, And considering
11:01
Speaker 2: how frequently I've been to Dad's garage, that is crazy,
11:05
Speaker 2: because I've been to most of their birthday parties since
11:08
Speaker 2: two thousand and one.
11:10
Speaker 1: All right, well, I've never been I've never been to
11:12
Speaker 1: one of their birthday parties. But we're going to try
11:15
Speaker 1: to go as most are all of our band because
11:17
Speaker 1: you know, they've been nice enough to let us play
11:19
Speaker 1: some of their gigs and we want to go back
11:21
Speaker 1: and give support.
11:22
Speaker 2: So that's awesome. Yeah, and their birthday shows typically are
11:25
Speaker 2: a lot of fun. They usually are kind of almost
11:28
Speaker 2: like like a variety show. Often they will I mean
11:32
Speaker 2: sometimes they'll just do kind of a theater sports style
11:36
Speaker 2: improv show. But sometimes what they'll do is sort of
11:39
Speaker 2: a selection of the types of stuff that they're doing
11:42
Speaker 2: throughout the season, which can sometimes even include previews to
11:45
Speaker 2: upcoming shows. And they do have a musical coming up
11:51
Speaker 2: pretty soon that I am excited to see, and it's
11:54
Speaker 2: a remount of a show that they did years ago.
11:57
Speaker 1: My bandmate was telling me about that. Well, if you go,
12:01
Speaker 1: let me know and I'll tell you where I'm sitting.
12:03
Speaker 2: We'll do think.
12:04
Speaker 1: I think Friday, they're doing karaoke afterwards, though I don't
12:06
Speaker 1: know if the people, if everybody else I'm going with
12:08
Speaker 1: will be pumpkinning at that point.
12:11
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I tend to I usually have just enough
12:15
Speaker 2: energy to go to the show and then I'm like
12:17
Speaker 2: I can hang out and say hi to some of
12:19
Speaker 2: the people I know, but I need to get home
12:21
Speaker 2: before much longer than that, because I don't know I've
12:25
Speaker 2: Before the pandemic, I was definitely a lot more extroverted,
12:30
Speaker 2: and now I find myself completely drained after engaging in
12:35
Speaker 2: relatively simple social you know.
12:38
Speaker 1: Environments, most people have lost their social stamina. Like during
12:42
Speaker 1: the pandemic, a lot of people can serve to their
12:44
Speaker 1: energy and so now getting back out and expending that
12:47
Speaker 1: energy on other people, while it's delightful and you know,
12:50
Speaker 1: rewarding in its own right, it's it takes a bit
12:53
Speaker 1: to build that stamina back up. But you know what,
12:56
Speaker 1: I'm sure all of you listeners really loved us talking
12:58
Speaker 1: about our next week and plans for a local theater.
13:03
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I think it's interesting because it shows that,
13:07
Speaker 2: you know, we actually do believe in going to local
13:10
Speaker 2: theater and supporting the local arts. It's not just that
13:13
Speaker 2: we're talking about it, we're actually doing it.
13:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but let's now do a listener suggestion.
13:21
Speaker 2: Right, And who was it that asked us to talk
13:23
Speaker 2: about our experiences with the Georgia Renaissance Festival.
13:28
Speaker 1: Deborah did, thank you Debra, and I just want to
13:31
Speaker 1: say thank you to everybody who's being super supportive in
13:34
Speaker 1: this time where we're kind of having to change our
13:36
Speaker 1: format up a little bit. The amount of like positive
13:40
Speaker 1: feedback we got and support and suggestions, it's just been
13:43
Speaker 1: like super amazing and heartwarming. So love it.
13:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, how would you like to start this conversation?
13:54
Speaker 1: Oh gods that I have not figured out?
13:59
Speaker 2: Well, I've got I've got a way of kind of
14:01
Speaker 2: getting into it, which is that the two of us
14:04
Speaker 2: had different approaches to getting involved with the Renaissance Festival,
14:10
Speaker 2: because in my case, I was convinced by a person
14:15
Speaker 2: who was in a show with me. In your case,
14:18
Speaker 2: you inherited it.
14:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I did not inherit it.
14:24
Speaker 2: No, I thought your mom worked there before you did.
14:28
Speaker 2: Oh no, sir, Oh hey whoa watch it? Listen, hey careful.
14:34
Speaker 1: I love you mom. No, I did. My first year
14:39
Speaker 1: at the Georgia, I auditioned.
14:40
Speaker 2: Uh huh, I'm gonna.
14:42
Speaker 1: Go back and tell my story. You've in fourth grade,
14:45
Speaker 1: the renfested a promo at a local at a local
14:48
Speaker 1: like apartment complex, and one of my friends and I
14:52
Speaker 1: went with her family and we enjoyed. You know, there
14:55
Speaker 1: are shows and their street characters and some of the food,
14:57
Speaker 1: and it was wonderful and I was like, oh, I
14:58
Speaker 1: love this. Maybe me want to be a missing wunch.
15:01
Speaker 1: And then when I was eighteen, I was doing community
15:04
Speaker 1: theater in Roswell, and one of the people in that
15:07
Speaker 1: community theater I had wanted to audition for Renfests. I
15:10
Speaker 1: was seeing it every year and I always talked myself
15:11
Speaker 1: out of it. That's a big problem that you know,
15:15
Speaker 1: insecure actors do. And I auditioned for the Renaissance Festival.
15:22
Speaker 1: And it's a little bad because I auditioned for the
15:29
Speaker 1: Renaissance Festival and I auditioned for the Little Prince, which
15:34
Speaker 1: is a stage play at the community theater was at.
15:36
Speaker 1: My mom and I both auditioned for Little Prince. We
15:37
Speaker 1: both got in, but I also got cast in the
15:40
Speaker 1: Renfest and they had conflicts and I had to pick
15:42
Speaker 1: the Renfest. But one of my I'm going all over
15:45
Speaker 1: the place, one of the guys that I acted with
15:47
Speaker 1: at this community theater told me he did Renfest and
15:49
Speaker 1: encouraged me to go out. I auditioned for a Kissing Wench.
15:52
Speaker 1: I got the Old Maid. The next year, my mom
15:54
Speaker 1: auditioned and also got cast and they were like, well,
15:58
Speaker 1: if you want to play another character, we could make
16:00
Speaker 1: you an apprentice to your mom, and I'm like, you
16:02
Speaker 1: can't do that. I've had more experience than her, which
16:05
Speaker 1: leads to a whole other issue with Renfest structure that
16:09
Speaker 1: maybe we will not get into.
16:11
Speaker 2: Or maybe we will, because in some ways it does
16:13
Speaker 2: play a lot of parallels with the union y stories too, So.
16:19
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, but then you know, through that back and forth,
16:22
Speaker 1: they're like, you're right, how about you played this lady
16:24
Speaker 1: and waiting. So second year, I played a lady in
16:26
Speaker 1: waiting and I got to do combat and we found
16:28
Speaker 1: like a good my own negotiations for my position at
16:32
Speaker 1: fair and it was really interesting that they offered me
16:36
Speaker 1: an apprenticeship spot because that first year I had one
16:39
Speaker 1: most improved actor and I don't even think there was
16:42
Speaker 1: like it was really clicky in that time, Like there
16:46
Speaker 1: were lots of clicks yeah, and I feel like yeah,
16:49
Speaker 1: and I feel like that's and I'll stop after this
16:52
Speaker 1: so you can give your origin story as well. But
16:56
Speaker 1: I feel like that is why I got most improved,
16:57
Speaker 1: because I was out there working the street everyday, asking
17:01
Speaker 1: so many people to marry me convinted them to get
17:04
Speaker 1: on their knees, and like, I worked hard and I
17:08
Speaker 1: did well, and there were lots of things, so like,
17:10
Speaker 1: you're not good. Maybe it's because they didn't think my
17:12
Speaker 1: bits would work. But my bits worked. My bits worked
17:14
Speaker 1: really well. So I don't know why I got most improved.
17:17
Speaker 1: And then I also don't know why the next year
17:21
Speaker 1: I was possibly looking at an emotion that I did
17:23
Speaker 1: not get anyhow, That is my origin story. I loved
17:26
Speaker 1: working Renfest with my mom. I'm glad she joined, but
17:29
Speaker 1: I was first.
17:30
Speaker 2: Gotcha and this was two thousand and one. Was your
17:32
Speaker 2: first season, I think so? Yeah, I think so. I
17:36
Speaker 2: think your first season was my last one of my
17:38
Speaker 2: first stint. Yeah, okay, so so my origin story. In
17:45
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine, shortly after the real Renaissance was I
17:52
Speaker 2: was in a little goofy parody show called Romeo and
17:56
Speaker 2: Ethel the Pirate's Daughter. But yeah, not that first one,
18:01
Speaker 2: not the first one. So in that first one, we
18:03
Speaker 2: performed it at dragon Con, the big science fiction fantasy
18:06
Speaker 2: fan convention that happens in Atlanta every year, and one
18:10
Speaker 2: of the other people on cast was someone who had
18:13
Speaker 2: been working at the Renaissance Festival, and she mentioned that
18:15
Speaker 2: there were auditions coming up for the fall season of
18:20
Speaker 2: the festival. So this was like early in our rehearsals
18:23
Speaker 2: for Romeo and Ethel, which was a fairly ambitious show
18:26
Speaker 2: for this very amateur theater group. And I say amateur
18:30
Speaker 2: in that we just didn't have the experience. Not that
18:33
Speaker 2: they were bad, it's just that everything was harder because
18:36
Speaker 2: we weren't seasoned at it. So we had a very
18:40
Speaker 2: long rehearsal process. And during that rehearsal process, we heard
18:43
Speaker 2: about the auditions for the Renaissance Festival, and so my
18:47
Speaker 2: partner and I decided we would both audition, and we
18:51
Speaker 2: went to the auditions, which were held in little Five
18:55
Speaker 2: Points back in those days. And I had the best
18:59
Speaker 2: audition of my entire life for the Georgia Renaissance Festival,
19:04
Speaker 2: which irks me to this day that I wasted it
19:08
Speaker 2: on that, But no, I had that.
19:10
Speaker 1: I've had other good auditions, my friend, I've.
19:12
Speaker 2: Had other good auditions. This one was almost flawless. Like
19:15
Speaker 2: I walked in there. You had to give a comedic
19:21
Speaker 2: monologue as part of your audition, and they liked mine,
19:24
Speaker 2: and it was one that they hadn't heard a billion
19:26
Speaker 2: times because I got an old like Peter Cook monologue
19:31
Speaker 2: from Beyond the Fringe days, and not a lot of
19:34
Speaker 2: people mind that for a comedy, and it went well.
19:37
Speaker 2: And then they had me do improv as several different
19:40
Speaker 2: characters and all of that went well, and the very
19:43
Speaker 2: next day I got a call from the director saying
19:45
Speaker 2: that I had been hired. I didn't have to go
19:47
Speaker 2: in for a callback. I was good to go. The
19:52
Speaker 2: only thing was that my partner did not immediately get cast,
19:55
Speaker 2: and so for a while it was like, well, if
19:57
Speaker 2: if she doesn't get cast, I'm not gonna go because
20:00
Speaker 2: I don't want to spend all those weeks away from her,
20:04
Speaker 2: plus ad it just it would be really complicated. But
20:07
Speaker 2: she got cast as well. So I did a stint
20:11
Speaker 2: from ninety nine to two thousand and one. So I
20:13
Speaker 2: was there for Ariel's first season, and then I was
20:16
Speaker 2: gone till probably about two thousand. I showed up briefly
20:21
Speaker 2: on one day in two thousand and two as a
20:23
Speaker 2: gag as the character I had played from ninety nine
20:27
Speaker 2: to two thousand and one. Then I was gone. Came
20:31
Speaker 2: back in two thousand and eight, could not play my
20:34
Speaker 2: original character who was the mayor of the town, because
20:36
Speaker 2: at that point they had a different actor playing the mayor.
20:40
Speaker 2: So I just decided to promote myself and made myself
20:42
Speaker 2: the Lord Admiral, same character, just different rank. And I
20:46
Speaker 2: was there from two thousand and eight to probably two
20:48
Speaker 2: thousand and eleven or twelve, maybe thirteen, left again, came
20:53
Speaker 2: back again for a few more seasons, and then left
20:56
Speaker 2: And I think now it's well and truly done multiple reasons.
21:01
Speaker 2: So in all of my time at the Renaissance Festival,
21:04
Speaker 2: I have played four street characters. How many I know
21:09
Speaker 2: you've played a lot, so how many street characters have
21:12
Speaker 2: you been including your musical character.
21:15
Speaker 1: Now I'm trying to figure out whether my mom was
21:19
Speaker 1: there my first season.
21:21
Speaker 2: I don't remember her being there, but for some reason,
21:24
Speaker 2: it had it in my head that she had performed
21:26
Speaker 2: at a Renaissance Festival in the past, so.
21:28
Speaker 1: That was my she did, so she did. I feel
21:31
Speaker 1: like the first year I was there by myself, and
21:33
Speaker 1: then she played the herbalist and then she played Indigo
21:36
Speaker 1: dry Brush. My mom played two characters, and by the
21:39
Speaker 1: time she was playing Indigo dry Brush, I was Lady
21:43
Speaker 1: killing him. But I've played. Let's see. There was Liza
21:49
Speaker 1: alone a lot the old maid. That's one. There was
21:54
Speaker 1: Vogue la mode a fashion consultant to the queen. That
21:57
Speaker 1: was two. There was Lady killing him softly with his words. Uh,
22:04
Speaker 1: that was three, Black Widow. There was h band Does
22:09
Speaker 1: that count my band? Yeah, Beatrice Flats and Hudson, Vincent Johnson,
22:13
Speaker 1: Holland Small and Spence in Swanson but friends called b Flat.
22:16
Speaker 1: So that's one, two, three, four. And then I was
22:19
Speaker 1: Lady emilion Naire. That's five. And then I was a
22:21
Speaker 1: kissing wench. That's six. And then I went back and I, oh,
22:24
Speaker 1: I did like one weekend as a fill in for
22:31
Speaker 1: Lady de.
22:31
Speaker 2: Winter during Well, if we're yeah, we're counting fill ins,
22:36
Speaker 2: I guess I've been five. I didn't think about.
22:38
Speaker 1: Films, Yes, but six, six to seven if fillins count seven,
22:43
Speaker 1: If not, then six.
22:44
Speaker 2: Yeah. So in my case, I was the Mayor Edmund Vainglory,
22:48
Speaker 2: the third from my original run. And the whole, the
22:53
Speaker 2: whole stick with him is that he was a very
22:56
Speaker 2: pompous uh character toward all the the peasants, but would
23:02
Speaker 2: bow and scrape for all the nobility because he was
23:04
Speaker 2: smack dab in the middle. We would have a village hierarchy,
23:08
Speaker 2: which would tell you where you fell socially among the
23:12
Speaker 2: status of all the other characters. And so I was
23:14
Speaker 2: smack dab in the middle. And so I got to
23:17
Speaker 2: play Tyrant to all the peasants and Toady to all
23:21
Speaker 2: the nobles, which was a lot of fun. But then,
23:24
Speaker 2: like I said, when I came back, the mayor role
23:26
Speaker 2: had been taken, I still was Edmund Vang Glory the third.
23:29
Speaker 2: I really didn't change the character that much. I just
23:31
Speaker 2: made him lord Admiral, So now he was like right
23:34
Speaker 2: below the King and Queen because lord Admiral is a
23:37
Speaker 2: very very high position, so I went straight to like
23:41
Speaker 2: Tyrant unless the King and Queen were there, so it
23:45
Speaker 2: was slightly different then I was. Was I Sebastian at
23:54
Speaker 2: Keyes I can't remember, so I didn't This wasn't a
23:57
Speaker 2: character I created, but a mutual friend of ours was
24:02
Speaker 2: playing this character, one of the two villains one season
24:06
Speaker 2: of the festival, and he got very very seriously injured
24:10
Speaker 2: and a work injury, and they needed someone to step
24:13
Speaker 2: in for the first couple of weekends. So they called
24:16
Speaker 2: me up and I stepped in and I played a
24:19
Speaker 2: Spanish you know, swordsman for a couple of weekends. That
24:24
Speaker 2: was the villain character. Then I was the Lord Admiral
24:28
Speaker 2: a couple more times, and then I came in as
24:31
Speaker 2: one a French swordsman, a one eyed French swordsman, Robert Camembert,
24:37
Speaker 2: Marquis de Roque Force, lots of cheese puns. And then
24:41
Speaker 2: my last season there I was William Shakespeare, as in
24:45
Speaker 2: the actual playwright William Shakespeare. That was the character I played.
24:49
Speaker 2: Very odd because the monarch at the time was neither
24:55
Speaker 2: Elizabeth nor James, so technically I shouldn't have been Williams's.
25:00
Speaker 2: But we've never been sticklers for actual, you know, historical alignment,
25:06
Speaker 2: so it was it was decided that it was fine.
25:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what was your was Was the mayor your favorite?
25:16
Speaker 1: Or was the Admiral your favorite?
25:18
Speaker 2: I think the Admiral was my favorite for a few reasons.
25:23
Speaker 2: I found my stride as the Mayor. The Mayor I
25:25
Speaker 2: felt was in some ways, the Mayor was the most
25:28
Speaker 2: fun to play because I did get a chance to
25:30
Speaker 2: play very different characters depending upon what other characters might
25:35
Speaker 2: be present. Whenever I was with patrons guests who were
25:40
Speaker 2: there at the festival. I was very, very silly and
25:44
Speaker 2: supercilious and self important, and I invented a holiday called
25:49
Speaker 2: Hug your Mayor Day, which I would I would open
25:52
Speaker 2: up my arms and say it's Hug your Maya Day,
25:55
Speaker 2: and either people would giggle and walk past, which was
25:59
Speaker 2: perfectly fine, or sometimes it would actually give me a hug,
26:01
Speaker 2: which was also okay. The best one being when a
26:04
Speaker 2: young woman and her extremely tall boyfriend came up and
26:08
Speaker 2: I announced it was Hug your Mayor Day and she
26:10
Speaker 2: looks up at her boyfriend says, well, it is hug
26:12
Speaker 2: your Mayor days. It's all right, and he runs up
26:14
Speaker 2: to me and grabs me and lifts me off my
26:16
Speaker 2: feet in a big bear hug. And I was like,
26:19
Speaker 2: this is the best is the best outcome that could
26:22
Speaker 2: have happened with this, because it's such I can play
26:25
Speaker 2: it up as a character and they're having a great time,
26:29
Speaker 2: and she's laughing and he's laughing, and the people around
26:31
Speaker 2: us are laughing, Like that's what you that's what you're
26:33
Speaker 2: living for as a street character. So yeah, I think
26:36
Speaker 2: mayor is my favorite. Who is your favorite to play?
26:43
Speaker 1: So like the thing is, you know the moments that
26:46
Speaker 1: you remember, are moments like that, the moments where you
26:48
Speaker 1: can one hundred percent solidly quantify the enjoyment you're giving
26:55
Speaker 1: to other people, Right, That's what it's all about. And
26:58
Speaker 1: I've had those moments with most of my characters. Gosh,
27:07
Speaker 1: I don't I did. It's hard. I really don't know.
27:14
Speaker 2: It was clearly Vogue la mode because you've got to
27:16
Speaker 2: hang out with me so much in those years.
27:18
Speaker 1: I did. I did love Vogue once I reprised her
27:22
Speaker 1: because she was my second character, and then she was
27:24
Speaker 1: my h and my mom my mom confirmed, Uh, if
27:28
Speaker 1: you heard pings in the background, that was my phone
27:30
Speaker 1: in my computer. My mom confirmed. She came in on
27:32
Speaker 1: my second season, Love you mom.
27:34
Speaker 2: Uh.
27:36
Speaker 1: But uh, I really liked Vogue when I was able
27:40
Speaker 1: to come back and play her the way I wanted
27:42
Speaker 1: to play her with a supportive court again. I had
27:46
Speaker 1: a lot of fun with her the first time, but
27:48
Speaker 1: the court was less supportive of the character and would
27:50
Speaker 1: often do things that they thought were funny, but just
27:52
Speaker 1: felt like they were denying, picking on me, denying my character,
27:57
Speaker 1: wasting my props that I was paying for myself. I
27:59
Speaker 1: used to typing ribbons around trees and I did that
28:03
Speaker 1: both my circuit first and second reprisal, because as a
28:06
Speaker 1: street character, you know, you would have your bits, and
28:08
Speaker 1: then you would have what are called latzis, which are
28:10
Speaker 1: things you could do visually that were low energy when
28:13
Speaker 1: you're hot or you're tired, that would still entertain the audience.
28:16
Speaker 1: So for me, it was fashionifying the trees, tying pink
28:20
Speaker 1: ribbons on them because I was all about pink and
28:23
Speaker 1: the court when I first played it, the king decided
28:26
Speaker 1: he hated that, and I mean, that's that's a valid
28:28
Speaker 1: that's a valid character choice because we're told, you know,
28:31
Speaker 1: be be muppets either love or hate things, there's no
28:34
Speaker 1: in between. But as a part of that, he would
28:37
Speaker 1: have people cut ribbons off of trees and bury them
28:40
Speaker 1: in the sand, in the dirt, and I'm like, if
28:43
Speaker 1: you don't like the ribbons, I'm not tying them on
28:45
Speaker 1: tight untie given back to me. I can reuse them.
28:48
Speaker 1: But they didn't do that.
28:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, Instead, you're you're you're constantly having to resupply your
28:55
Speaker 2: your ribbon and continue to spend. So yeah, that's a
28:59
Speaker 2: that's a I will say that your outfit for Vogue
29:04
Speaker 2: was spectacular.
29:06
Speaker 1: Again on the reprisal.
29:08
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that's that's well, that's the Vogue I was
29:11
Speaker 2: familiar with, right, because that was the I was gone
29:14
Speaker 2: for the original Vogue la Mode, Like I wasn't there
29:17
Speaker 2: when you were playing her originally. I was there for
29:20
Speaker 2: the second appearance of Vogue and uh, because by then
29:24
Speaker 2: I was the Lord Admiral. Lord Admiral and Vogue would
29:27
Speaker 2: often be in the same court. In fact, we would
29:29
Speaker 2: often be paired together because Ariel and I were already
29:32
Speaker 2: good friends at this point, and we would usually be
29:35
Speaker 2: dancing partners for courtly dancing, which was funny because I
29:38
Speaker 2: joke about Aeriel towering over me. She is taller than
29:42
Speaker 2: I am. She's not like like I'm not. I'm not tiny,
29:45
Speaker 2: and she's not not like a giant, but there is
29:48
Speaker 2: a height difference. But it made dancing more fun for me,
29:52
Speaker 2: noticed well I did. But then also we would dance
29:56
Speaker 2: on hills and occasionally that would mean that you would
29:58
Speaker 2: tower over me, depending on on what side you.
30:00
Speaker 1: Were on, especially if I was wearing my tall hat.
30:03
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, you had a tall an Elizabethan well really
30:06
Speaker 2: Victorian era tall hat. But again, we never were super picky.
30:11
Speaker 2: I mean I wore a cavalier hat, which wasn't period either,
30:14
Speaker 2: so it's fine, yeah, but yeah, it's it's funny. You
30:18
Speaker 2: know you mentioned bits and lotzis. Those were those were
30:21
Speaker 2: our currency as characters, right, we were We would do
30:24
Speaker 2: a lotzi in order to get attention, which may or
30:27
Speaker 2: may not feed into a bigger interaction. A bit was
30:32
Speaker 2: when you had a planned interaction with the audience, and
30:37
Speaker 2: every character had to have lotzis and bits, and you
30:39
Speaker 2: would workshop them throughout rehearsal where you would come up
30:44
Speaker 2: with ways that you would get attention for yourself where
30:47
Speaker 2: you know, both whether it was a stationary lotzy where
30:50
Speaker 2: you're standing or sitting in place and you're getting attention,
30:54
Speaker 2: or a moving a traveling lotzi where you're going from
30:57
Speaker 2: point A to point B, but you need to do
30:59
Speaker 2: something interesting while you're doing it and not just be
31:02
Speaker 2: you know, head down walking getting to your destination. You're
31:06
Speaker 2: still a character you need to entertain as you move.
31:10
Speaker 2: So those were like the two big things. And then
31:13
Speaker 2: on top of that you had character character interactions, which
31:16
Speaker 2: ideally would be these.
31:18
Speaker 1: Bigger bits with audiences.
31:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, bigger bits where it might be a competition between
31:24
Speaker 2: two characters, it might be someone trying to woo someone else.
31:28
Speaker 2: It might be someone trying to insult someone else, but
31:32
Speaker 2: these would be meant for larger crowds, like you would
31:35
Speaker 2: try to do this to entertain a big group as
31:38
Speaker 2: opposed to like a like a family or something. So
31:42
Speaker 2: those were kind of the the parameters we worked in.
31:48
Speaker 2: Things changed dramatically over the years from the point where
31:51
Speaker 2: we started to what it most recently is. But when
31:56
Speaker 2: we began, the rehearsal process was really really grueling. I mean,
32:01
Speaker 2: especially if you were a first year you had so
32:04
Speaker 2: many rehearsals to go to. There was a go ahead
32:08
Speaker 2: or a new character that's true, or a new character,
32:11
Speaker 2: because the whole purpose of the rehearsal process is to
32:15
Speaker 2: discover who the character is right to, you know, the
32:18
Speaker 2: role you're going to play. Like in my case, I
32:21
Speaker 2: was the mayor. They actually gave me a choice my
32:23
Speaker 2: first season. They gave me the option of either being
32:26
Speaker 2: the mayor or the town doctor. And when they told
32:30
Speaker 2: me the choice, I was like, well, mayor out ranks
32:32
Speaker 2: and doctor. Clearly that's the character I want to play.
32:36
Speaker 2: So I played the mayor and they had been bitten
32:41
Speaker 2: by the fact that I think a mayor maybe even
32:43
Speaker 2: the season before I started dropped out early in the
32:49
Speaker 2: festival season and no one could get hold of them
32:51
Speaker 2: for like the rest of the run, and so they
32:55
Speaker 2: were a little cautious about putting too much pressure on me.
32:57
Speaker 2: But it really wasn't pressure because I wasn't. I wasn't
33:01
Speaker 2: in most of the other stuff. But yeah, you know,
33:05
Speaker 2: it's it that that rehearsal process was lengthy and exhausting
33:12
Speaker 2: and exhaustive as well. Like we would start with an
33:15
Speaker 2: animal image where you would have to pick an animal
33:18
Speaker 2: to represent what your character was so that it would
33:23
Speaker 2: inform your personality and your movements and all that kind
33:26
Speaker 2: of stuff. So out of curiosity, do you remember what
33:30
Speaker 2: your animal image was for the Old Maid? Uh?
33:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was a chicken. Ch chicken. It
33:40
Speaker 1: was a chicken, because I was.
33:41
Speaker 2: Like, ah, nice. Mine was my dog Falstaff at the time.
33:48
Speaker 2: He was a Jack Russell Terrier. And when I explained
33:51
Speaker 2: Jack Rustle terrier, everyone thought I was playing the character wrong, like, oh,
33:54
Speaker 2: you don't know my dog. My dog. My dog thinks
33:57
Speaker 2: he's a big dog. But also if he runs into
34:00
Speaker 2: something he's not familiar with, immediately turns cowardly which is true.
34:05
Speaker 2: My dog once got scared because he saw a bucket
34:08
Speaker 2: and he didn't know what it was. So yeah, you know,
34:12
Speaker 2: that was the kind of character I was playing. But
34:14
Speaker 2: they were thinking of like the stereotypical jack rustle terrier,
34:18
Speaker 2: very very you know, alpha terrier kind of dog. And no,
34:21
Speaker 2: that's not really what I'm thinking about.
34:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember most of my animal images. I do
34:30
Speaker 1: want to go back and say I also super loved
34:32
Speaker 1: my kissing wunch. I would play her again, but we're
34:37
Speaker 1: in a world now where kissing wunches don't work unless
34:39
Speaker 1: you play them a very specific way. And I hate
34:42
Speaker 1: to be like the person who says I played it right,
34:44
Speaker 1: but I feel like I was the person who played
34:46
Speaker 1: it in a way that would be accessible nowadays.
34:48
Speaker 2: Well, and part of it was tough because like it
34:53
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with the actor, but it had
34:56
Speaker 2: to do with the patron behavior, right, Like if you
34:58
Speaker 2: had a patrin patrons coming in and one of them
35:02
Speaker 2: is like insistent that you kiss their ten year old
35:06
Speaker 2: son who is doing his darndest to try and escape
35:11
Speaker 2: because he's absolutely mortified. It's just it's not something that
35:15
Speaker 2: ends up being a pleasant experience for anyone involved.
35:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're half right. It also has to do with
35:21
Speaker 1: the actor. But because a lot of times, at least
35:26
Speaker 1: at the Georgia Renaissance Festival, they would cast pretty first
35:30
Speaker 1: year people as kissing wenches. And that is a role
35:33
Speaker 1: because you have to learn how to gauge people's comfortability.
35:36
Speaker 1: If you haven't worked on the streets as a street
35:38
Speaker 1: character before, if you don't have a good understanding of
35:42
Speaker 1: drunk patrons, of shy patrons, of all of these things,
35:45
Speaker 1: of people who are too hot, of people who just
35:47
Speaker 1: don't want to be interacted with, if you can't gauge
35:50
Speaker 1: the level of interaction a person wants going into it,
35:52
Speaker 1: which everybody messes up. There are things that I could
35:54
Speaker 1: do better if I were a kissing weunch again, then
35:58
Speaker 1: you're going to fail. You're gonna make people on comfortable,
36:00
Speaker 1: You're going to be uncomfortable. It can be sometimes be
36:02
Speaker 1: dangerous because people have a fight or flight instinct and
36:06
Speaker 1: sometimes they pick a fight.
36:09
Speaker 2: And also at the Renaissance Festival is a place that
36:12
Speaker 2: serves alcohol and people, especially like before the blue laws
36:18
Speaker 2: were lifted, definitely on Saturdays, but then after the blue
36:21
Speaker 2: laws were lifted Sundays too, people would hit that tavern
36:25
Speaker 2: as early as it would open. And you know, in Georgia,
36:29
Speaker 2: the festival when I started, there were two festivals. There
36:33
Speaker 2: was one in the fall and one in the spring.
36:34
Speaker 2: I did the very last fall season. We didn't know
36:38
Speaker 2: it was the last one while we were doing it,
36:40
Speaker 2: and my partner and I said, if we do it again,
36:43
Speaker 2: let's just do the fall. Let's not do spring because
36:45
Speaker 2: it's too hot. We'll do the fall. And then and
36:48
Speaker 2: then there was the announcement that fall was done. They
36:51
Speaker 2: were not doing fall again, and went no. Well, in
36:54
Speaker 2: the spring, when it gets so hot, people drink even
36:56
Speaker 2: more and they're not drinking necessarily water, they're drinking mead
37:01
Speaker 2: or beer or whatever. And then you deal with progressively
37:06
Speaker 2: intoxicated patrons and that that can be dangerous for them. Actually,
37:12
Speaker 2: Like I can't tell you how many times I had
37:15
Speaker 2: to run off to find someone with a walkie talkie
37:20
Speaker 2: to get you know, medical attention because somebody was dehydrated
37:25
Speaker 2: because all they had been drinking was alcohol. It was
37:26
Speaker 2: too hot and they passed out.
37:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, because as a street character you also had to
37:32
Speaker 1: you helped in. There were people who were like EMTs,
37:35
Speaker 1: and there were people who were security. But you also
37:37
Speaker 1: helped those people because you're interacting with patrons two quick things.
37:43
Speaker 1: We're bouncing around so much, and you're keeping the conversation going.
37:45
Speaker 1: But I have all these thoughts that I'm not getting out,
37:47
Speaker 1: and one of them is beyond bits and latzis there
37:50
Speaker 1: are people who went I was very much a bit actor.
37:54
Speaker 1: I loved my bits. I worked hard on them, and
37:56
Speaker 1: they usually ended up in the person getting some sort
37:58
Speaker 1: of like tangible ward and I love that, and I
38:01
Speaker 1: didn't mind pouring my own money into that. You are
38:04
Speaker 1: the kind of actor who loved doing bits with people,
38:08
Speaker 1: but you were very improvisational in your bits, oftentimes especially
38:12
Speaker 1: later on in the season. And that's something more seasoned
38:14
Speaker 1: actors could do. Again, Like season kissing, wenches can gauge
38:17
Speaker 1: audiences and adjust. You know, this person doesn't want to kiss,
38:20
Speaker 1: but maybe we can teach them how to kiss their
38:22
Speaker 1: mom or if you build a well rounded character, pivot
38:27
Speaker 1: to something else that has nothing to do with kissing
38:29
Speaker 1: but has to do with your character. Yeah, so it
38:32
Speaker 1: is interesting. There are people who would try to do
38:34
Speaker 1: the improv route, but they weren't strong. Street street worker
38:37
Speaker 1: is not the right term. Street characters yeah, and so
38:40
Speaker 1: it didn't quite have the same payoff for audiences. The
38:44
Speaker 1: other thing is I will say like I fought. I
38:47
Speaker 1: fought to be in Scenario every single year because I
38:50
Speaker 1: loved doing combat and I loved having moments where I
38:54
Speaker 1: could go to scripted and kind of just change up
38:56
Speaker 1: my day. And the year that I finally got into Sono,
39:00
Speaker 1: I got cast as a villain, and then in the
39:04
Speaker 1: middle of the rehearsal process, the plot changed and we
39:08
Speaker 1: were no longer the villains of the story. We were
39:12
Speaker 1: still kind of villainous, but we weren't like the villains,
39:15
Speaker 1: and that got really frustrating. I loved all the combat,
39:18
Speaker 1: even when I got my knuckle busted by another fighter
39:22
Speaker 1: and had to go get stitches and come back and
39:24
Speaker 1: do the rest of my fights for the day, which
39:26
Speaker 1: was like four or five per festival day. But that
39:31
Speaker 1: as much fun as I had that season, that was
39:33
Speaker 1: my least rewarding character because it I had to pivot
39:36
Speaker 1: in the middle of rehearsals and was no longer playing
39:39
Speaker 1: the character that I had built all this excitement for.
39:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to help people who may not know what
39:46
Speaker 2: we mean when we say scenario or as ariels proposely
39:50
Speaker 2: says scenario, which that's how the quizt That's how the
39:54
Speaker 2: quizzer says it on Ridiculous History. That's my character on
39:57
Speaker 2: Ridiculous History. So I'm trying not to fall into that character. Alike,
40:02
Speaker 2: he's a scenario, but no scenario at Renaissance festival, that's
40:08
Speaker 2: like the overall story for the day, like why is
40:10
Speaker 2: the festival happening? And some years we didn't have one,
40:14
Speaker 2: Like we really didn't have a scenario. We just we
40:16
Speaker 2: did an opening gate where it was just oh, the
40:18
Speaker 2: King's here, yay, and then pronounced the days started, and
40:22
Speaker 2: there's a festival for no particular reason. Other seasons we
40:26
Speaker 2: would have an actual storyline, including villains who are trying
40:30
Speaker 2: to ruin the festival for one reason or another. Usually
40:34
Speaker 2: it involves stealing something that the king wants to give
40:37
Speaker 2: to the queen. Like so that was the plot so
40:39
Speaker 2: many times that I made it a joke in one
40:42
Speaker 2: of the scenarios I wrote. But the overall story is
40:46
Speaker 2: something that as a patron you can follow or you cannot.
40:49
Speaker 2: It doesn't really impact your day, but if you want
40:51
Speaker 2: to know the story, you can actually go and follow it.
40:54
Speaker 2: And when I first joined, it was much much, much
40:57
Speaker 2: easier to follow the scenario because not only was it
41:02
Speaker 2: listed in the schedule for the day, but they they
41:05
Speaker 2: arranged for the scenario to play out on actual stages,
41:09
Speaker 2: so you would know to go to a specific stage
41:11
Speaker 2: a specific time to see a chapter of the story unfold.
41:15
Speaker 2: In later seasons, more and more of the stages were
41:19
Speaker 2: given up to contracted stage acts that came in to perform,
41:25
Speaker 2: and the scenario was moved off the stages into the streets,
41:29
Speaker 2: which one, you can't really tell people, hey, show up
41:33
Speaker 2: in show up in the lanes at this general location
41:37
Speaker 2: at this general time, and you'll see something. It also
41:40
Speaker 2: made it much harder to stage because you no longer
41:43
Speaker 2: had like, you know, you no longer had a stage
41:45
Speaker 2: to actually perform on. You were performing theater in the round,
41:50
Speaker 2: and you.
41:51
Speaker 1: Had to be honestly says, don't know what grassy noole means.
41:54
Speaker 1: There's like five of them.
41:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and you also had to be careful, right
41:58
Speaker 2: because like if you're if you're doing stage combat in
42:01
Speaker 2: the lanes, you had to have extra people there to
42:05
Speaker 2: make sure the audience stayed at a safe distance so
42:08
Speaker 2: that they didn't get whacked by a sword like our
42:11
Speaker 2: swords weren't sharp. But as Aeriel can attest, you know,
42:14
Speaker 2: you get hit by a stage sword or a stage
42:16
Speaker 2: axe or something like that, it hurts.
42:18
Speaker 1: I'm going to say that's the sword was not dulled.
42:22
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Okay, well that was like.
42:24
Speaker 1: Or at least not dulled enough, like they had bought
42:26
Speaker 1: that sword, and if it was dulled, it wasn't dulled properly.
42:30
Speaker 1: But it all still had nicks in it from fighting
42:32
Speaker 1: with other swords.
42:33
Speaker 2: So yeah, you're you're supposed to you're supposed to file
42:36
Speaker 2: those down. Yeah, but yeah, I I would not have. No,
42:40
Speaker 2: I would never have fought in any fight where someone
42:43
Speaker 2: was not using an actual stage combat sword. That's just
42:46
Speaker 2: what I just wouldn't. Like, No, it's not safe.
42:49
Speaker 1: It busted up my middle finger. I didn't realize till
42:52
Speaker 1: after the fight. The other fighters like are you okay?
42:54
Speaker 1: Are you okay? And I love them and it was
42:56
Speaker 1: an accident and I'm not mad.
42:57
Speaker 2: I'm sure that's that's that's all fine. I don't. I don't.
43:01
Speaker 2: I'm not suggesting the actor was like purposefully or even
43:04
Speaker 2: really negligent, other than the fact that they were not
43:06
Speaker 2: using a stage combat sword, which is in my mind
43:11
Speaker 2: you can't do that.
43:12
Speaker 1: But anyway, yeah, but uh but oh no, that year
43:16
Speaker 1: was not the year that I was in That was
43:18
Speaker 1: the second time I was in scenario as Vogel Moote.
43:20
Speaker 1: I was in scenario once as Vogel Mode. I was
43:22
Speaker 1: also in scenario once as a millionaire. When I was
43:24
Speaker 1: Voglamode in scenario, it was fine because I like that character.
43:26
Speaker 1: When I was a milia ownaire, I enjoyed being in scenario.
43:29
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the things I did, but it wasn't my
43:32
Speaker 1: favorite character. I did, however, get my lifelong brother from
43:36
Speaker 1: another mother during that season, who I love in his
43:41
Speaker 1: family to me, so that is super awesome. Yeah, but
43:45
Speaker 1: the bend, like I didn't know, I had to go
43:47
Speaker 1: get stitches. A lot of my injuries at Fair were
43:50
Speaker 1: things that I didn't realize at first. It was all
43:53
Speaker 1: my middle finger. So the last fight of the day
43:55
Speaker 1: was a staff fight and I ended up flicking everybody
43:57
Speaker 1: off because I couldn't bend my middle finger. The entire season.
44:01
Speaker 2: Well, we were going to continue this conversation, but Aerial
44:06
Speaker 2: lost power because there's a massive storm moving into Atlanta
44:09
Speaker 2: and it hit her part of Atlanta already. It hasn't
44:12
Speaker 2: hit me yet, So we're just going to call this
44:14
Speaker 2: part one and it'll probably be a two part or
44:18
Speaker 2: who knows, maybe a multi part episode about our experiences
44:21
Speaker 2: at the Renaissance Festival. Now we're going to talk about
44:26
Speaker 2: that next week. So if you have questions, specific questions
44:30
Speaker 2: you would like to ask us that pertained to the
44:34
Speaker 2: Renaissance Festival and our work there, whether it's you know,
44:38
Speaker 2: how we put our characters together, what were the sort
44:41
Speaker 2: of things we thought about, If there were any like
44:45
Speaker 2: terrible moments that we had at the festival because I
44:48
Speaker 2: had a couple, or if there were you know, questions
44:53
Speaker 2: about things like stage combat and or writing for the festival,
44:57
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff, please feel free to ask.
44:59
Speaker 2: We actually have a lot lot of thoughts also about
45:02
Speaker 2: how the festival has changed over the years. And I'll
45:07
Speaker 2: tell you now, I am very grouchy, so I get
45:11
Speaker 2: roll grouchy talking about it. But you know, you have
45:15
Speaker 2: to also understand that working at the festival was never
45:18
Speaker 2: a prestige job, even in the good old days as
45:23
Speaker 2: it were. But yeah, we can talk about all those
45:25
Speaker 2: sorts of things if there any if there's anything specific
45:28
Speaker 2: you want to know, you can reach out to us.
45:30
Speaker 2: Let's see, Jonathan, how do they reach you? Well, Ariel,
45:33
Speaker 2: I'm glad you asked. If you wish to ask me
45:36
Speaker 2: a question, what you must do is travel out to
45:39
Speaker 2: the countryside and find yourself a fairly you know, remote area,
45:47
Speaker 2: large area that you can retrofit into a Renaissance festival,
45:52
Speaker 2: right that you can turn into a village. One important
45:57
Speaker 2: element of this village is while it needs to be remote,
46:00
Speaker 2: also absolutely must be directly in line of air traffic
46:05
Speaker 2: from the local airport. If you don't have airplanes flying
46:09
Speaker 2: overhead numerous times a day, which absolutely drowns out anything
46:14
Speaker 2: you're trying to say while you're being in character, then
46:16
Speaker 2: it's not really a Renaissance festival. But yes, you must
46:18
Speaker 2: go and build a Renaissance festival. At this Renaissance festival,
46:22
Speaker 2: you have to have vendors, and you have to have
46:25
Speaker 2: stages and areas where characters can interact with patrons and
46:30
Speaker 2: musicians can perform and create a lot of ambience so
46:35
Speaker 2: that you feel like you're in a magical, distant land
46:39
Speaker 2: walking through time. You want to do all of that,
46:42
Speaker 2: You want to get all of that together and the
46:44
Speaker 2: most important part is you need to make sure everyone
46:46
Speaker 2: who works for you, no matter what department they are in,
46:50
Speaker 2: deals valued and recognized for their contributions. And once you
46:54
Speaker 2: do that, you can ask me your question and I'll
46:56
Speaker 2: tell you an answer. But if you want the is
47:00
Speaker 2: your way, well, I'll let past Ariel'll tell you from
47:04
Speaker 2: some random episode I've just chosen to include here and
47:07
Speaker 2: cut out and paste into this one.
47:12
Speaker 1: And if you want to go through a little less trauma,
47:14
Speaker 1: you can contact us on social media on Twitter or
47:17
Speaker 1: llenc Underscore podcast on threads, Instagram, and Facebook. We are
47:21
Speaker 1: a large ner Drunk Collider. That's also our website www
47:26
Speaker 1: dot largnur drunk collider dot com. I will host some
47:31
Speaker 1: of the strike news and maybe the community fund link
47:35
Speaker 1: there sometime this weekend er week And yeah, you can
47:40
Speaker 1: check us out on discord too. Until next time. I
47:44
Speaker 1: have been aerial.
47:49
Speaker 2: Castin and I am Jonathan Hazzan Strickland. The Large nerdron
47:58
Speaker 2: Collider was created by Ariel Caston and produced, edited, published, deleted, undeleted,
48:07
Speaker 2: published again, cursed at by Jonathan Strickland. Music by Kevin
48:13
Speaker 2: McLeod of incomptech dot com