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Here's a Health to the Company! · Large Nerdron Collider

0:10
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to the Large Ner Drunk Collider podcast,
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Speaker 1: the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in
0:16
Speaker 1: the world around us and how excited we are about them.
0:19
Speaker 1: I'm Ariel Castin and with me, as always is the
0:22
Speaker 1: ever patient Shonathan Strickland.
0:25
Speaker 2: Well we may and might never all meet here again again. Yes,
0:31
Speaker 2: welcome back, Ariel.
0:32
Speaker 1: Thank you. It was a massive storm that took me
0:36
Speaker 1: out for a whole flip and week.
0:37
Speaker 2: Now.
0:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's good to be back and to continue
0:41
Speaker 1: this story about working at the Renfest since obviously we
0:44
Speaker 1: still can't talk about all of the geeky things that
0:47
Speaker 1: normally we would talk about until those producers get some sense.
0:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, and until the actors and writers get them Dalla Dallas.
0:59
Speaker 1: Yes, dollars and cents. So yeah, so we're going to
1:04
Speaker 1: keep talking about Renfest and thank you to the people
1:08
Speaker 1: who have asked us more questions about it. And we
1:12
Speaker 1: left off with me rambling on about getting an injury,
1:17
Speaker 1: but you had something to share on that along those lines,
1:19
Speaker 1: as well, right Jonathan.
1:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I also was injured at Renaissance Fair once.
1:27
Speaker 2: I have been in combat scenario a few times. I
1:32
Speaker 2: filled in for someone one year for a couple of weekends,
1:37
Speaker 2: and I was the bad guy for a season, and
1:40
Speaker 2: I was a hero for another season. So I had
1:43
Speaker 2: a lot of combat, but I never actually got injured
1:46
Speaker 2: doing combat. You know, no one accidentally stabbed me or anything.
1:50
Speaker 2: There were some close calls. There were a couple of
1:52
Speaker 2: times where I got like like tagged by the flat
1:55
Speaker 2: of a sword or whatever, but that you know, they
1:58
Speaker 2: might give you a little bit of a welp, but
1:59
Speaker 2: that's the that's as bad as it gets. Uh No.
2:02
Speaker 2: The one time I got injured was during courtly dancing,
2:08
Speaker 2: which what how, I'll tell you how areal so so
2:15
Speaker 2: courtly dancing? Obviously, it's it's some dancing that we would do. Really,
2:19
Speaker 2: it's it's more like English folk dancing. We didn't do
2:22
Speaker 2: really any courtly dances because those typically involve lots of
2:27
Speaker 2: like little steps and jumps in the air and kicks
2:30
Speaker 2: in the air and stuff like that. Stuff that's not
2:32
Speaker 2: easy to do when you're outside on un level ground.
2:36
Speaker 2: Uh So we did a lot of of like folk dances,
2:40
Speaker 2: so they were more like like the kind that that
2:43
Speaker 2: the commoners would dance, and some of them were much
2:45
Speaker 2: more modern than Renaissance, if i'd most.
2:48
Speaker 1: Of it is Hole in the Wall of folk dance.
2:50
Speaker 2: Hole in the Wall I think is based kind of
2:53
Speaker 2: off of dances during like the regency, so it's much
2:57
Speaker 2: later period. But that's that's that's where my injury comes in.
3:01
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's a dance we would do. I learned
3:03
Speaker 2: it originally at the SCA actually, but there's a dance
3:06
Speaker 2: that the Renaissance Festival would do the Court would do
3:10
Speaker 2: most days called Hole in the Wall. And in Hole
3:12
Speaker 2: in the Wall, you have you have a partner and
3:16
Speaker 2: you make up a line with typically, you know, this
3:20
Speaker 2: is very old fashioned, but you would have all the
3:22
Speaker 2: lords on one side and all the ladies on the other,
3:24
Speaker 2: although I think these days we would just mix them
3:26
Speaker 2: up as much as we wanted to, and then we
3:29
Speaker 2: would do a series of dances. But the neat thing
3:33
Speaker 2: about Hole in the Wall is that it has sequences
3:36
Speaker 2: in the dance where the dancers kind of twirl apart
3:39
Speaker 2: from each other and then come back together. And so
3:42
Speaker 2: there are opportunities for someone who is not currently dancing
3:46
Speaker 2: to swoop in and steal someone else's partner, and we
3:49
Speaker 2: called it poaching. So you could if you wanted to
3:52
Speaker 2: try and poach someone else's partner. I always found the
3:55
Speaker 2: secret to not getting poached was throwing in a lot
3:58
Speaker 2: of flourishes in the dance because it intimidated everyone. Yeah.
4:02
Speaker 2: But but there was a time where I did not
4:05
Speaker 2: start the dance. So there were there was a line
4:08
Speaker 2: of dancers already dancing, and I decided I was going
4:11
Speaker 2: to steal her majesty, the Queen. So who was dancing
4:16
Speaker 2: with his majesty the King his majesty being played by
4:19
Speaker 2: a friend of ours name John, who it was playing
4:22
Speaker 2: Henry the eighth. And John is a John's a big dude. Yeah,
4:26
Speaker 2: I swept in to steal the queen, and so John
4:30
Speaker 2: decided he would give me a little hip check. And
4:34
Speaker 2: uh he didn't. He didn't hit me hard or very fast,
4:37
Speaker 2: but he is a bigger dude than I am, and
4:42
Speaker 2: it cleared me off my feet. I we were on
4:47
Speaker 2: a hill, so I fell down the hill. I ended
4:52
Speaker 2: up spraining my ankle and my wrist and was laying
4:57
Speaker 2: there on the ground and I hear the King say,
5:02
Speaker 2: are you all right, Lord Admiral, And I remember saying
5:07
Speaker 2: I'm not really sure yet. So it turned out I
5:14
Speaker 2: was mostly all right. I had like I had sprained
5:16
Speaker 2: my ankle, I had sprained my wrist, and he felt
5:19
Speaker 2: terrible about it, but I was like, you know, it
5:22
Speaker 2: literally was because he hit me at just the right
5:25
Speaker 2: time on just the right spot of the hill where
5:28
Speaker 2: I was unable to regain my balance. So I was like,
5:31
Speaker 2: you know, ninety nine times out of one hundred, I
5:34
Speaker 2: just would have been like pushed out of the way
5:35
Speaker 2: and it would have been funny. And that's it. This
5:38
Speaker 2: was just a freak accident. It was not really your fault.
5:41
Speaker 2: I'm not blaming you. It's fine, but it did mean
5:44
Speaker 2: that the next day. Because we would perform Saturdays and Sundays,
5:49
Speaker 2: and then on Memorial Day weekend, we would also do
5:52
Speaker 2: Memorial Day, this was one of the earlier weekends, so
5:56
Speaker 2: it was a Saturday. So the next day I actually
5:59
Speaker 2: had a brace on my wrist and I had my
6:04
Speaker 2: ankle wrapped, so I was walking around with a cane.
6:09
Speaker 2: I had a gauntlet like a leather glove, not a
6:12
Speaker 2: metal gauntlet, but a leather glove over the hand that
6:15
Speaker 2: had the wrist brace on it, so I could hide
6:17
Speaker 2: the wrist brace. And I was hobbling around and all
6:21
Speaker 2: day John went back and forth between giggling and seeing
6:26
Speaker 2: me because it was so pathetic to apologizing profusely because
6:31
Speaker 2: of it. And yeah, there's a picture of me, and
6:35
Speaker 2: I look like the character from Young Frankenstein, the guy
6:38
Speaker 2: who has the wooden hand, because I'm sitting there with
6:41
Speaker 2: my hand elevated and it it was. That was the
6:45
Speaker 2: one time I got injured was courtly dancing at the
6:48
Speaker 2: Renaissance Fare.
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Speaker 1: Gotcha, I I have been injured courtly dancing. Usually it's
6:54
Speaker 1: my costume that gets injured because when you're dancing in
6:57
Speaker 1: a hoop skirt, which is what we normally wore h
7:00
Speaker 1: as ladies, Uh, it gets stepped on and then you
7:05
Speaker 1: try to move and your skirt gets pulled off. My
7:09
Speaker 1: skirt pulled off.
7:10
Speaker 2: I've been guilty. I think of stepping on your skirt
7:12
Speaker 2: once or twice.
7:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, But the one injury like the biggest time I've
7:16
Speaker 1: been injured. And I honestly don't remember if this was
7:19
Speaker 1: at a LARP or at run Fest, because I know
7:21
Speaker 1: we did this dance at Runfest a couple of times,
7:23
Speaker 1: and it's just maybe we tried it both places and
7:26
Speaker 1: one of them I got injured. Was we would do
7:28
Speaker 1: toss the duchess, which is a circle dancing. It's uh
7:32
Speaker 1: traditionally guy girl girl, guy girl, right.
7:35
Speaker 2: And it's done to the tune ding dong merrily on high. Yeah.
7:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, Uh do do do do Do Do Do Do
7:41
Speaker 1: Do Do Do Do do do do And at the
7:44
Speaker 1: end you go down a long run. Uh do do
7:46
Speaker 1: do do do Do Do do do do, And it
7:48
Speaker 1: goes on and then the end, and then you toss
7:50
Speaker 1: a duchess and the one partner, partner A, will take
7:55
Speaker 1: partner B and like pick them up and put them
7:58
Speaker 1: to the other side. So take from the right to
8:00
Speaker 1: the left, yes and no, and now you have a
8:03
Speaker 1: new partner yeah. And now partner B has a new
8:06
Speaker 1: partner A, and so on and so forth. And there
8:10
Speaker 1: was one time or a couple of times where we're like, Okay,
8:12
Speaker 1: now we're gonna switch partner B toss partner A. And
8:19
Speaker 1: the way it worked out is that all of the
8:21
Speaker 1: partner bees had been much more accustomed to being tossed,
8:24
Speaker 1: and all of the partner as had been much more
8:26
Speaker 1: accustomed to tossing and switching.
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Speaker 2: That means.
8:30
Speaker 1: Like me, who ended up tossing my partner got kicked
8:34
Speaker 1: in the shins so flipping hard it bruised and skinned
8:40
Speaker 1: my knee like my shin.
8:43
Speaker 2: That sounds terrible.
8:46
Speaker 1: I mean it's also hilarious in hindsight. It was uncomfortable.
8:48
Speaker 1: It was funny then, but it was uncomfortable then.
8:51
Speaker 2: I think it had to be a larm. I mean,
8:52
Speaker 2: maybe it was at the festival. But I can say
8:55
Speaker 2: I can say I have danced that dance more than
8:58
Speaker 2: a hundred times and we never reverse the roles.
9:02
Speaker 1: So I think I think we did try it at Fair,
9:04
Speaker 1: but it was only like once.
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Speaker 2: Well, I guess the one time is all you need
9:08
Speaker 2: to find out what a disaster it is.
9:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you really need people because also at Fair
9:13
Speaker 1: we would bring guests in to learn these dances. A
9:16
Speaker 1: lot of them were not most of them, a lot
9:17
Speaker 1: of them were not super hard and so but to
9:21
Speaker 1: do something like that, you really need people who are
9:22
Speaker 1: kind of more familiar with it already.
9:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's uh. That was one where we would
9:28
Speaker 2: typically grab people from around to make the circle as
9:32
Speaker 2: big as possible and to make it a real spectacle.
9:35
Speaker 2: There were certain dances that were so elaborate and complicated,
9:39
Speaker 2: relatively complicated, that you couldn't easily teach it to someone
9:45
Speaker 2: in just a minute or so, and so those were
9:47
Speaker 2: the ones we would do as sort of a demonstration
9:51
Speaker 2: or or an exhibition. And then there were others that
9:54
Speaker 2: were much easier to teach, and those we would bring
9:59
Speaker 2: in partners from elsewhere, like tangle brawl, obviously super easy,
10:04
Speaker 2: which the whole purpose of tangle brawl is just for
10:07
Speaker 2: whoever's leading the dance to tangle everyone up. It starts
10:10
Speaker 2: as a circle dance, but then the leader drops hands
10:15
Speaker 2: with one person and then it becomes a chain, and
10:18
Speaker 2: the leader just goes back and forth through the chain,
10:22
Speaker 2: tangling everybody up until you can't really move anymore, which,
10:25
Speaker 2: by the way, sounds like it's fun until you're late
10:28
Speaker 2: in the run of the Georgia Renaissance Festival and everyone's
10:31
Speaker 2: wearing upholstery and it's ninety degrees.
10:35
Speaker 1: And you get a patron's armpit in your nose and
10:38
Speaker 1: you can't move. Yeah. That I will say it takes
10:42
Speaker 1: some skill to be the leader of that, because you
10:44
Speaker 1: can be too timid and not tangle it up well enough,
10:49
Speaker 1: or you can be far too aggressive like I tend
10:51
Speaker 1: to be, like when I play Settlers of Katan.
10:55
Speaker 2: And get.
10:58
Speaker 1: Within five secs. Look, I'm the person who's like, oh,
11:02
Speaker 1: I'm gonna move the thief and take your one sheep
11:05
Speaker 1: and your one wheat on round one. I've been yelled
11:09
Speaker 1: at for that on the Joco Cruise. Yeah, so I
11:13
Speaker 1: don't do it anymore.
11:14
Speaker 2: But the person who typically would would run the dance
11:18
Speaker 2: when we were doing it was the actress who played
11:22
Speaker 2: the queen, and she had a really good balance. She
11:24
Speaker 2: had a good feel for how intense to make the dance.
11:30
Speaker 2: She's paced it really well so that, you know, she
11:32
Speaker 2: didn't have us all tied up in a knot to
11:34
Speaker 2: the point where we couldn't move, like, you know, one
11:37
Speaker 2: round into the dance, we'd be going for a while.
11:40
Speaker 2: And that was a lot of fun. And yeah, dancing
11:43
Speaker 2: in particular, that was one thing I always looked forward
11:45
Speaker 2: to it. In fact, at one point I became the
11:47
Speaker 2: dance leader. I became the one who taught the dances
11:50
Speaker 2: and called them out and that kind of thing, which
11:53
Speaker 2: was that was a lot of fun for me. Even
11:56
Speaker 2: we even tried a couple of new ones that were
12:00
Speaker 2: very complicated. Two I will say mixed success.
12:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I like I did sometime being dance mistressed
12:09
Speaker 1: as well, I think when you weren't there occasionally and
12:13
Speaker 1: then my band played it for a while, so I'd
12:15
Speaker 1: do that as times did you did you? Was the
12:17
Speaker 1: mirror dance one of the harder ones that you tried
12:19
Speaker 1: to do?
12:20
Speaker 2: No, that one. I think that one was one of
12:22
Speaker 2: the easier ones. Honestly. Again, that was when I learned
12:25
Speaker 2: originally at the SCA Gotcha, so that one I had.
12:29
Speaker 2: I had learned that one when I was a teenager,
12:31
Speaker 2: so that one was not too difficult. There is there
12:34
Speaker 2: is an actual peasant dance called Newcastle, and the village
12:38
Speaker 2: at Georgia Renaissance Fair is called Newcastle, so I thought, well,
12:42
Speaker 2: we should really dance Newcastle at least once. But it
12:47
Speaker 2: is it's got a couple of moves that are hard
12:50
Speaker 2: to explain to people, especially if you don't really have
12:54
Speaker 2: the full vocabulary. And while I could teach know the
13:00
Speaker 2: other dances, this one was one where it was hard
13:02
Speaker 2: for me to wrap my brain around. There are a
13:04
Speaker 2: couple of moves toward the very end where there's like
13:07
Speaker 2: a change in partners and a change in the in
13:09
Speaker 2: the shape of the dance that was difficult for me
13:12
Speaker 2: to communicate. So We did eventually get it down, but
13:17
Speaker 2: you could call, like maybe the first two weekends a
13:19
Speaker 2: fair rehearsal for that dance, except it was rehearsal in
13:23
Speaker 2: front of people.
13:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fine, you know, we're allowed to make fools
13:28
Speaker 1: of ourselves. I was always sad when dancing was canceled
13:33
Speaker 1: due to inclement weather, because I'm like, it's muddy, it's rainy,
13:37
Speaker 1: I can still dance. It's snowy, I can still dance. Yes,
13:42
Speaker 1: it does occasionally snow at the Georgia Renaissance Festival once
13:45
Speaker 1: in a blue moon.
13:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The festival typically starts mid April and runs
13:51
Speaker 2: through early June. But even in mid April, we can
13:55
Speaker 2: Georgia our coldest weather off and hits a little later.
14:01
Speaker 2: That It's not like in December or January. It's February,
14:05
Speaker 2: March and then sometimes into April, and that that was
14:09
Speaker 2: one of those years. But yeah, I was always disappointed
14:12
Speaker 2: if we called it too Like there were some times
14:14
Speaker 2: where it was just so flippin' hot that we would
14:18
Speaker 2: call it because if you're getting toward the end of
14:20
Speaker 2: the run and it's that and you're thinking this is
14:23
Speaker 2: the beginning of the day, too, we would typically do
14:25
Speaker 2: it early before it would get too hot, But on
14:27
Speaker 2: the days where it was super hot already, you might
14:30
Speaker 2: call it just because you've got to You've got a
14:32
Speaker 2: whole day ahead of you, so you don't want to
14:35
Speaker 2: burn out, like thirty minutes after opening gate.
14:40
Speaker 1: That's true, because at least at our Renfest, actors would
14:45
Speaker 1: drop long before the gates would close.
14:48
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, we had We had actors who had
14:50
Speaker 2: a reputation for not not being upright by the end
14:56
Speaker 2: of the day and it and often it was because
14:58
Speaker 2: there was some sort of undie ignosed condition that was
15:02
Speaker 2: complicating matters. But it also could just be that they
15:05
Speaker 2: weren't hydrating enough because you you essentially needed to be
15:09
Speaker 2: drinking water pretty much constantly all day long because you'd
15:13
Speaker 2: be sweating it out so fast that you need to
15:17
Speaker 2: have water, and you need salt, you need some form
15:19
Speaker 2: of electrolyte in order to sow. Pickles and water were
15:23
Speaker 2: like the go tos for a lot of people.
15:25
Speaker 1: Uh, sex, if you don't like pickles, yeah, just now,
15:28
Speaker 1: I didn't.
15:29
Speaker 2: At the time I was I was known as the
15:33
Speaker 2: anti pickle guy, not because I don't like pickles, but
15:36
Speaker 2: because people would just reach in there with their hands
15:38
Speaker 2: to get a pickle out of h yeah, and I'm like, no,
15:41
Speaker 2: I'm not going to have any of those like, oh,
15:43
Speaker 2: come on that that surely the vinegar would kill anything off.
15:46
Speaker 2: I said, listen, if there's anything that could survive, it's
15:50
Speaker 2: gonna be here at this festival. And I Am not
15:52
Speaker 2: putting my hand in there.
15:54
Speaker 1: But you know, sometimes it was just matter like it wasn't.
15:58
Speaker 1: It wasn't always because like, okay, so as a person
16:01
Speaker 1: who has gotten heat, not stroke, but exhaustion a couple
16:04
Speaker 1: of times. Yeah, which, by the way, you never like
16:07
Speaker 1: fully come back from that, My heat tolerance is a
16:09
Speaker 1: lot lower.
16:09
Speaker 2: Now same here. I had the same issue.
16:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, you can just work so hard and you
16:16
Speaker 1: think you're hydrating enough, but because you're you're there's this
16:20
Speaker 1: thing that happens when you act that sometimes you're so
16:22
Speaker 1: in it that you'll go back, you'll look back at
16:24
Speaker 1: the end of the day and go, what did I
16:25
Speaker 1: do because you're just so in it? Yeah, And you
16:28
Speaker 1: can you can be that way at fair even if
16:30
Speaker 1: you're like, who's my next group of people to interact with?
16:34
Speaker 1: You're so focused on what you're doing or your character
16:37
Speaker 1: that you don't always keep track of the time or
16:39
Speaker 1: when your last class of water was. I mean, I
16:43
Speaker 1: got sent home with hypothermia in beginning stages of frostbite
16:46
Speaker 1: one year because it snowed and I put on a
16:48
Speaker 1: cloak and I was trying to stay warm. But there's
16:50
Speaker 1: only so much you can do when you're a scantily
16:53
Speaker 1: clad peasant girl. Like so uh, but Fair is outdoors,
16:58
Speaker 1: so we were always victims to the weather. And like
17:01
Speaker 1: even if I think I've only heard of Fair closing
17:04
Speaker 1: like twice due to hurricanes or tornadoes or something like that,
17:06
Speaker 1: and usually we stay open if it's pouring rain and
17:09
Speaker 1: you just do what you can.
17:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, heck, I remember the was it two thousand, It
17:18
Speaker 2: might have been two thousand, It could have been two
17:19
Speaker 2: thousand and one. So let's kind let's kind of break
17:25
Speaker 2: down the different groups that are that make up the
17:29
Speaker 2: staff of Renaissance Fair because that'll that'll help a little bit.
17:33
Speaker 2: So you've got your your the actual fair employees, So
17:39
Speaker 2: that includes people who are ticket takers, and they are
17:44
Speaker 2: the people who work in the festival owned shops and
17:47
Speaker 2: the festival owned food stalls, and so the festival owns
17:52
Speaker 2: some of those outright, and so those are direct employees
17:55
Speaker 2: of the festival. You also have the street characters. They
17:59
Speaker 2: are festival employees, and you have the you know people
18:02
Speaker 2: who oversee them, the Entertainment Department, their festival employees. You've
18:05
Speaker 2: got the grounds crew. They are you know, contracted by
18:08
Speaker 2: the festival or their festival employees. You've got the booths.
18:12
Speaker 2: Those are run by independent merchants who have purchased a
18:15
Speaker 2: location at the festival. They have their own staff. You've
18:20
Speaker 2: got street acts. Those are typically contracted to come in
18:25
Speaker 2: and perform not street acts, but stage acts. They're contracted
18:28
Speaker 2: to come in and perform on the various stages. Occasionally
18:32
Speaker 2: you might have a festival owned you know, stage show
18:37
Speaker 2: like the Shakespeare Parody was done by members of the
18:40
Speaker 2: street cast, so that was not contracted out to another
18:44
Speaker 2: theater group or anything. And you've got the Joust. And
18:48
Speaker 2: when I first started, the Joust was actually owned by
18:50
Speaker 2: the festival or was you know, an actual festival production.
18:54
Speaker 2: They didn't go anywhere else. It was a Georgia Renaissance
18:57
Speaker 2: Festival group. Well, on my last day, I guess it
19:01
Speaker 2: must have been two thousand and one. I remember the
19:04
Speaker 2: last day was the last day for the joust like
19:06
Speaker 2: that was that they were retiring and then the festival
19:09
Speaker 2: was going to contract outside groups to come in and
19:13
Speaker 2: put and perform a joust. And at the end of
19:17
Speaker 2: the day, we got one of those massive pop up
19:20
Speaker 2: thunderstorms that is common in the southeast, and it was
19:24
Speaker 2: it was a whopper, like the lightning was very close by.
19:29
Speaker 2: It was one of those where you'd see the flash
19:30
Speaker 2: of lightning and you would hear the thunder almost immediately afterward.
19:35
Speaker 2: But it was the last joust that they were going
19:37
Speaker 2: to do, and they were determined to do it. So
19:40
Speaker 2: I remember standing up on the reviewing stand where the
19:43
Speaker 2: King and Queen would set and watch the joust, and
19:46
Speaker 2: you know, we were under at least some cover, but
19:50
Speaker 2: what looking down at that joust field and thinking, these
19:53
Speaker 2: these guys are insane because we've got this massive storm going.
19:58
Speaker 2: They're wearing armor, and they're carrying lances like they are
20:03
Speaker 2: lightning rods that are fighting each other. But they were
20:08
Speaker 2: determined to do it. And like under normal circumstances that
20:12
Speaker 2: never would have happened. They would have called that joust
20:15
Speaker 2: and said we're not going to do it, it's too dangerous.
20:17
Speaker 2: But because it was their last one. They went ahead
20:20
Speaker 2: and did it anyway, and fortunately it all went fine.
20:25
Speaker 2: No one got hurt, there were no issues. It was
20:28
Speaker 2: a curtailed joust. It wasn't as long as it typically
20:31
Speaker 2: would be, but they felt like they put on a
20:34
Speaker 2: good show for the two people who were in the
20:37
Speaker 2: audience because it was pouring down rain.
20:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you do a venue like that, you do
20:46
Speaker 1: it because you love it.
20:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, And actually, like occasionally like those downpours once in
20:55
Speaker 2: a blue moon would lead to some of those highlights
20:57
Speaker 2: we mentioned in our last episode. We talked about how
21:00
Speaker 2: like pretty much every performer, if they if they've had
21:03
Speaker 2: at least one good day, they've got and not everyone has,
21:06
Speaker 2: but if they had, they've got stories that they'll tell
21:09
Speaker 2: that were particularly special and stood out to them. And
21:14
Speaker 2: some of mine took place on those days where we
21:17
Speaker 2: had pouring down rain. Because the people who would stay there,
21:19
Speaker 2: the patrons, the guests, the people who stayed were the
21:22
Speaker 2: ones who truly loved it, and they would get into
21:26
Speaker 2: a character interaction and would be happy to participate, and
21:31
Speaker 2: so it was like you were dealing with the super fans,
21:34
Speaker 2: and that could always be a lot of fun. I
21:36
Speaker 2: remember performing a Shakespeare parody in the lanes like because
21:41
Speaker 2: it started pouring down rain, so no one in the
21:43
Speaker 2: stages didn't have any cover, so the audience scatters because
21:46
Speaker 2: it's pouring down rain. The actress who was playing the
21:52
Speaker 2: Queen of the festival made the call that we were
21:55
Speaker 2: going to cancel the show and then said She turns
21:58
Speaker 2: to me as we're bex which was this tiny little hallway,
22:02
Speaker 2: and said do you want to go and perform the
22:04
Speaker 2: show in the lanes in front of the stores. And
22:07
Speaker 2: I looked at her and I thought, like, this is
22:08
Speaker 2: the woman who I never would have associated with willingly
22:13
Speaker 2: going out into the rain, and she's asking about doing
22:16
Speaker 2: a half hour show in the rain and the mud
22:19
Speaker 2: in front of these folks. And I said, yeah, let's
22:22
Speaker 2: do it. And it was the best, one of the
22:24
Speaker 2: best performances we had. We weren't able to use all
22:26
Speaker 2: the props or anything, and we couldn't the entrances and
22:29
Speaker 2: exits were totally different because we didn't have a stage anymore.
22:32
Speaker 2: But it was great. It was one of those moments
22:34
Speaker 2: that really stands out.
22:36
Speaker 1: I think that leads us because there's so much we
22:38
Speaker 1: still want to talk about I'm hoping we can't even
22:40
Speaker 1: get through it all in this part too. But that
22:43
Speaker 1: kind of leads into a question we got on discord
22:45
Speaker 1: about how much of what we did at Fair was
22:47
Speaker 1: ad libbed.
22:48
Speaker 2: We mentioned in the last episode we talked about bits
22:51
Speaker 2: and lotzis and we described it a little bit. You know,
22:53
Speaker 2: We said that a lotzi is where you're trying to
22:55
Speaker 2: get attention. So you're doing something interesting, or you might
22:59
Speaker 2: be singing to yourself, or you might be trying to
23:01
Speaker 2: compose a poem. You're doing something that people might pick
23:05
Speaker 2: up on as they go by and think that's interesting,
23:07
Speaker 2: and maybe they even come in for an interaction. Bits
23:11
Speaker 2: were kind of this outlined interaction that you have in
23:16
Speaker 2: your head where you've got a situation that you're going
23:20
Speaker 2: to present to your audience. You're going to work with
23:23
Speaker 2: your audience to resolve that situation in some way, and
23:27
Speaker 2: the bits dependent upon what your character was right. So
23:31
Speaker 2: if you are the rat catcher, it might be finding
23:34
Speaker 2: the best way to catch a rat, you know, Or
23:37
Speaker 2: if you were the Lord Mayor, it might be I'm
23:40
Speaker 2: I'm going to have a statue built in my honor,
23:42
Speaker 2: but I need to see some different poses to figure
23:44
Speaker 2: out which one I like the most. It's a very
23:46
Speaker 2: classic bit, by the way, the statue bit, to the
23:49
Speaker 2: point where it's kind of looked down on it streamcast
23:52
Speaker 2: at this point. But but that's the idea that you
23:56
Speaker 2: have the and within that you would have total freedom
23:59
Speaker 2: to to be able to navigate through it. It's not
24:03
Speaker 2: like you would have because you never can predict what
24:05
Speaker 2: anyone else is gonna say. You would just have kind
24:07
Speaker 2: of an idea of where it was going to go.
24:09
Speaker 2: But beyond bits and lazis, you could just have conversations,
24:13
Speaker 2: you could tell jokes, you could end up asking people
24:17
Speaker 2: things and having witty banter. And again that was largely
24:22
Speaker 2: up to the cast member. So some people were more
24:26
Speaker 2: comfortable ad libbing, and some people were more comfortable falling
24:31
Speaker 2: back on the bits that they had developed. And neither
24:34
Speaker 2: approach is better than the other. They're just different.
24:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jonathan is more of an ad liber and I'm
24:39
Speaker 1: more of a bit person. And I like really challenging
24:43
Speaker 1: bits too. I like the bits that people look at
24:45
Speaker 1: and go You cannot get an audience member to do that.
24:48
Speaker 1: Like when I was the Black Widow, I would test
24:52
Speaker 1: potential husbands and so they'd have to like breathe on
24:56
Speaker 1: a mirror and some other stuff, and then like the
24:59
Speaker 1: last thing would be uh. They would have to hop
25:03
Speaker 1: up and down on one foot, rub their stomach, could
25:05
Speaker 1: pat their head and sing on the little teapot. And
25:07
Speaker 1: everybody said, Ariel, you can't get people to do that.
25:09
Speaker 1: It's too hot, it's gravelly. No one's going to agree
25:12
Speaker 1: to do that. Everybody agreed, not everybody. Eighty five percent
25:17
Speaker 1: of the people that I encountered agreed to do that
25:20
Speaker 1: and had a lot of fun with it. Those are
25:22
Speaker 1: like I would tie teenage boys together with a giant
25:26
Speaker 1: pig ribbon back to back. People said it can't be done,
25:28
Speaker 1: Ariel and I would do it and everybody would have
25:30
Speaker 1: a great time.
25:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. As your fashion consultant, the you know who was
25:35
Speaker 2: obsessed with pink, Ariel would would often like if there
25:42
Speaker 2: was a dad or you know, some middle aged guy
25:45
Speaker 2: in the group, she would end up tying a pink bow,
25:49
Speaker 2: typically like a headband. They'd have this big, fluffy pink
25:53
Speaker 2: bow in the front of their head. And often I
25:56
Speaker 2: would walk around festival and say, well, Vogue's been with
25:58
Speaker 2: that one, because I can see them still wearing the
26:01
Speaker 2: ping Bo and then like, oh, yeah, I did that
26:03
Speaker 2: like three hours ago. He's still wearing it.
26:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the people are like, if you do that,
26:08
Speaker 1: they're going to take it right off. It's too hot. No,
26:10
Speaker 1: people like and I think, I think it's really on
26:16
Speaker 1: bringing Like this is the goal of all acting is
26:19
Speaker 1: you're trying to affect the other person in the scene.
26:22
Speaker 1: You're trying to affect the audience. And when you're in
26:25
Speaker 1: interactive theater like Renfest, you're trying the other person in
26:28
Speaker 1: the scene is the audience, right, So you want to
26:31
Speaker 1: give them a good experience. And as long as you
26:34
Speaker 1: do that, they're gonna they're gonna love it well.
26:37
Speaker 2: And also, like you start to learn very quickly to
26:41
Speaker 2: spot traits in people that indicate they are more likely
26:47
Speaker 2: to play along. Right. You'll see like people who who
26:51
Speaker 2: try to avoid eye contact. You're you're thinking, I might
26:54
Speaker 2: say hello to them. I might, I might say something
26:58
Speaker 2: nice about them, but that's probably about it the extent
27:00
Speaker 2: I'm going to go because they are clearly attempting to
27:04
Speaker 2: avoid attention. Then there are others who'd be wearing like
27:08
Speaker 2: a ridiculous T shirt or a hat or something, and
27:11
Speaker 2: that was often an indicator that this is someone who
27:14
Speaker 2: is more likely to engage in play, and you would
27:18
Speaker 2: just look out for that, and occasionally people would would
27:23
Speaker 2: start the interaction with you as opposed to you doing
27:26
Speaker 2: it to them, and then you're like, well, all right,
27:28
Speaker 2: I guess this is happening. Let's do it. And so yeah,
27:32
Speaker 2: that was again you would learn that pretty quickly, and
27:37
Speaker 2: like that was part of the rehearsal process too. You
27:39
Speaker 2: would get at least some instruction on this, but until
27:43
Speaker 2: that opening day, you haven't really experienced it. One of
27:46
Speaker 2: the things that we used to do. I am assuming
27:49
Speaker 2: they still do some version of this, but what we
27:53
Speaker 2: used to do during rehearsal process. It was my least
27:57
Speaker 2: favorite rehearsal. Can you guess which one it is?
28:00
Speaker 1: Was it the Love and Hate Letters? No?
28:02
Speaker 2: I love Love and Hate letters? Those were my favorites. No,
28:05
Speaker 2: my least favorite. The one that I dreaded was good Bit,
28:09
Speaker 2: Bad Bit.
28:10
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah.
28:13
Speaker 2: So the concept behind good bit Bad Bit is you've
28:16
Speaker 2: been working throughout the rehearsal process to develop these bits,
28:19
Speaker 2: like this is something you've been workshopping, and the thing
28:23
Speaker 2: is when you're work shopping it and you're working with
28:26
Speaker 2: the rest of the cast. Everyone is encouraged to be
28:29
Speaker 2: very positive and to reinforce the what's working and all
28:35
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. It's up to the director to
28:37
Speaker 2: step in and say, maybe you need to workshop this
28:40
Speaker 2: a bit more or change this or whatever. But it's
28:43
Speaker 2: very positive overall, so good bit, bad bit. You would
28:46
Speaker 2: do a bit an interaction in front of the rest
28:49
Speaker 2: of the cast, and some of the cast would be
28:51
Speaker 2: standing in as patrons, and the first time it goes great,
28:54
Speaker 2: and then the next time, the people who are standing
28:58
Speaker 2: in as patrons, I've been told to do something that's
29:02
Speaker 2: going to throw you off, and that's.
29:04
Speaker 1: Might be guided by the directors, so they'll be like, Okay,
29:07
Speaker 1: in this situation.
29:08
Speaker 2: Do this right. It might be in this situation you've
29:12
Speaker 2: lost your child and so you're desperately trying to find them.
29:17
Speaker 2: And then so this is stuff that happens when you're
29:20
Speaker 2: on festival grounds. Ariel mentioned last week that part of
29:24
Speaker 2: the job of the cast is also to be an
29:27
Speaker 2: extension of the festival itself, which includes like if someone
29:31
Speaker 2: gets hurt or if someone is lost, that you help
29:35
Speaker 2: to get them to someone who can then take the
29:38
Speaker 2: situation from there. And typically you're talking about getting them
29:41
Speaker 2: somewhere where there's a walkie talkie where they can get
29:44
Speaker 2: in touch with, you know, the security staff or the
29:46
Speaker 2: medical staff that are on site, but you are the
29:51
Speaker 2: liaison there frequently, and so that was one of the
29:55
Speaker 2: bad bits, like, it's not that, not necessarily that people
29:58
Speaker 2: are just crapping all over your efforts to entertain them,
30:01
Speaker 2: although that was sometimes the thing. It was that, you know,
30:05
Speaker 2: this is something that can happen at festival. You need
30:08
Speaker 2: to be prepared for it. You need to know what
30:10
Speaker 2: the right reaction is. The one that I always had
30:15
Speaker 2: the hardest time with was someone who'd ask me where
30:17
Speaker 2: a specific merchant was and I'm like, I don't know,
30:21
Speaker 2: there's like seventy of them out here.
30:24
Speaker 1: Let me look at your broadside, and the one of
30:26
Speaker 1: us who can find it first wins. Yeah. I would
30:29
Speaker 1: just say you get to go to the shop.
30:31
Speaker 2: I would just say that, oh, it's back there. You'll
30:33
Speaker 2: see a dragon swing somewhere back that way. And they
30:36
Speaker 2: were like, Jonathan, do you know is the hair braiding
30:38
Speaker 2: really back there? Like, I don't know. I don't have hair.
30:41
Speaker 2: I haven't had hair since nineteen ninety nine.
30:43
Speaker 1: Let me teach you how to read a map. A
30:46
Speaker 1: lot of people didn't have maps. I also cannot tell
30:48
Speaker 1: you where half the.
30:49
Speaker 2: Shops were and the maps the maps, Like the very
30:52
Speaker 2: first year I was there, we had the program. For
30:55
Speaker 2: the first two years we had the program that included
30:59
Speaker 2: a list of all the merch and like numbers on
31:02
Speaker 2: the map, so you could actually see where things were.
31:04
Speaker 2: But after that you had the map, but it wasn't
31:07
Speaker 2: labeled like you didn't have specific labels for merchants. So
31:11
Speaker 2: unless you just happened to know, oh, you're looking for
31:14
Speaker 2: this one very iconic store or the Peacock t room,
31:19
Speaker 2: everyone knows where the Peacock Tea room is because that
31:21
Speaker 2: was the place that all the cast wanted to be
31:23
Speaker 2: at all day.
31:25
Speaker 1: It was it was always easier if they were asking
31:27
Speaker 1: for something generic. I'm looking for wooden swords, Well, there's
31:30
Speaker 1: three places at the Georgia Renaissance Festival where you can
31:33
Speaker 1: get them. Usually you can go here, here, or here,
31:35
Speaker 1: depending on where you are. Yeah, but to go back
31:38
Speaker 1: real quick to the ad lib I would say about
31:40
Speaker 1: eighty five percent of fair is ad libbed, but on
31:46
Speaker 1: and outline. The things that were usually more scenario usually
31:51
Speaker 1: stuck to a script, and a lot of stage shows
31:54
Speaker 1: stuck to the script. But even with that, like I
31:56
Speaker 1: would say, even like eighty five percent of scenario or
31:59
Speaker 1: a stage show is scripted and the other twenty five
32:01
Speaker 1: percent is where you know you're going to get audience
32:04
Speaker 1: reaction or response, so you can't adjust. But it's something
32:09
Speaker 1: especially noticeable if you enjoy like a specific act, and
32:12
Speaker 1: you go back and you watch them multiple times in
32:14
Speaker 1: a year, multiple years in a row, you'll see the
32:16
Speaker 1: same jokes pop up because they've encountered it so many
32:19
Speaker 1: times that audience member a says you're a duck, and
32:22
Speaker 1: they know how they're going to respond to that.
32:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ariel knows because she came to see one of
32:29
Speaker 2: the Shakespeare parodies I was in multiple times before she
32:31
Speaker 2: joined the cast. So there she was in the audience,
32:35
Speaker 2: and I was sitting there thinking, who the heck would
32:37
Speaker 2: sub subject themselves to seeing this show more than once Shakespeare?
32:44
Speaker 1: And I like improv and my friend was in it,
32:47
Speaker 1: not you. I have another friend who is in it.
32:50
Speaker 1: Her friend he was like a schedule keeper. I think, like,
32:54
Speaker 1: you didn't like this person and I can't remember their name.
32:57
Speaker 1: We we did theater together and.
32:59
Speaker 2: I know who you're talking about. It's not that I
33:01
Speaker 2: didn't like him. I liked him fine. He was just
33:05
Speaker 2: a little green and was but was good looking and
33:09
Speaker 2: so got got pushed a little harder than he necessarily
33:12
Speaker 2: needed to.
33:13
Speaker 1: He was good looking. He got cast at a lot
33:15
Speaker 1: of community theater stuff too. He was also a good actor.
33:18
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, no, he was fine. I think it
33:21
Speaker 2: took a little bit more to get him to to
33:25
Speaker 2: embrace the absurd, because that's really what the Shakespeare parody
33:29
Speaker 2: is all about. It's about, you know. We Ariel mentioned
33:32
Speaker 2: last week again, like we're told to be muppets. We're
33:35
Speaker 2: supposed to have these big, big reactions. You know. If
33:38
Speaker 2: we're happy, we are beyond joy. If we are sad,
33:43
Speaker 2: we are absolutely devastated. Well, the same is true for
33:45
Speaker 2: the Shakespeare parody, Like if it's a dramatic scene, then
33:49
Speaker 2: we have to be melo dramatic as we're delivering it.
33:52
Speaker 2: And it took him a little bit to get into
33:55
Speaker 2: that mindset. I'm guessing. Was that when we were doing
34:01
Speaker 2: the Scottish play or was that when we were doing Okay, yeah,
34:04
Speaker 2: that's what I thought. I think. So that one was
34:06
Speaker 2: fun because we had some great props that a friend
34:08
Speaker 2: of mine made, including we had a set of fake
34:12
Speaker 2: bagpipes that looked kind of like real bagpipes if you
34:15
Speaker 2: were just if you had just gotten a casual glance
34:18
Speaker 2: of them. But there was all it was was a
34:21
Speaker 2: plaid T shirt that had been stuffed with pillow stuffing
34:25
Speaker 2: and some PVC pipes that made it look like, you know,
34:28
Speaker 2: like the drone pipes for a bagpipe. And instead of
34:31
Speaker 2: the mouthpiece we had a kazoo, so it was really
34:34
Speaker 2: bagpipe shape kazoo and I got to I got to
34:38
Speaker 2: play that and it was It was great because the
34:39
Speaker 2: audience was always bracing themselves for the worst sound imaginable
34:44
Speaker 2: and then you get a kazoo sound out.
34:45
Speaker 1: Of it, which is also the worst sound imaginable. So
34:49
Speaker 1: I actually don't remember I think it. I think it
34:51
Speaker 1: was the Scottish play, but it could have also have
34:53
Speaker 1: been Hamletter, Romeo and Julietta.
34:55
Speaker 2: Those were the three that I did. So yeah, it
34:59
Speaker 2: was that fun stuff. I mean, like like the other
35:06
Speaker 2: thing you had mentioned about the the ad libbing even
35:10
Speaker 2: in the scripted stuff, which brings me to one of
35:12
Speaker 2: my biggest gripes because I wrote scenario for you know,
35:16
Speaker 2: three or four seasons I wrote, I wrote the scenario,
35:19
Speaker 2: and I remember distinctly getting so frustrated at John as
35:24
Speaker 2: the King for changing the lines I had written at
35:27
Speaker 2: every because I'm up there too, I'm like right next
35:30
Speaker 2: to him, and I'm like, is he gonna say it
35:32
Speaker 2: right today?
35:33
Speaker 1: No, he is not.
35:36
Speaker 2: And we would come backstage and he'd say, how was it, Johnny,
35:39
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, you said some of the words
35:41
Speaker 2: that seemed rather familiar.
35:45
Speaker 1: But you know what, there's there's a certain joy, Jonathan,
35:47
Speaker 1: in watching you squirm on whether or not your story
35:51
Speaker 1: is going to be told the way you wrote it.
35:54
Speaker 1: I know that's a very unprofessional outlook, but it was
35:57
Speaker 1: a little fun.
35:58
Speaker 2: I mean, I get it, but like I was also
36:01
Speaker 2: playing a very smarmy character, so it kind of played
36:05
Speaker 2: into my character choices, so I could actually be aggravated
36:09
Speaker 2: and frustrated, and it was in character, so that was fine.
36:13
Speaker 2: And Jonathan underneath is genuinely frustrated because he worked very
36:17
Speaker 2: hard on those lines and the line for this much thanks,
36:22
Speaker 2: it's from Shakespeare, and he would never say it.
36:27
Speaker 1: Okay, okay. Being from Shakespeare and not saying that is
36:30
Speaker 1: very frustrating. I will agree to that. You know, I
36:36
Speaker 1: also liked school days, though that was usually more scripted
36:39
Speaker 1: as well.
36:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't do as many of those because I
36:42
Speaker 2: was my day job didn't allow me to. But our
36:46
Speaker 2: festival would reserve at least one day sometimes too for
36:50
Speaker 2: schools around the region to come in for a school
36:54
Speaker 2: day where the cast would end up informing or teaching
36:59
Speaker 2: kids about things like what life was like during the
37:03
Speaker 2: Middle Ages and the Renaissance. And yeah, Eric would do
37:07
Speaker 2: a lot more of that than I did. I only
37:08
Speaker 2: did I think I did it twice.
37:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did. I was on court a couple of years,
37:15
Speaker 1: so like dancing and nighting ceremonies and jousts and things
37:19
Speaker 1: like that, And then I did the Shakespeare Show for
37:22
Speaker 1: a few years, and that was also quite a bit
37:24
Speaker 1: of fun. Like I would buy so we would bring
37:28
Speaker 1: kids up to do death scenes from very shakespeare things,
37:30
Speaker 1: myself and our good friend Lucas, and we'd bring them
37:35
Speaker 1: up and we'd do monologues that they'd have to die.
37:36
Speaker 1: And there have been various iterations of the Shakespeare Show,
37:38
Speaker 1: but this is the one that I did the most frequently.
37:41
Speaker 1: And then we'd give them scrolls. But I always went
37:44
Speaker 1: out and bought like the little, like little paperbacks of
37:49
Speaker 1: the of the Shakespeare shows that the kids were doing,
37:52
Speaker 1: and I'd buy, like, there'd be three shows a day,
37:55
Speaker 1: and there'd be two days, so I would buy like
37:58
Speaker 1: twelve paperbacks, and just each kid who did the show
38:04
Speaker 1: would get a paperback of the show that the scene
38:08
Speaker 1: the show that the scene they had just done was from.
38:09
Speaker 1: So very rewarding.
38:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was really cool of you. It also reminds
38:15
Speaker 2: me a little bit, although at a much smaller scale,
38:18
Speaker 2: something that we would often do through the festival. I mean,
38:22
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if they still do, but we would
38:24
Speaker 2: do a nighting and princess making ceremony and anyone could
38:30
Speaker 2: be knighted or made into a princess, but it was
38:33
Speaker 2: made for kids, and the kids would come up and
38:36
Speaker 2: they would get to do these adorable little tasks and
38:39
Speaker 2: at the end would be awarded with a certificate proclaiming
38:42
Speaker 2: them a night or princess, and that was always fun
38:46
Speaker 2: to participate in. I never really I was never one
38:49
Speaker 2: of the instructors, but I always got to do the reactions.
38:52
Speaker 2: And playing up to reactions for little kids is always
38:57
Speaker 2: the best because they just buy into it so quickly,
39:00
Speaker 2: like they still have that sense of play, and they
39:02
Speaker 2: don't they don't have a sense of like this isn't
39:06
Speaker 2: cool to do this in public, so they would just
39:10
Speaker 2: embrace it, and it was always one of my favorite
39:12
Speaker 2: parts of the day.
39:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, mine too. Speaking of favorites, we actually need
39:18
Speaker 1: to start wrapping up because I'm in a show that
39:21
Speaker 1: opens this weekend, and so my schedule is all off
39:24
Speaker 1: this week and I'm gonna I'm gonna have to have
39:27
Speaker 1: a hard stop on today's podcast, So we might actually
39:29
Speaker 1: do a part three to our experience at the Renaissance
39:32
Speaker 1: Festival because everything you're really like, Oh, if you loved
39:35
Speaker 1: it so much, why don't you do it anymore? And
39:37
Speaker 1: we'll get into that next week, but before we go,
39:40
Speaker 1: speaking of favorites, what is your now that I've gone
39:43
Speaker 1: down like twelve Bunny Bunny trails? What is your favorite
39:46
Speaker 1: memory slash bit of all time? Jonathan?
39:49
Speaker 2: So, my favorite bit was one that I would do
39:54
Speaker 2: occasionally with other actors where we would do the classic
39:57
Speaker 2: improv game word at a time, where you get two
40:03
Speaker 2: or more people together and you're telling a story to
40:05
Speaker 2: a crowd, but each person only gets to submit one
40:09
Speaker 2: word at a time, so it'd be like once upon
40:12
Speaker 2: a time there was like that sort of thing. And
40:16
Speaker 2: my favorite was when we did it once where the
40:19
Speaker 2: person we were there are three of us and the
40:21
Speaker 2: person who was in spot number three. At the end
40:23
Speaker 2: of the sentence, we were talking about how this lover
40:27
Speaker 2: proclaimed his love in the form of a and she
40:29
Speaker 2: said sonnet. And I turned to her and I said,
40:33
Speaker 2: son it because it's a very difficult, very difficult art
40:37
Speaker 2: form to do word at a time. But then we
40:40
Speaker 2: stumbled through perhaps the world's worst sonnet ever written, and
40:45
Speaker 2: it was one of the most joyous experiences because the
40:47
Speaker 2: audience loved seeing like the characters turn on each other
40:53
Speaker 2: because one of them has sabotaged the other two, and
40:57
Speaker 2: so the audience loved it. And it was it was
41:00
Speaker 2: genuinely a very challenging bit to do, but it was
41:03
Speaker 2: clearly so entertaining the group that was watching us that
41:07
Speaker 2: it was one of the most rewarding. I've got lots
41:09
Speaker 2: of other stories too, but those are the kind that
41:11
Speaker 2: get me all choked up because it's mostly about kids
41:14
Speaker 2: being super sweet. So I'm just gonna save those for me.
41:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, my favorite, because I know you're about to ask.
41:22
Speaker 1: So I also like my favorite overall memory slash bit
41:25
Speaker 1: was the tying bows on the family and make them
41:28
Speaker 1: all fashionable, and then tying the big bow on the
41:29
Speaker 1: dad and then tasking the children of the family to
41:34
Speaker 1: be my fashion consultant assistance and make sure that he
41:37
Speaker 1: kept it on all day. Maybe that's why they kept
41:39
Speaker 1: it on all day. But then they would come back
41:42
Speaker 1: and they'd visit me every year and they'd put on
41:45
Speaker 1: pink or they'd bring their bows back, or they'd remember me,
41:49
Speaker 1: and I would get messages, like on social media once
41:51
Speaker 1: that was a bigger thing, saying hey, we love this
41:54
Speaker 1: and we're coming out. And so it was always great
41:55
Speaker 1: to be able to like have that continued effect on someone.
42:00
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm getting terry thinking about it, So I'm
42:02
Speaker 1: going to switch to my overall best bit of all time.
42:06
Speaker 1: I don't know how I pulled this off and how
42:08
Speaker 1: it was so good, But when I was Ruby Tulips
42:12
Speaker 1: my kissing Wench, I had this group of LGBTQ guys
42:19
Speaker 1: come up to me. They wanted me to wench their
42:21
Speaker 1: friend who was pretty shy, and I don't like a
42:26
Speaker 1: lot of kissing wenches. Don't like kissing people who don't
42:29
Speaker 1: want to be kissed, right, So I said, okay, well
42:33
Speaker 1: I will do that if you will, if the rest
42:36
Speaker 1: of you will participate. So we're going to play a
42:38
Speaker 1: game called Spin the Wench, at which point all of
42:45
Speaker 1: them had to go in a circle and they had
42:47
Speaker 1: to count down from five and I would spin and
42:50
Speaker 1: whoever I landed on would get the kiss, which would
42:53
Speaker 1: always be the people who were instigating me to kiss
42:56
Speaker 1: somebody else, and so these and they absolutely loved it,
43:02
Speaker 1: and I got tipped like twenty dollars from that each
43:05
Speaker 1: person in that like ten person group, and they all
43:09
Speaker 1: left super happy, and it was just it was a gamble.
43:15
Speaker 1: I took on a gut feeling and I'm I had
43:17
Speaker 1: a way out if they didn't want to do it,
43:19
Speaker 1: to make sure that they were super happy and comfortable
43:21
Speaker 1: and all that. But it ended up being such a brilliant, wonderful,
43:24
Speaker 1: fun experience that I'm like, I'm I'm really glad I
43:27
Speaker 1: trusted my gut on that one. Also, it's good tips. Yeah, I.
43:36
Speaker 2: Was a kissing winch for one season, but no, that
43:38
Speaker 2: was only at the end of the day. But that's
43:40
Speaker 2: a different story. So yeah, when we do a part three,
43:44
Speaker 2: and I yeah, I think we might as well, like
43:46
Speaker 2: just go ahead and say, next week we'll do a
43:48
Speaker 2: part three. We'll talk a little bit more, maybe about
43:51
Speaker 2: a couple of other things that are really memorable at
43:53
Speaker 2: the festival, maybe some standout moments, but we'll also talk
43:56
Speaker 2: about some of the things that are, you know, maybe
43:59
Speaker 2: a little more challenging. And as Ariel was alluding to
44:03
Speaker 2: reasons why we no longer work at the festival and
44:09
Speaker 2: why like it would take a lot of dramatic changes
44:14
Speaker 2: for me to even consider coming back, even just as
44:17
Speaker 2: a guest.
44:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, But we'll get to that next week, along
44:23
Speaker 1: with any other questions that might have arisen throughout our conversation.
44:27
Speaker 1: So if people want to reach out to us, Jonathan,
44:30
Speaker 1: how can they do that?
44:32
Speaker 2: Well, what you're gonna do is you're gonna go out
44:34
Speaker 2: and you're gonna find an old copy of the computer
44:38
Speaker 2: role playing game Ultima five, and you're gonna take your
44:43
Speaker 2: character over to the town of Scara Bray and you're
44:48
Speaker 2: gonna track down there's this one weird looking character. You
44:52
Speaker 2: will never have seen him before, even if you played
44:53
Speaker 2: Ultima five before. I was dressed up in rags, and
44:58
Speaker 2: he's saying Scratchy Scratch to himself over and over again.
45:02
Speaker 2: But if you go and talk to him, he will
45:03
Speaker 2: give you a quest. It's gonna take a while because
45:06
Speaker 2: it's gonna involve all these shards, and you're gonna have
45:10
Speaker 2: to end up fighting gargoyles and ultimately you're going to
45:14
Speaker 2: have to take down a dragon, and at the end
45:16
Speaker 2: of all that, you're going to have a dragon ZG.
45:18
Speaker 2: You're going to take that back to Scratchy Scratch Scratch
45:20
Speaker 2: and give it to him. When you do that, it
45:22
Speaker 2: transforms into me and you can ask me.
45:26
Speaker 1: The question that, oh that blew my mind Jonathan. For
45:31
Speaker 1: people who who maybe just can't quite grasp the fact
45:37
Speaker 1: that Jonathan is part dragon and related to someone named
45:39
Speaker 1: Scratchy scratch uh, you can reach it out to us
45:44
Speaker 1: on social media on Facebook, Instagram, threads, and discord. We
45:50
Speaker 1: are large ner drawn Collider on x I guess It's
45:56
Speaker 1: called now Twitter where llenc Underscore podcast. We are not
46:01
Speaker 1: on Blue Sky yet and as always you can check
46:04
Speaker 1: out well we don't have show notes. We don't have
46:08
Speaker 1: show notes right now because you aren't really talking about stuff,
46:11
Speaker 1: but I will be posting the episodes on our website
46:14
Speaker 1: www dot Large nurdrun Collider. If you want a discord
46:17
Speaker 1: invite and you can't find it there, they should all
46:19
Speaker 1: work now if you're looking at like the latest the
46:22
Speaker 1: latest posts, but if not, you can email us, or
46:24
Speaker 1: if you just want to say hi in an email,
46:26
Speaker 1: you can email us at large Nerdron pod at gmail
46:29
Speaker 1: dot com. Because we really do love hearing from you,
46:32
Speaker 1: and if you ask pointed questions, I will also make
46:36
Speaker 1: Jonathan get on social media to answer them.
46:38
Speaker 2: So yeah, yes, and until next time, I am Jonathan
46:43
Speaker 2: and let the festival begin.
46:45
Speaker 1: Strickland and I am Ariel. Your fashion say no without
46:51
Speaker 1: a pink bo Caston.
46:58
Speaker 2: The Large Nerdron Collider is created by Ariel Caston and
47:03
Speaker 2: produced edited, published, deleted, undeleted, published again. Curse That by
47:10
Speaker 2: Jonathan Strickland. Music by Kevin McLeod of incomptech dot com