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Bidding the Renaissance Festival Farewell · Large Nerdron Collider

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Large Ner Drunk Collider podcast,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the world around us and how very excited we are
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: about them. I'm Ariel Caston, and with me, as always
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: is the classy and sassy Jonathan Strickland.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Lad.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: I don't know where you've been, but I see you
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: one first prize.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Ah, that's a fun song, Jonathan.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: It's classy.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And sassy.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: It is classy and sassy. I wanted to make sure
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: I lived up. Also.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: I don't know Ariel if you noticed, but you know
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: when we use Riverside to record these episodes, and one
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: of the things I usually don't even bother filling out
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: my name when I join in on Riverside because I'm
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: the one like active as producer.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Did you see what my name is?
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, you changed it to a Glory.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Vain Glory. My mayor slash lord admiral character was
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Edmund Vane Glory the Third, or EV three as he
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: would call himself. So I just thought, for Fund's sake,
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: because we are going to talk more about our work
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: at the Renaissance Festival, where you figured, well wrap this
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: up it's a three parter, so we we and also
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: it may hopefully be signs that before too long we
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: could go back to having we know, more normal ish
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: episodes of LLENC Because Ariel, you heard some news about
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: the WGA strike, at least I did.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the a MPT or the WGA released something
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to its members basically saying that the AMPTP had asked them.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Back to.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Talks. And so that's happening, I believe today. Exciting. Yeah,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: here's hoping that the w g A and AMPTP can
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: come to an agreement and then that that's a good
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: sign for sag Aftra. On the one hand, as an actor,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, man, I want I want this strike
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: to be over, because yeah, I'm I am keeping busy
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: with non stricken work, but uh, you know, I want
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the strike to be over. I want media to be made,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: and I want to have auditioning is the job. I
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: love the auditions. But on the other hand, the w
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: g A has been on strike much longer and they
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: probably you know, financially, need to come to an agreement sooner.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Well, and I know that the w GA leaders already
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: cautioned union members and said not to get their hopes
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: up too high that this this could very well just
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: be you know, come to the table, find out that
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: they're not. They don't really want to budge on the
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: important stuff, and then it's right back to where they were.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: So they're being very cautious to let union members know, like,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: don't just expect this.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: To be the end of it. It may not be.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: And this is too important for us to really budge
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: on because it defines how entertainment works moving forward. And
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: if it's something that you know, the average person pursuing
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: a career in writing can't expect to make a living
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: doing this, that's a problem.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: So we have to wait and see.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: You know, we'll be cautiously optimistic, but only in that
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: the writers get what they need in order to make
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: a viable living doing what they love. Otherwise we all
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: lose out right, because if we don't get great writers,
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: because all the great writers are like, I can't live
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: on this, then we don't get great entertainment. So that's
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: a real problem.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I agree, and like, AI can only go so far.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: It misses a whole whole lot of humanity, and I
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: think it always will. That's my least Yeah, yeah, so
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: that's that's you know, I'm hoping for the best, but
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: I'm expecting the worst, I guess.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, if nothing else, this is at least an
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: indication that the producers have perhaps budged on their original
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: plan to starve out writers until October. It's a couple
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: of months early. So maybe that's an indication that perhaps
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: the producers are aware that the public opinion is largely
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: against them and that maybe they need to make some
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: changes or else they're going to endanger their entire industry.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, they're in such a protected position that it's
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: hard to say, but that's one can hope.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, although their Variety has an article saying Warner Brothers
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Discovery has strike saved it more than one hundred million
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: in Q two, but that that CEO hopes and negotiates
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: students resume soon.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: So like, yeah, that's David Zaslov. He I worked for him.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: I feel comfortable saying this.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: He's a jerk.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: He is a jerk and is only interested in the
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: bottom line. And that's why if the bottom line shows
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: less red and more black, then it's good. It doesn't
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: matter how many people are out of a job.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, hopefully, even as as much of a jerk
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: as you say he is as a businessman, hopefully he
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: understands that that is not sustainable. You know, it saved money,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: but eventually, if they are not making new content, then.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: I would like to think he would understand that. But
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: as my experience working under Discovery Communications, I can't be
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: confident that or that if he does understand it, that
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: he cares. Because not to go off on a whole rant,
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: although this does kind of tie into some of the
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: stuff we'll talk about with the George Renaissance Festival, but
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: like I get really sick of c business leaders run
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: their businesses for the purposes of short term gains but
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: at the expense of long term performance, and we see
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: this time and again with lots of big companies. You know,
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: Warner Brothers. Discovery is one. Disney, I would argue, is
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: another where you can see decisions being made at the
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: corporate level that if you were to break it down
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: financially quarter to quarter, you'd say, oh, this makes sense
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: because it's cutting costs, it's maximizing revenue, it's maximizing profits
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: as a result. But then if you project it outward,
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: you say, but this is going to really hold the
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: company back from doing great things and also potentially alienating
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: its customer base over time over the long run because
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: of these decisions, and while that might not have an
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: immediate reflection in the numbers for this quarter, it is
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: going to be a big deal a year from now,
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: or two years from now or five years from now,
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: and very few leaders, in my opinion, seem to take
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: that long term view. This is also getting into a
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: business on the brink episode.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, it is well, and it does take place.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: It does. I'm not going to get into it right now,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: but it especially ties into Renfest because some of the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: things that Jonathan and I will talk about later that
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: were impetus is for us stepping away from doing it
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: are things that we assumed would hurt the Renfest and
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: the long term. But it seems a lot of Renfests
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: are going in that direction. Yeah, and so I wonder
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: if it actually will or if it's something that we
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: hold value in but the current audience base doesn't. But
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: in the realm of television, in film like, it's a
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: lot more black and white, right.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well color, I mean they introduce color TV like
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: back in the fifties, So I see, yeah.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: But I mean, like the audiences, you know, they they
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: they have already proven like Netflix took a drop in
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: in like I think their very first drop in, like
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: when they hit their first loss, was partially because they
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: were making so much content, trying to hit as much
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: of the market with content as they could, but not
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: necessarily focusing on quality. And I feel like I'm not
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm you know, they're very secretive about
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: their numbers, but I feel like that's part of what
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: caused their losses because people are like, well, the stuff
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: on Netflix is no longer good, so why am I watching?
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Well? And we've seen we've seen similar conversations about specific
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: subgenres of entertainment, right, so things like the superhero subgenre.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: And I'm not.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Gonna mention like specifics or whatever, but even before there
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: was this perceived decline and quality of various films and
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: arguably series, there was this ongoing conversation about superhero fatigue.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: I think what you're pointing to, Ariel is, at least
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: for me, this is just anecdotal, So obviously it doesn't
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: really hold any water, but anecdotally, I personally have a
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: real sense of just content fatigue, not just not just
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: specifically superhero, but I'm just constantly bombarded by all these
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: announcements of films and shows and specials and that kind
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: of stuff, and there's way more than I could ever
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: watch unless that's all I ever did, and it ends
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: up overwhelming me to the point where I never actually
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: watch any of it because I'm just it feels like
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: it feels like effort and work.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: At that point, Timblet's overwhelmed too.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: It sounds like, yeah, no, he's overwhelmed that I'm in
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: here and he's out there.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Oh poor baby. Now I agree with you. There's just
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: there's you know, it feels like a double edged sword
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: to say that for me as an actor, but yeah, sure.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: I mean yeah, as an actor, I can totally understand
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: the the being excited about the number of opportunities that
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: are out there.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: That I totally get.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: The problem is if the audience feels overwhelmed and never
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: watches the thing, then yeah, you got to be in something,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: but no one's ever gonna see it because they're just
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: they're just maybe maybe even if people were interested in it,
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: they can't find it because it's buried under the eight
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: hundred other things that came out that day, so.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Or it's or it's been taken off of whatever platform
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: it was.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Made for, and yeah, and it's not available anywhere else.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, well.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: You mentioned double edged swords. You know another place where
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: you find double edged swords?
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Dragon con Now the Renaissance Festival.
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: That's right, So let's talk about the Renaissance Fair. We're
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: gonna finalize our conversation about this. So one thing that
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: we kind of touched on but we didn't really talk about,
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: was things like scheduling. And I was specifically going to
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: start with the scheduling that you have to deal with
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: if you're either a new performer and we're talking from
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: the street cast perspective. Ariel can talk a bit about
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: street musicians as well, because she's been both. I've only
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: done street cast. But if you're a brand new street
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: cast character, or you are a returning actor but you're
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: playing a new character, you have to go through quite
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: a few rehearsals in order to develop that character and
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: to create who this person is, what motivates them, what
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: do they want out of the day, Because ideally every
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: single character walking around has a goal that they have
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: in mind. It may not be a huge goal, it
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: might be a very modest goal, but they have it
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: and in their mind, the guests who are there at festival,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: they're the people who are going to help them achieve
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: that goal.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: That's kind of the whole purpose.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: This process can last a very very long time, like
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: it can start several months before opening day at the festival.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So you know, I've heard everywhere from four to
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: six months. There are obviously some productions that are very
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: quick and have a quick turnaround, but general four to
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: six months seems to be the consensus. So like, for instance,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: for Garth, and I think this is still the case.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: They usually audition around January, sometime in January, yeah, and
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: then in February, at least when I was rehearsing. In February,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: we would start rehearsals and then we'd open up at
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the end of April. So from February to April, at
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: least once a week, and I think it was once
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: a week and then every other weekend, possibly every weekend
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: for rehearsals, and once a week would be somewhere in
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: central Atlanta, and then because the fair site was further away,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: you would on the weekends, you would drive down to
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the fair site and rehearse on the fair site.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the first year when I did it, or first
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: couple of seasons. In fact, I think the first three
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: seasons I did it. The only time we ever went
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: down to the fair site. I think there were like
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: two rehearsals that took place down there, and everything else
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: took place in other locations around Atlanta, And it was
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: only the last two because that was when you had
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: the whole cast get together and interact with one another.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: So there was a distinct possibility you would be on
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: cast as a new character and not have met some
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: of the veterans and not know their characters at all, because.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: I I feel like that's just a certainty.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it definitely was the way it worked when
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: I started. Right like, there were people I didn't know
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: who they were. I didn't know who their characters were
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: because they did not have to go through the week
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: to week process of building a character. So like I
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: knew all the newbies, all the rookies, and all the
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: people who are creating a new character. I knew all
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: of them because we had come through the rehearsal process
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: together and because I was also in Shakespeare Parody. I
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: knew all the people who were in Shakespeare Parody, which
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: included some of the veterans. So those people I knew.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: Anyone outside of that I did not know. I would
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: get to know them over the course of a couple
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: of big rehearsals. And I think it was only the
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: final rehearsal my first year that took place on site.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: By the time my last season was twenty nineteen, By then,
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: they were doing rehearsals at the site every weekend.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: And it is a haul, y'all.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: It's a big it's a big commitment when you're actually
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: working there and you're having to go there every weekend
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: for seven weekends in a row, or maybe even eight sometimes,
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: but it is It is even worse when it's during
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: the rehearsal process and you're like, ah, man, I got
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: to schlep all the way across south of the city
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: to get to the site, unless you, for some reason
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: happened to live on the south of the city, which
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: the director often did, but everyone else did it.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: And I will say, like, it is helpful to be
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: on site more than once or twice before the opening day,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: because you want to know how to get around right.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: You want to know where the bathrooms are. You want
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: to know where all of the staff entrances and exits are,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: because there's lots of what we used to call ferry
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: gates that you could go through to kind of disappear.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Incredibly important because there were times where you're just like
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: just mentally you needed to have a break from being
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: on and being able to slip out a little side
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: exit was a lifesaver.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Or to you know, use the staff porta potties, which
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: the hoopskirt is really difficult.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I'll take a right on that.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, every weekend is a lot now.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Probably part of my memory is adjusted by the fact
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that scenario rehearsals and fight rehearsals would happen on site,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and if your schleppen steel around, I would say that
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: you do need you know, I am grateful for the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: February to April rehearsals we had for fight. I feel
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: like that is something that required that much rehearsal to
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: be safe, because certainly I got injured a lot more
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: during the rehearsal process than I did on site. But
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: even there were some years where people just didn't know
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: their choreography. There was one year where I basically had to,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: like under my breath tell the moves to my fight partner.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: It wasn't their fault. They ended up with like a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: personal conflict. They couldn't get around, and we ended up
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: doing it. It was fine, But yeah, so certain things
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: certainly do benefit from a lot more rehearsal, and rehearsal
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: on site on uneven ground and things like that. But
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: even like in the beginning days, fight rehearsals started downtown
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: kind of in a central location and then moved to
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: site once the fights were kind of solidified.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: Well, that's another thing is that when I started, all
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: the scenario took place on stages. So when it's on
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: a stage, you can rehearse it in a different location
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: because you're arguably using a pretty controlled environment. You're not
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: on uneven ground. You don't have to deal with slippery
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: grass or rocks or anything like that, and so it
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: made it a little bit easier I think back in
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: those days to schedule rehearsals at different locations. But as
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: we mentioned in an earlier episode, the festival moved away
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: from that. They ended up taking stages away from scenario
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: in order to have more stage acts perform at those locations,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: which meant that when we did have scenario, which wasn't
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: every year, but when we did have it, it would happen
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: in the streets, And I always hated that because I
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: felt like it really limited your audience. Very few people
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: would be able to see as compared to being able
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: to sit in the theater, and it's a lot harder
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: to see what's going on, and it's a.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Lot harder to block.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Like blocking a stage combat fight is pretty easy when
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: it's a regular stage audience experience because you can do
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: all the cheats and everything upstage so that no one
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: can see, and it looks better when you're doing it
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: in the round. It's way harder to make it look
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: good from every single angle.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not impossible, but way harder. Yeah. Yeah. So with
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: all of those rehearsals and then you know, six weeks
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: of performances Saturdays and Sundays plus Memorial Day Monday, plus
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: possibly student days, plus possibly doing promotional gigs. That's a
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: lot of time commitment, most of which you know rehearsal process.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: By the time I joined, you did not get paid for.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So when I first started, all actors would receive
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: a bit of a rehearsal stipend. It was not a
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: lot of money, but it was meant to do things
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: like help cover the cost of gas and grabbing, you know,
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: like lunch or something on the go when you were
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: heading two rehearsals. So it was meant to help compensate
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: actors who were having to slap across town to get
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: to the rehearsal site. But by the time Ariel joined,
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: that had already been phased out. That they got rid
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: of that sort of behind the scenes. When I joined,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: the person who ran the entertainment department was also a
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: co owner of the festival, but she and her husband
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: sold off their share of the festival to the other owner,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: and so when Ariel started, at that point the entertainment
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: department no longer actually owned part of the festival, and
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: that made the changes a lot more abrupt, i would say,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: than they otherwise would have been. So one of the
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: first things that we saw gone were the rehearsal stipends.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: If you were combat you.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Would typically get a boost to your take home pay
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: for being combat. If you were in a stage show
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: like the Shakespeare Parody, you would typically get a little
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: boost to that, but otherwise you were making very little money.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: If you were being paid. Most people were being paid,
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: but they weren't being paid very much. They were talking
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: like less than minimum wage, and a few quote unquote
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: apprentices think unpaid interns weren't getting paid at all. They
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: were just there supposedly to learn the art of acting
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: and improvising and street performing, I guess which.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Okay, So I have mixed feelings on this. On the
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: one hand, you know, I was a board member for
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: a community theater, I've done a boatload of community theater, right,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and that is usually completely free.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: You're doing it because you love to do it and
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you want to perform, and sometimes you can have months
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: worth of rehearsal process for that and even more nights
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: a week. However, once you're performing, you're performing for a
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: couple hours a night, as opposed to ten to twelve
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: hour days. So like, street performance is a very different
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: beast from staged improv from the regular theater, from so
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: many other things. It's its completely own art style. So
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: I understand needing some sort of training in that, but
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I definitely think that that has been a cop out
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: over the years.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean the training for that is the rehearsal process.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: That's the training.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: That's where the training should be coming in, not oh,
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: we can add in more bodies on our cast by
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: telling people who really love the idea of dressing up
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: and being silly, which has a huge appeal. I mean
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: that's why I did it, right, Like, I was like, oh,
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: I'm going to get paid to dress up and pretend
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: all day every weekend. That was what really drew me
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: to it. And I love entertaining people, so that was
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: a big part of it. But the problem is that
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: becomes the way that some institutions, like certain certain festivals,
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: including Georgia.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Can end up.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: End up, you know, praying upon the young performers who
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: either don't have the confidence or the knowledge or the
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: appreciation of what they are worth, and so they end
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: up agreeing to things that perhaps were far too predatory.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: Like when you would look at the pay for street characters,
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: like it, not only did it not really change from
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: when I started in nineteen ninety nine, when I did
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: it in twenty nineteen, there were few people being paid,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: so like that's crazy, Like at yes, Ariel had to pay.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Cut yeah, yeah, And there there were some people who
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: would get hired on at much higher pay rates, and
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: it was always very frustrating to me as a seasoned
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: actor and professional actor. And albeit I am a much
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: better actor now than I was straight out of high school, right,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it definitely, especially if you're starting Fair young,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: you don't necessarily know how to stand up for yourself
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: in those situations. And there I love my time at Fair.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I learned so much, I made some wonderful friendships, I
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: had some amazing experiences. But that that youthfulness can also
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: cause other problems in a very flirty kind of carnival
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: sort of a setting. I'm not speaking poorly of carnivals,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: but in situations where you've got a lot of people
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: who work the festival, who travel around and know each
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: other and kind of like this big family, it can
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: cause some just social issues as well.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean also you have to keep in mind
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: that the culture in general has changed dramatically since Ariel
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: and I started. Like the Renaissance Festival in particular was
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: seen as almost like an adult Disneyland, Like it was
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: family friendly and kids were a big part of what
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: of the patrons who had come to the festival, but
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: it had kind of a naughty body edge to it, right.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: A lot of the characters had sort of a wink wink,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: nudge nudge kind of element to their personality. I mean,
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: I remember we used to have a fishmonger who would
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: play the character as if she were totally just like
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: adult and a silly, nonsensical person who just happened to
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: be dropping lots of double on tendra fish puns. And
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: she was brilliant at the job, like she was great
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: at doing it. But you're like, wow, this is like
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: and it was arguably the kind of humor that would
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: go right over a kid's head, but adults would get
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: it right, like that kind of thing, and that was
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: considered fine.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: But this also.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: Engendered a kind of culture among some of the cast,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: mostly the men of the cast, that perhaps encouraged some
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: overly familiar approaches to other people at the festival, which
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: didn't just include cast, but sometimes, like you know, people
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: who worked at booths or sometimes even guests. And it
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: was not a good thing then. It's definitely not acceptable now,
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: but it shouldn't have been acceptable then either. I was
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: not one of those folks, but I did witness a
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: few instances.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I do feel like that is something that
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: has gotten better over time. Yes, I know that specifically
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: GARF has made steps to make it a safer environment
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: for the actors, for the participants, which is fantastic. So
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I know we're already starting to we're starting to do
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: We're dogging on the festival a bit. But yes, to
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: to the festival's credit, I would I would say that
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: that is one big, big, big improvement.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Is that. Yeah, like it is discussed in no.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: Uh you know, ambivalent terms like this is not acceptable behavior.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: We will not accept it. If you are found to
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: have engaged in it, you will be you know, you'll
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: be essentially fired. So uh yeah, I think in that regard,
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: there have been some changes in the festival that have
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: been extremely positive. It has meant that there has been
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: a very change, a big change in character direction as well.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: But that's not a bad thing.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm ass playing a kissing Wench. But
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: I think there is a way you could still do it.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: But I don't think that fairs are putting enough resources
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: into their cast members to facilitate that. That being said,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: going back to rehearsals to other things, if you're going
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: to count training as a rehearsal, you've got to make
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: sure that there is some sort of standard to training.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Some of the people who taught classes for the Georgia
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Renaissance Festival were absolutely brilliant and phenomenal and had a
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: grasp of street characters. That are usually people who are
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: seasoned performers. But that doesn't always mean that you're going
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: to get good training, right, Yeah, that's true, and so
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: you need to make sure that your trainers are people
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: who are also good at teaching, yes, and not just
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: teaching what they think is right, but what is kind
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: of a standard. And standards are something that redfests kind
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: of have, but they don't have a lot of you said,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: to speak to musicians. As a musician, most of our
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: rehearsals were just as the band, and then I think
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: we'd show up for dress orhearsal day and whatever day,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: all the characters introduce themselves to each other. We were
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: encouraged to attend maybe a character building workshop because they
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: wanted musicians to be out on the streets and have
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: lots ofeas and still seem like part of the village
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: as opposed to twentieth century twenty first century whatever people
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: who just happened to be in costume and playing music occasionally.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: But it was much looser that being said, you were
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: expected to be putting the rehearsal time in on your own,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: with your band, with your stage show.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Also, all the musicians are pretty much all the musicians
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: would participate in things like the opening gate ceremony, which
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: means that there would be some rehearsals where the musicians
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: would collectively need to get together and rehearse together, not
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: just in their little pockets of whomever they were performing
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: with throughout the day, but because you would be expected
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: to perform three or four musical numbers at the beginning
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: of the day, you had to rehearse collectively.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, pub saying at the end of the day generally
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: was a group effort. So yeah. So there were a
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: few additional group rehearsals, but not all of them collided
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: with the street cast rehearsals.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and stage.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Shows rarely did at all.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: One other little thing about dress rehearsal type stuff, so
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: when the characters would all step forward and introduce themselves
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: and everything, there was also Ariel even alluded to it
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: when I was talking about my least favorite thing about
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: the rehearsal process, and she guessed the love and hate letters.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: I actually love those. So the purpose of a love
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: and hate letters so each character was assigned a love
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: some other character that they loved, and then another character
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: that they hated. And chances are the person you loved
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: would not necessarily love you back. In fact, they might
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: actually hate you. But the whole purpose was really to
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: help you develop improv acting skills so that you could
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: perform against other characters, as well as develop your language
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: skills so that you sounded appropriately renaissance ishh. And I'm
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: being super super super kind to call it that, but
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: you would you would craft these letters in appropriate language
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: and either have compliments or insults or whatever, and then
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: send them. You would you would actually deliver them to
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: the recipients on the final rehearsal day, which when I
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: started was a pretty simple experience, like you just you
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: would find the people and you would hand them their letter.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: By the time I was gone, it had turned into.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: This crazy, grandiose display where some people would even read
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: out the whole letter, and I'm like, this is eating
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: up so much time. I you are clever, Congratulations, You're
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: very clever. Shot up and let's get on with it
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: so I can go home.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I love that, And I liked when people
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: put a lot of thought and effort into it, you know,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and some of that was just based on like what
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: you could afford to do, because like sometimes one of
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the one of the I still have this love letter,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: our mutual friend Lucas was assigned to love my character
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: one year and it was when I was Vogue, and
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: I got a letter written on a thin strip of
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: paper shoved into a beautiful glass pink bottle, and I
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: still have that. It was so beautiful, it was so
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: well thought out. They put so much effort into it.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: And then like my hate was like gave me a
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: piece of paper that just said I hate you on
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: it that kind of had been crumpled and stepped in
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: the dirt because they did not want to put the
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: time into it. So I definitely think there was a
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: balance there. There were some people who did not care.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: It was obvious, who ended up writing their letter the
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: morning of as opposed to put their thought and effort
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: into it.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: And I always put.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: Like I always tried to make it as character specific
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: as I possibly could work in as many jokes as
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: I could make it clear that I understood who the
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: other person's character was and their relationship to me like
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: that to me was always very important because I and
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: I almost always was on the receiving end of either
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: no letter at all because the person assigned to me
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: just never bothered to write it, or it was clearly
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: a letter that had been written, you know, hurriedly in
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: the last fifteen minutes, so that it would you know,
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: someone would not get an F on their homework assignment
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: or whatever. There were a couple of exceptions, but generally speaking,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: I ended up being on the receiving end of crappy letters.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: But I loved writing them, that was, and the people
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: who received them, I hope enjoyed getting them.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: I struggled with writing my love and hates, but I
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: always put the effort in. Usually, you know, it would
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: have some sort of like ribbon on it or a
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: little bell or something akin to my character. But it
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: was somewhere in the middle. It wasn't a big, gradiose creation,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: but it was I had put effort into the compliments
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: or the insults, and then I tried to maintain those
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: love and hates throughout the year. There are some people
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: who just completely ignored them after that.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: But whatever, well, see, I was just about to ask
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: you about that, about whether or not like see. To me,
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: the whole love and hate thing was literally designed in
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: rehearsals to create a way for you to learn how
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: to interact with other people and to get more comfortable
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: with the language. So for me, on every single day
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: of festival, in fact, even like hour to hour on festival,
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: I would just decide what my attitude was toward other
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: characters and that would just be it for the day.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: As opposed to oh, I was assigned to love the queen,
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: So from this point forward, I'm just gonna love the
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: Queen every single day. Like to me, I was worried
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: personally that that would mean I would start building holding
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: a story that only really I and maybe the Queen
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: would know. And thus, like if you were to come
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: in on weekend five, you know, in my mind and
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: in the Queen's mind, we're continuing a narrative, but you
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: just showed up, so you don't know what all that
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: stuff is. Whereas if I were treating it more like, okay,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: for this interaction, I have decided I really like this person,
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: and that way it made it a little easier, I
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: think from an accessibility standpoint.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I did a little of both. So there were
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: definitely characters that I was assigned to levery it was
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: always easier for me to hate people and I'm just
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be real transparent about myself here. One
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: of the places that I have grown most as an
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: actor is in my self confidence. I was not a
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: popular child in school. I was I was called a
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: little bit of a cry baby. I was probably a
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: little too emotional at times. And not to say emotions
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: are batter, you can be an emotional person. But I struggled.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: And so going into Fair, you know, was at the
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: time in my life where I was trying to build
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of confidence, but I still had this like
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: mentality of like, and it didn't help that my first
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: year was as the old maid, right, so I had
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: this mentality of like, I want to be this desirable,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: popular person that people like to be around, who's pretty
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: and all this other stuff. And you know, I would
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: go into Fair and here I was on equal footing
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: with these people. I was still an actor, but it
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: was kind of cliquy. So oftentimes I kind of still
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: felt like the odd duck out, and so acting to
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: love somebody kind of felt like an imposition on that
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: other person. It probably absolutely was not. This is something
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: I was putting on myself based on past experiences. But
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: hates were great, But I would usually start them over
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of a day, so like it would
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: be a real service level, petty thing that I hated
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: that would be easy for someone to stick on, and
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: you know, it would switch throughout the day. I think,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you really hate the people you love,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: and so like I would flip flop and people would
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: just not know what was coming.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there were seasons where Ariel and I were acting
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: against one another as a Vogue and the Lord Admiral
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: and yeah, from from moment to moment, like whenever we
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: weren't together all day, but we would end up being
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: together multiple times throughout the day, and it always seemed
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: like whenever we got back together, one character was being
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: very sweet to the other one and the other one
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: was being terrible to the first one, and it would switch.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Like we were never we were never both hating.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: Each other or both gaga for each other. It was
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: always one one's hot and one's cold, and it was
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: just pretty funny because it wasn't like we were even
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: talking about it or planning it out.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: It just kind of happened.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, But I also think, you know, that's that's
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: when you watch a TV show, you always love the
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: cat and mouse game more than you love when the
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: characters actually get together actually break up.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: So I feel like for the people who did come back,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: who did know our characters, who were invested in the village,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: I felt like that was a good fun payoff for
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: them because there was this cat and mouse game.
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and for anyone else, it was just two people
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: who are bickering and it was fine. But to talk
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: a little bit about what your schedule is like on
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: a typical festival day, So let's say it's opening day,
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: actors get to the festival at least an hour and
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: a half before the gate opens if they don't want
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: to get dinged, because if you're late more than a
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: couple of times, you.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Get fined earlier. If you're in if you're doing combat,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: because you warm up and you run through your fights.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so you would show up, You would go to
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: your assigned parking space backstage, which was usually a the
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: ring of the outer wall for the festival, so they
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: had different zones, and you had an assigned zone you
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: would park there. Some people would come fully dressed, a
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: lot of us would come partly dressed change the rest
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: of the way in the in the parking lot. You know,
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: you got used to the fact that your your dressing
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: room was a parking lot outdoors, and you.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: Got pretty good at pretty You either just didn't care
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: and nobody else cared because you know dressing room etiquette,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: or you got really good at like changing under like
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: your billowy pieces.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: Ariel often gave me a ride back in those days,
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: and I can tell you that I got very good
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: at turning around and looking out at the festival, and
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: she got very good at changing in her billowy pieces.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: So we were respectful of one another's privacy. Yeah, But
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: also we also also is useful because there was usually
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: something that needed to be tied or tightened that you
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: really needed a second person to help with.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean I would say occasionally you see
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: an exposed top or a butt cheek or something like that,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: usually by accident, you know, but butt cheeks were the
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: most common thing that you'd see by accident. But like
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: that is one place. I'll say that everyone in my
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: experience stayed pretty pretty professional and respectful in that like
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: you either didn't acknowledge it or you turned around because
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: everybody's most people are trying to change in the parking lot,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: especially at the end of the day when you have
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: to change back out because you don't want to drive
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: in your dirty, nasty, sweaty Renaissance festival. No.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: By the by the end of certain days, I was
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: just like, the only thing going through my mind is
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: I've got to get out of this because I'd just
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: be so hot and uncomfortable. So we would get there probably,
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: you know, a lot of us would get there around
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: eight am some earlier, like when I was working there
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: the first time. My wife, she was the assistant to
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: the director, and one of her jobs was to deliver
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: water and ice to all the backstage areas, like all
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: the all the of all the stages, some of which
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: are actually on site, not just you know, a lot
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: of the stages would butt up against that exterior wall,
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: but some of them were internal and we had to
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: go and bring the water and the ice into those.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: So we would get there like seven so that we
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: could do those rounds and everything, but yeah, you would
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: usually get there sometime between eight eight thirty if you're
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: our dear friend Shay, maybe eight fifty five, and then
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: around nine am we were supposed to all gather for
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: morning meeting, which was when the director would tell us
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: anything of note that was happening that day. Maybe there
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: was going to be a wedding, you know, maybe there
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: was a special guest, maybe we needed to you know,
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: some of the characters needed to swing by and do stuff.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: Occasionally we would have like a special event and characters
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: would immediately get assigned to oversee them, often without having
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: heard about this before that day.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and just trying to figure out how to
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: do it.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like you're going to oversee the walk the plank contest,
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: like oh what is that?
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: So we would do the meeting the meeting, like it
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: depends on who the director was.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Some meetings were.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Like incredibly efficient and short and you would get the
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: you would get the meeting through. You would go through
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: any announcements, like sometimes people would have an announcement to
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: the rest of the cast, like maybe they're getting rid
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: of a costume piece or something, and then you would
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: be left to continue getting ready until you were sent
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: out to entertain people who are gathering for Opening Gate.
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: Officially Opening Gate, I think was supposed to be ten
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: thirty when I first but by the time I was leaving,
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: it was like ten oh five some days, and that's
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: when you would have like a little ceremony kind of
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: explaining what was going to go on with the festival.
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: So from essentially ten am, when most of the characters
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: would have to go out and mill around with the
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: patrons to entertain them while they wait for the gates
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: to open, some of us would be held back so
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: that we would come up on these ramparts above the
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: gates to greet the festival goers. So pretty frequently I
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: didn't have to go out among the patrons because I
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: was part of the story. But from that moment until
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: six pm, you're working, and you do get some breaks,
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: like you get a break so that you can have lunch,
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: and you can take short breaks, especially if you need
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: to when it's starting to get really hot.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: Although it's frowned.
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: Upon for you to take too many breaks, it's not
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: it's not clearly defined, but people notice if you are
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: frequently backstage as opposed to being out there entertaining people.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: But yeah, from ten am to six pm, you are
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: if you're on stage, you are in character and you
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: are performing to entertain people.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and a lot of people like I, Okay, if
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: I needed to, I would eat backstage, but oftentimes I
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: ate lunch on site and I just made it entertaining,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: and I, you know, my brakes weren't going to pee
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: or sticking my head in a freezer for a second.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: So that is a I don't know by the time
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: you left. But when I was there, breaks were pretty much,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: you know, they weren't clearly defined, and I feel like
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: that's almost a detriment because like, you don't know what's okay,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: so sometimes you don't do it.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there were some of us who like the for
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: I would say for the first half of my festival career,
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: which again was broken up among several different you know,
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: multi year stints, but for the first half of it,
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: I took almost no breaks. Like I took a break
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: for lunch, and unlike Ariel, I would typically sit backstage
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: just so I could decompress a bit and eat, although
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: occasionally I would eat out on stage. I think I
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: ate out on stage until one day a young woman
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: who worked in a booth kissed the top of my head,
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: and I thought it was Becca, and I was getting
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: ready to do a whole big character bit because my
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: wife Becca, she was playing a peasant character and I
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: was the mayor, so I was going to make her grovel.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: But then I turn around and it's a young lady
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: like probably sixteen, who just kissed the top.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Of my head.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Not cool.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm like, maybe I'll.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: Be eating backstage from now on. Because I didn't see
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: her coming, I didn't have any idea. I didn't know
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: how to extricate myself from that particular. And by the way,
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: I fully acknowledged that the maybe half dozen instances I've
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: had on site where I've been perhaps harassed is a
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: very strong word. In some cases it totally applies, but like,
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: things have gone beyond my boundaries a few times, maybe
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: a half dozen times. I fully acknowledged that for a
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: lot of the women on the cast, that was like
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: something that was frequently happening multiple times a season, Like
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: for me, it's across the entire time I was there.
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: But yeah, just a few times that happened to me.
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: I was like, gosh, I have a huge appreciation for
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: what the women on cast can can go through, depending
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: upon you know their encounters and the types of people.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: They meet up with.
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: But yeah, anyway, yeah, you'd be there. You're work until
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: six most of the time. This actually wasn't a thing
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: when I first started, but by the time I came back,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: when Ariel was well into her run as a character,
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: people the cast would stick around backstage because at the
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: end of the day, everyone's leaving and traffic would be
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: so bad that you would just be sitting in your
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: car waiting to turn onto a road and then waiting
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: to turn onto a highway. So you might as well
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: just sit backstage and hang out with the other actors,
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: and that became its own kind of ritual.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so like you could be there,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Let's say, if you got there at eight am to
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: do fight or whatever, right, and then you leave it
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: like six point thirty seven.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe even seven thirty or eight.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that is a huge long day, and
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: then you usually want to go get food or go
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: home and sleep. You know, I will say, as a
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: street character, it's like a marathon because you're you're running
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: between low and high energy all day long. It is
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: really interesting looking at it as a stage show slash band,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: because my band played on stages and I would always
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: encourage them, Hey, let's go out and hang out outside.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Let's walk around instead of going backstage from stage to stage.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Let's walk on site from stage to stage and do
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: like a musical lotzi or sit and eat and play,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: play on our instruments a little bit or whatever. But
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: when you're a stage show, and I'm sure this is
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the same for like Shakespeare parody, those moments you are
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: on and you're such high energy that it's exhausting. So
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: that's part of the reason that like musicians are not
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: required to always be out on the streets when they
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: aren't doing their shows, because one they have to warm
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: up and prep and get their instruments ready. And two,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: it's a lot more energy to put on a thirty
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: minute stage show than it is to do thirty minutes
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: in the lanes. Not always you can bust your ass
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: in the in the lanes, but you.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: Can, yeah, and I mean, but you're not able to
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: do that all day.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: It would kill you.
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: So to your point, like when you're on a stage show,
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: you're running high energy for that half hour slot.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: You've been given. When you are on the in the lanes, you.
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: Know, maybe you have a stint where it's just like
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: you're on fire and you're doing like different character interactions
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: and big bits and stuff, and maybe you've got a
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: half hour, you know, section of your day where it
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: really was like that. But it's more likely that you're
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: gonna have you know, mountains and valleys, right, You're gonna
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: have moments where things are high energy and really going,
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: and then other moments where everybody's hot. You're walking around,
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: you're making eye contact with people, but clearly no one
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: is quite in the headspace to play because they really
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: just need to find the next like shady spot, or
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: they're on their way to a specific location.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: And that's fine.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: I I will say that when I was doing Shakespeare Parody,
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: like after each performance, I would take about five minutes
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: sitting down backstage before I would go back out so
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: that I could I could like calm down, rest, drink
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: some water in peace before heading back out as the character.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Stage was one of the coolest backstages, like not as
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: in like the neatest.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: But are you talking about Greenwood?
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Greenwood stage doesn't exist at the Georgia Renaissance Festival anymore.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: Was a tiny, little diamond shape stage. Actually I totally
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: forgot about it. That is where I did have one
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: of another injury. I was thinking the only injury I
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: had was the courtly dancing one. That's wrong. I brained
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: myself on Greenwood stage because it was this diamond shape
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: thrust that you know. It came to the end of
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: the stage, came to a point that and most of
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: the audience was sort of diagonally to your left or
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: diagonally to your right, with only a couple people who
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: were able to sit toward the point of the diamond.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: And the upstage part had had walls, and it actually
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: was like a little like L shaped hallway, like a
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: diamond shape hallway in the back, very narrow, but it
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: was an actual backstage that was out of view of
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: the general population. But it also had these windows that
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: looked out from the back stage, and they had gables
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: on them. And there was a day when I was
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: squatted under one of those gables as a character and
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: I stood up, not knowing that I was right at
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: the corner of the gable, and it hit me right
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: on the very top of my head, and I'm bald,
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: so I scratched my head. And anyone who's ever had
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: like any kind of scratch on their face or their
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: head nose, those bleed a lot, and when you're sweating,
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: it looks way worse. So yeah, that was I was
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: doing the rest of the Shakespeare parody, sweating and bleeding
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: and being in pain.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. I've also that stage. You did have
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: to be careful. Ten Penny played on the stage. I
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: think our first year as a band, and you have
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: to be careful. So we need to move on to
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: our final segment so that we can wrap up. But
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: before we do, did you prefer being more scheduled or unscheduled?
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: I preferred being more scheduled because having scheduled things throughout
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: the day helped break up the freedom of walking around
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: and just entertaining left and right. Like the less scheduled
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: I was, the more tired I would be at the
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: end of the day.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I fully agree, and I felt like exception, I
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: hated being scheduled for front Gate. I know a lot
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: of people loved it because it was super easy. I
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: always felt like my characters were built for I always
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: built my characters that I've talked about it in the
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: last episode more for bit interactions and less for like
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: general conversation, So I always felt like I was giving
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: more value to the patrons, not front gate and even
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: opening Gate. I always I hated interacting with people because
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: I would tag everybody who would be there in the
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: morning with whatever I was doing because I'm really efficient,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: and then I wouldn't have anybody to interact with, and
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: then it got really hard to figure out what to
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: do for the next hour while new people were coming in,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: especially if it was a slow day. But I preferred
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: being more scheduled as well, because it meant that the
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: moments I knew that I had to play the lanes
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: and to interact with patrons on non scheduled things, I
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: knew that I could put more effort into that because
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: I knew when I would get my break to do
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: the next thing.
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. So I guess we can quickly,
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: or at least as quickly as we can, talk about
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: reasons why we have left. We've obviously touched on some
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: of them. The rehearsal process can be grueling and uncompensated.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: Compensation in general is very low, like criminally low.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: I would say.
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: It really undervalues performers. Specifically, it really undervalues street cast
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: who are not allowed to solicit tips. So because there's
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: no there's no additional compensation in the form of tips.
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: You're only dependent upon what the festival is providing, and
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: they're not providing very much in return.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: You have to do.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: Most people have to supply their own costume, which could
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: be very expensive depending upon the character you're playing and
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: how much effort you're putting into that character. Characters actors
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: frequently but not every year, but frequently had to pay
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: for their own meals, so that would sometimes be as
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: much as like half of what you were making for
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: the day just for the meal.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: You could pack your meal and put it in a fridge, yes,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: most of the time, but then you would have to
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: but you're still.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: Paying for your meal, right you had to go out
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: and buy it somewhere.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Else, and then you had to go like you if
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: you were back at the fair. There was a couple
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: of years where you would be scheduled in the zones
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: a fair and you'd have to work the back of
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: the fair. But if you're keeping your food up at
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: the front of the fair. That's a hell of a
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: hike to get your lunch.
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, lots of making Yeah. So for me, it was
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: things like and also like there seemed to generally be
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: a failure on behalf of the leadership at the festival
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: to show appreciation or even acknowledgment of the street cast.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: Like you almost felt like the festival's looking for any
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: reason to just get rid of you because they don't care,
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: because there's never any gesture from festival management that you matter,
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: and that that's a huge problem with any organization. If
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: you've ever worked anywhere where you were feeling unappreciated, you
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: know how what a huge hit that is to morale.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm gonna be real honest. I
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: stopped doing Fair when I got married, partially because when
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: you sign up for Fair, unless you have something pre
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: baked into your contract that you're going to be out
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: a day, you can't miss a day. And I understand
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: that it's a it is treated like a job, so
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: it should be paid like a job. So the payment,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: the pay was not enough to make up for the
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: time that I might have to miss because occasionally I
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: have a bad back or you know, and I usually
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: work through that anyhow, because I don't know when to quit.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: But yeah, the pay was not enough for the time
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: commitment for me, and I was getting married, so I
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: had other stuff I wanted to do. On the weekends,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: I wanted to hang out with my spouse. Another part
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: of it was just the I got tired of being
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: in the hot sun for that many hours with not
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: knowing whether or not it would get pained badly if
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: I took a break, and I rarely took breaks, but
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: once in a while some would be like, why are
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: you backstage? And I'm like, this is the first time
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: I'm backstage in the last five hours. Why are you
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: giving me a hard time? And yeah, you know, I
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: mean you're tired and hot. You don't want to deal
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: with that. I loved giving people like a little memento
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: of their interaction with me, and that got very expensive.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: The upkeep of the costume was expensive, the props were expensive.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: The you know, I would spend more. Like for instance,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: when I was Vogue, and I did this with most characters.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: When I was the Black Widow, I'd give out rings.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: When I was the old Maid, I'd give out rings
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: and bells. When I was Vogue, I'd give out jewels
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: and ribbons. When I was Amelia Onaire, I'd give out jewels.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: So all of my characters kind of had a thing
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: unless I was a musician. My kissing wench, I gave
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: out kisses. But those are lipstick. No, they weren't. They
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: were free unless someone wanted to tip.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: Wait what man, Yeah, I want to rEFInd.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: But I mean that's part. So like, you know, kissing
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: wenches put dollar bills and their bodices and that was
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: a part of the whole thing with Like some of
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: the worst interactions I had with patrons were people who took,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: you know, an invitation to be a little bit saucy
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: too far. I got smacked once in the face and like,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: this is not someone I was not like pushing a
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: kiss on anyone. I was trying to interact with the
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: wife about her husband, and she just smacked me in
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: the face because she felt I don't know, she thought
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: either felt threatened or thought it was funny. I had
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: someone put their hand all the way down my bodice.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: I had a parent try to get their kid to
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: shove money in my chest and I was like, no,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: this kid is not doing that because the kid does
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: not want to do it, and I don't want them
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: to do it, and you shouldn't be making her child
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: do this. So like, I was pretty good at getting
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: out of these situations or dealing with them as they happened.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: As I got older and Fair and thankfully I wasn't
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: a kissing wench until I was older. I didn't like
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: being an old maid, but I will tell you it
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: was a good thing. I was not a kissing watch
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: at first year. You need years and years of experience
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: to do that. But yeah, not enough pay to cover
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: my costs or my time. I couldn't pursue other acting
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: gigs that did pay or had more more like growth
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: opportunity to them. And then yeah, yeah, I just I
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: felt undervalued. I felt like I felt like it was
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: almost a burden on the Fair for me to be there.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: But I will tell you it also affected my desire
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: to go back as a patron. I have not been
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: back to Fair an awful lot since I left, because,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: as you said, they were cutting back on street cast
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: and that's what I loved. That was the free entertainment.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: You can watch a show you don't have to tip,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: but if you want food, if you want to buy anything,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: if you want to play a game or ride or
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: ride that all costs money. If you watch a show
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: and you want a tip, that costs money. The street
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: cast were the free entertainment at fair and when you
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: walked in, it's what made you feel like you were
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: a part of the village. And that was what was
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: special about the Renaissance Festival to me, and that has
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: kind of disappeared.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now I feel the same way.
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: That's how I was interested in joining as well, because
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: I had memories of going to the Renaissance there and
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: seeing characters and interacting with them and then being very
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: silly and funny, and I wanted to do that too.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: And I feel like, especially over recent years, that the
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: cast now is much much, much smaller than it was
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: when Ariel and I were performing there. It is a
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: fraction of what it used to be, and it means
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: that if you do go to the festival, you can
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: have the experience of walking into the front gates, doing
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: an entire circuit of the festival and never being aware
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: that you were ever even close to a street character,
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: because they're just so few of them that there's a
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: good chance you won't see any and it does mean
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: that you end up having this big sort of Renaissance
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: themed fair ground, but without any of the flavor and
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: character that you would get with a good street cast.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: And it's very frustrating to me because you know, once
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: upon a time you would go, maybe you weren't interested
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: in the street cast, but you were interested in shopping
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: or whatever. Well, these days, with the Internet, a lot
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: of the stuff you can find the Renaissance Festival you
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: can find like their supplier online, you can order directly
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: from them. So like there's fewer reasons to go to
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: a festival unless you can make it special. And yet
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: we've seen support for street casts drop to a point
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: where it's very hard to convince people to come back.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: Like there are some people who are hardcore and we'll
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: meet back year after year, but a lot of people,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: after they go through some seasons, especially seeing a decline,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: they're like me and they're just like, I can't do
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: this again.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: I'm done.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: It's too depressing to me to be part of this,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: and that just makes the problem worse. And because streetcast
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: are not revenue generators. Yeah, it's free to watch us,
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: it's free to interact with us, but we also we
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: don't generate money for the festival directly. We're part of
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: what makes a festival special, so it brings people in,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: but that's hard to quantify. So when you are doing
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: the numbers, from a business perspective, you see the cost
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: of streetcasts, like how much you're paying to have these
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: people walking around and being silly, But you're not seeing,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: at least not directly, the numbers that contribute to your
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: bottom line, Like it just ends up being a cost.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 3: So from a business perspective, you could see why there'd
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: be little desire to preserve that unless you have this
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: appreciation of the street cast? Is what is an element
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: that makes the festival a place where people say, Hey,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: I want to go to the Renaissance Festival this weekend.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: And it may not be the.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: Prime reason, it might not even be one that they
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: can vocalize, but because it ends up creating that atmosphere,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: it ends up being really important. I think that yeah,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: And I think I think music throughout the festival and
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, like live performed music throughout the festival are
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: two things that I found really magical when I was
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: a patron, and I'm sad that both of those have
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: largely faded because there are fewer places for musicians to
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: perform throughout the festival, and there's just it's a smaller
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: group of people these days than it was when I
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: first joined.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say Devil's Advocate. I know people who
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: don't put any like they don't. They would interact with
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: me because I was their friend already, they knew me
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: outside of Fair, but in general they didn't super enjoy
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: interacting with street characters. Honestly, my husband is one of them.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: He doesn't go to Fair for the street characters or
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: the village. He went and not even for the shows.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: He went because it was a fun place to look
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: at swords, but also he doesn't go often because it's
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: a really expensive way to go look at swords that
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: you can buy online. Even a lot of the handcrafters
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: you said you could find the suppliers for the the
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: booths online. A lot of the handcrafters have online stores
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: as well, because that's the age we live in. So like,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: not everybody values that the way that Jonathan and I do,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: but I do. I agree with you. I think it
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: made it special.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I kind of think of it like if you
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: were to go to Disney World, but there were no
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: characters ever anywhere in Disney World. It would be it's
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: not that the characters make or break it. It's that
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: the presence there is one of the things that ends
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: up being a memorable element that improves the experience, and
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: their absence makes it feel lesser than. But it's not
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: like you would immediately associate the character as being that's
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: the reason we have to go.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and like there are other fairs that do volunteer cast,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: but you still have to make them feel valued right.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: Well, and like to your point, if you're gonna put
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: the onus on them to deliver certain things, like if
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: they if you're being treated like you have these responsibilities,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: then you should be compensated. Like if you're being given responsibilities,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: then there needs to be a two way interaction there.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: It shouldn't just be one way where the festival gets
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: free labor from you. Like volunteering so that you can
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: be part of like a big group. So as you're
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: a pretty picture, that's one thing, but if you have
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: other duties that's a job.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, or if you're going to get penalized
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: if you have a conflict come up and I'm not
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: saying like, if you've got a volunteer cast. You know,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: if you're in a community theater show, you agree to
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: show up for things.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: But like, like as also, community theaters typically are nonprofits,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: and the Rensluns Festival definitely is not.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: Is Yeah, yeah, so I and like, I know that
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: stage stage shows and traveling shows have the same issue
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: of getting paid what their time is worth and their
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: travel is worth, and things like that too at various fares.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't have all of the insights onto that,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: and I don't necessarily think that I'm in a place
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: where I should speak about that publicly on a podcast,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: but you know, it is a thing. Various fares have
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: various budgets based on where they are and how long
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: they run and what kind of audience they're getting, and
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: so like, there's not a good standard to even say
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: this is this is a good standard of practice. But
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: I generally think, yeah, if you've got duties and responsibilities
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: and you're expected to show up at a certain time
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: every day and stage to a certain time every day,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: you should get some sort of compensation and you should
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: also be shown appreciation.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and if you if you're being true as
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: a volunteer that you should be able to leave whenever
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: you want, right, Like you should be able you show up,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: you work an hour and you're like, all right, that's
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: enough for me. I'm going You shouldn't be told like,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: oh you can, Like, well, you're not paying me. I'm
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: a volunteer. I'm now volunteering to leave. So it needs
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: to like, whatever the arrangement is, it needs to work
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: both ways for both parties.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: It can't be.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: It can't be that one party benefits from the other
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: and there's nothing in return.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: That is just not acceptable.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: So really that's the big thing. Like we could probably
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 3: go on forever about things we have observed with the
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: specifically with the Georgia Renaissance Festival over the years, but
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: that ends up being so narrow casting that I think
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: we can we can skip it and instead we can
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: just say that, you know, we always hold out hope
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: that there will be a change in culture and that
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: will see performers being valued and being compensated properly and
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: have a kind of a rejuvenation of the festival.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: I would love to see that.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And also if you enjoy going to Renaissance, festivals,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: regardless of which one it is. I am so glad
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: for you. I hope you have a lot of fun.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: Just show appreciation to all the people who work there
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: because it's it's fun, but it's hard, yeah, you know,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: but continue to enjoy it. And to the actors who
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: are still working at renfairs where maybe, like Jonathan and
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: I have felt undervalued. Great, they really love it and
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: they really love you, so enjoy them.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's nothing wrong with having a good time. We're
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: just saying, like the things that led to us leaving,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean, like I still know a couple
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: of people who who work their season after season. I
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: don't hold any ill will toward them for that decision.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: They're still getting genuine enjoyment and benefit from it. For
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: you know, however, they view that it's just for me personally,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: it no longer met that that standard.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but you know, people, people grow and move
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: on and do other awesome things. But yeah, we need
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: to wrap up today. So if there are any questions
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: you have about the Renaissance Festival that we didn't talk about,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: how can they reach out to you Jonathan to have
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: you answer them?
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: Well, what they can do is they can take a
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: trip down to their local grocery store and they're gonna
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: go down the produce aisle and in between different types
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: of apples, you're gonna see a fruit that doesn't look
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: like anything you've ever seen before, and you're going to
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: go ahead and just grab that, put that in your
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: basket or your cart or whatever.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: Do the rest of your shopping.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: When you check out, you will find out that this
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: object you picked up, this fruit, doesn't register as anything
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: in the system, and therefore you can.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: Just take it, and you're going to take that home.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: You're gonna go home. You're gonna take this weird fruit.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: You're gonna peel it, you're gonna chop it up into
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: tiny bits. You're gonna put those bits into like a
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: food processor or a blender of.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: Some sort, blended down.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: You're gonna turn that into a shake. You're gonna drink
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: that shake, and then you're gonna forget everything that happens
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: to you over the next eighteen hours. So just make
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: sure you've got a buddy to kind of look after you,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: because I don't know what you get up to, but
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: neither will you. That's probably the problem. But when you
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: wake up. You're going to see that on your computer
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: screen is a little blinking line and green and it says,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: what is your question?
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: It's me, I've hacked in.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: You can ask me and I will answer, Except if
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: the question is what was that fruit? I can tell
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: you now the answer will be what fruit?
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: That felt very like Welcome to Nightveil.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: To me as I may or may not be somewhat
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: influenced by Welcome to Nightveil.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: If you don't understand the li green line hacking reference
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: and you want a more modern way to contact us,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: you can do so on social media on Facebook, Instagram, threads, discord.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: We are large Nerdron Collider on Twitter x whatever it's
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: called now. We're at llenc Underscore podcast, and you can
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: check all of our show notes on large nor John
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: Collider dot com. I've had some fun picking pictures of
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Jonathan and I from Renfest to put up on these
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: latest episodes, and or you can email us at large
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: neurdron pod at gmail dot com. Invites to discorder also
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: on our website. We love hearing from you. Thank you
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: for listening, Thank you for asking us to talk about
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: this topic. It's been honestly a lot of fun, and
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: until next time, I am Ariel, hear ye, hear ye caston.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: And I am Jonathan.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: Fairly well and safe journeys home.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: Strickland. The Large Nordron.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: Collider was created by Aeriel Casting and produced, edited, published, deleted, undeleted,
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: published again. Cursed at by Jonathan Strickland. Music by Kevin
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: McLeod of incomptech dot com