(no subject)

[oakenguy]

Faire and Back Again

(ooo, bet *that* one's been done before)



I'm back from the Gulf Coast Ren Faire! And, as Terry Pratchett would put it, much buttock was prodded.
The weather was perfect, it was well-publicized, the audiences were big and enthusiastic (I heard 8000 people, total), and the troupe kicked ASS with their scenes and fights.

There were a couple of pants-wetting moments (well, tights-wetting), yes, but each one worked out. There's a moment in my big fight where I'm on the ground, weaponless, with my opponent charging...in other words, one of the worst possible times to forget what the next move is. So of course it happened. It was one of those moments when time dilates, and your brain casts about thinking random thoughts like "There's a plastic cup on the ground. Frank sure is projecting well. Wow, the top of my head is warm. Hey, my hands are doing something--it's the right thing! Go, hands!" All in 0.6 seconds.

While LJ is allowing me to post, let's get the photos up. For one thing, y'all need to see my Sinister Mustache, especially now that it's a thing of the past.




This one's mythfish in his role as Andrew the Jester:


By the second day we'd worked out a really fun improv routine that we used on the folks at the ticket booth and in the food lines. It's strange--in both real life and in most of my roles I gravitate towards a style that in music lingo is called "comping". I stay quiet, stay quiet, stay quiet while other people talk (or carry the melody, to stretch the musical metaphor), and then toss in a zinger. But the thing is, Mythfish is so much better at comping than I am that by default, I became the blabbermouth of the duo.

And here's the main difference between Pastimes shows and Gulf Coast: the entire Pastimes crew (in other words, two thirds of the performers the audience will see during the day) goes out there working the crowds and interacting. That's, what, 35 people? And within that group there's already a high number of very funny people; there's even, to get more specific, a high number of, um, not-quite-whipcord-thin gentlemen past the age of 30 who have years of comedy experience. Other folks who occupy my ecological niche, if you'll let me get all Animal Planet about it, and are much better at it than I am. Love them all, love every Pastimes experience, but them's the facts.

At Gulf Coast, though, the 12-14 members of Phoenix Swords are pretty much it as far as performers who roam and work the crowd. They ARE it if you're looking for folks who both do street work and have a scripted daylong storyline. And as far as pudgy comic relief...unless you wanna count the King, I was pretty much The Guy. It's not a matter of little fish/big pond; it's a matter of suddenly being only algae-eating fish/pond full of algae. It leads to things like a Staff member coming up to me and saying, "Brian, you're the improv guy. You've got to go out there" (the joust field) "and HOLD THAT CROWD" (1500 people) "until we're ready."

That was the second tights-wetting moment, by the way. It turned out I didn't have to. I can STILL feel the adrenaline coursing through my system, though.

More details and pics later, along with a very special math equation!

Comments

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

Hee! I like the sinister mustache.

I also feel like I need to get me to a RenFaire one of these days.

But I don't have anything to wear!!