On Festival Performers Switching Jobs
Oct. 18th, 2004 02:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearedited to fit corrections from the comments below
Even the most die-hard constants of the festival have hardly been constant at what they do year to year.
On Saturday's pub sing, we had a moment honoring Capt Moone's 20th year, with Jack explaining how he wasn't actually a pirate (or even Fletcher Moone) when he first arrived. Brad (and Tim) were attending the court cast (though not actually in it).
Peg: The Pyrates were formed by John Struchen to basically give them all a place to channel their youthful enthusiasm and hilarity. Beefeaters are really supposed to "guard the Queen"...as in, shut up, stand there, look menacing. But, with Tim and Evan in attendance, they were a walking, talking, breathing Monty Python skit waiting to happen, sometimes at less than opportune moments...like when Mary Queen of Scots is being led away to be beheaded :::snort!!:::
This is much like the 20th anniversary a year ago for Lynn, aka Peg, who wasn't a pirate but instead a gypsy when she first joined the cast all those years ago.
Though things seem more stable now than before, the idea of staying in a single "act" and character at the festival is still rather rare. People move around quite a bit. Some reglar cast people become street-characters they stick with (Magoty Mullet and Sinius Vice being the most famous), but many others have changed their street role over the years but remain predominantly street (Mrs. Pugh, once Sister Mary Margaret Mercy, once Phoebe the shephardess). Others went from core cast to stage shows only (most of the current Skum line-up, for example).
Consider that I've been a member of *6* different shows on an official capacity over my 10 seasons working*, and 2 others unofficially, plus being a regular of rat pucking, pit orchestra for 2 shows, add in privy duty, info booth helper, dancer at other groups' shows (like the Rogues back in the 90s), occasional messenger and whipping boy, and my moments of street sillyness, and the wandering whistler bit that I've been building up this year...
some performers either spend time polishing their work into very tight, rehearsed, shows (puke&snot, hack&slash). others let other shows pass into history and move on by introducing entirely new shows and concepts every few years. I personally see myself in the latter -- there will be a time where Cat&Fiddle will go into semi-retirement due to other (likely family) commitments and we'll come up with something else to do that'll be less stressful.
geeze, just recalling the sheer number and variety of acts that performers like Liz Demery, Jim Frank, Stephon Walker, Jim Neib, and Jennifer & Bob Garman have done over the years boggles the mind.
Some of our YAEs have gone on to leading roles (J. Dickson), others have found niches of performance that they adored and moved into full time (Sexton the fool, Gigi the mime). Still other actors have taken to other talents backstage as directors or stage managers.
Heck, we even had a security head become a bartender...
* the six: Three Left Feet, Charm City Rapper, Irish Music and Dance with the Ditties (Cathy and Bill Palmer and family and friends), Morning Musical Merrymaking, Cat & Fiddle Morris, and Pub Sing '99. Yes, 10 seasons, starting 1995. I'm half as old as Capt Moone ;-)
Even the most die-hard constants of the festival have hardly been constant at what they do year to year.
On Saturday's pub sing, we had a moment honoring Capt Moone's 20th year, with Jack explaining how he wasn't actually a pirate (or even Fletcher Moone) when he first arrived. Brad (and Tim) were attending the court cast (though not actually in it).
Peg: The Pyrates were formed by John Struchen to basically give them all a place to channel their youthful enthusiasm and hilarity. Beefeaters are really supposed to "guard the Queen"...as in, shut up, stand there, look menacing. But, with Tim and Evan in attendance, they were a walking, talking, breathing Monty Python skit waiting to happen, sometimes at less than opportune moments...like when Mary Queen of Scots is being led away to be beheaded :::snort!!:::
This is much like the 20th anniversary a year ago for Lynn, aka Peg, who wasn't a pirate but instead a gypsy when she first joined the cast all those years ago.
Though things seem more stable now than before, the idea of staying in a single "act" and character at the festival is still rather rare. People move around quite a bit. Some reglar cast people become street-characters they stick with (Magoty Mullet and Sinius Vice being the most famous), but many others have changed their street role over the years but remain predominantly street (Mrs. Pugh, once Sister Mary Margaret Mercy, once Phoebe the shephardess). Others went from core cast to stage shows only (most of the current Skum line-up, for example).
Consider that I've been a member of *6* different shows on an official capacity over my 10 seasons working*, and 2 others unofficially, plus being a regular of rat pucking, pit orchestra for 2 shows, add in privy duty, info booth helper, dancer at other groups' shows (like the Rogues back in the 90s), occasional messenger and whipping boy, and my moments of street sillyness, and the wandering whistler bit that I've been building up this year...
some performers either spend time polishing their work into very tight, rehearsed, shows (puke&snot, hack&slash). others let other shows pass into history and move on by introducing entirely new shows and concepts every few years. I personally see myself in the latter -- there will be a time where Cat&Fiddle will go into semi-retirement due to other (likely family) commitments and we'll come up with something else to do that'll be less stressful.
geeze, just recalling the sheer number and variety of acts that performers like Liz Demery, Jim Frank, Stephon Walker, Jim Neib, and Jennifer & Bob Garman have done over the years boggles the mind.
Some of our YAEs have gone on to leading roles (J. Dickson), others have found niches of performance that they adored and moved into full time (Sexton the fool, Gigi the mime). Still other actors have taken to other talents backstage as directors or stage managers.
Heck, we even had a security head become a bartender...
* the six: Three Left Feet, Charm City Rapper, Irish Music and Dance with the Ditties (Cathy and Bill Palmer and family and friends), Morning Musical Merrymaking, Cat & Fiddle Morris, and Pub Sing '99. Yes, 10 seasons, starting 1995. I'm half as old as Capt Moone ;-)
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Actually...
Date: 2004-10-18 02:08 pm (UTC)We didn't change the group's name to the Pyrates Royale until Tim left the group, which I think was about 3 years after it formed. The altered name was mostly to indicate that the group had changed quite a bit with Tim's departure -- which it had, as we replaced 3 members, literally half of the group. I don't think the former court affiliation had anything to do with the "Royale," (I had always thought that it was after Port Royale) but I could be wrong about that, I'd need to check with Brad.
I sit corrected...
Date: 2004-10-18 02:36 pm (UTC)the way tim put it kinda implied that the court origins is what fed the name, but it could just have been my misinterpretation. even getting only 85% of what's said on stage can lead to things like that...it was certainly all before *my* time. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2004-10-19 07:49 am (UTC)Re: Actually...
Date: 2004-10-19 09:52 am (UTC)As another point of fact, no one in the Pyrates was in the court cast. (God, am I old...)
Tim and Evan were beefeaters, and Brad as a "Welsh Barbarian" street character named "Braden".
The Pyrates were formed by John Struchen to basically give them all a place to channel their youthful enthusiasm and hilarity. Beefeaters are really supposed to "guard the Queen"...as in, shut up, stand there, look menacing. But, with Tim and Evan in attendance, they were a walking, talking, breathing Monty Python skit waiting to happen, sometimes at less than opportune moments...like when Mary Queen of Scots is being led away to be beheaded :::snort!!:::
And, the rest, as they say, is history.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-19 10:05 am (UTC)Mary Ann Jung could not possibly have started in the Young Actors Ensemble...it didn't exist until Carolyn Spedden invented it as ED (several years into her tenure as Director, as I recall), and Mary Ann has been with the faire for 25 years this season. Ron Hanby was the ED at the time Mary Ann started out (in Columbia before the Faire moved to Crownsville), then John Struchen (beginning in 1985 after the move), and then Carolyn several years after that.
Mary Ann was the Halk Mistress at MDRF when it was in Columbia. I remember her audition when we moved to Crownsville, and the gentleman who owned the hawks decided to discontinue doing MDRF. Ergo, Mary Ann was suddenly out of a job. She did a brief bit from some play or other, and explained her knowledge of the period (she has a degree in Tudor history, I believe). She was hired, and cast to play in her first season, "Lettice Knollys", rival to Queen Elizabeth for the heart of a courtier. However...she was always above the age of 18 as a cast member, and would never have needed to have been placed in YAE (which didn't exist then anyway). She may have *directed* YAE for a while, but was never a member as a minor herself.
Yeah...I've been a cast Member, and attendee longer than some current cast have been alive.
And feeling every bit as old as I sound.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-19 10:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-19 11:00 am (UTC)Selkiesiren caught most of the other things that I was going "urf?" from.
Other long-time performers that don't seem to have been mentioned yet: Barchan (pre-dates me by a bit), Alice (Maggoty Mullet), Cybelle (Mimi), Mark (O), the Ditties. No, I don't think I will have caught everyone.
I've only been there 15 years (started in 1990) and for the first few years was only part time. Circa 1994 or 1995 I joined the village dance ensemble, did the full run with them, and started to get to know some of the rest of the cast a bit better.
no subject
Date: 2004-10-19 11:28 am (UTC)as i noted in my 1996 recap, I was looking at Tee's tapes, particularly the village dance stuff that I filmed on scottish weekend that year (since i wasn't working 3LF on 4th weekend), and saw the village dance musician lineup: Bob and Sue Esty, Maggie Sansone, Bill and Cathy Palmer, and Mistress Gwenna.
Not much has changed there, has it?
(in addition, there was Jon Ward and Sue Richards, but then again Sue always joins us on Scottish weekend as well...)
Re: Actually...
Date: 2004-10-19 11:29 am (UTC)