The Good:
- The weather on Saturday was PERFECT, and subsequently brought the patrons out in droves. 12,000+, according to the official tally.
- Our 1:20 show on the Robin Hood Adventure Stage on Saturday was our best show yet. We filled the seats (even those that didn’t have shade cover), and even had a few folks out in the “Puke-n-Snot crowd overflow hay bales” section. The front row featured a group of high school actors who are currently in rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet, who thought we were the coolest thing since, well…EVER. “These guys ROCKED!”, as heard while we picked up our props. The crowd was electric, we had our shit together….everything just came together.
- Going out to dinner on Sunday night. An entire section of a Chinese restaurant filled with a stage show, shop keepers, whores, and Sherwood outlaws. Good times. This was the sort of social stuff that I’ve been missing since the bastards killed the after-pub, and I want more of it.
‘s propensity for adlibbing material that breaks me. He’s a bastard, and I love him for it. This week, his digression about a cousin who “masticated” and is now blind and has hair on his palms…. - Vicodin. Sweet, sweet vicodin. Thanks to the kind heart of one of the Sherwood crew, I was relatively pain-free Sunday night.
The Bad:
- The weather on Sunday. Rain in the early morning, which ended right before Opening Gate. The rest of the day: Uck. Mud, humidity that leeched the energy out of you, and, as my oldest daughter used to say as a toddler, “Hot as a muffin.” (She had heard my ex-wife refer to the temperature as “hot as a mother”, and her toddler-brain translated it thusly, which I find to be a nifty simile in its own right) Our first show at Merlin’s Berm was atrocious, as we could literally feel the steam coming up out of the damp dirt. Performing in a sauna: Not So Much With the Fun, as it turns out.
- Over-did it just a bit on Saturday, and didn’t sit as much as I should’ve….which made Saturday night an oddysey of new experiences in pain and suffering. Lesson learned.
- Even on a day with great attendance, our tips haven’t been too stellar. Wish that would change, but not sure if there is anything to be done about it.
The Ugly:
- They fired the Prince (the one who had come up with the whole “Maestrobation” bit), due to an “anonymous patron email” claiming that he had hit on a 15-year old and given her his phone number. Despite the fact that he was never alone in the lanes. Despite the fact that he didn’t carry around a pen or paper. Moral of the story here: Don’t piss off the Princess. This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit, since he was the best new performer that they had managed to get. I was really very impressed by him. Ah well.
- Stupid motherfuckers who don’t understand that a 30 minute show means that you wrap it up after 20-25 minutes or so, which gives you time to pass the hat, gather your crap, and gives the next group scheduled on that stage time to hawk to fill the seats that your no-talent asses have emptied over the course of your show. The next show needs to get their stuff in and done, so that the show that follows THEM can be on time, etc. It’s been said during morning meetings twice already, but we have the unfortunate fate of following one group who seems to think it doesn’t apply to them. We’re sending
to talk to them about it, since she’s far less likely to deal with the subject in a manner which involves stabbing.
By me! Who then got bitched out by Jim for being rude to the group who ran late. I was polite the first three times they ran over – then the gloves came off.
I talked at great length to the ex-prince the previous Sunday – mostly about him asking advice about how to handle actor and patron crushes by young girls – so I KNOW what they said about him was a lie. I too thought he was a great performer and a generally nice guy. If you get hold of his contact info, pass it on to me – I want to be able to at least leave him with some positive comments to balance what happened.
What they did to the prince is just rotten. Christ. Fired over ONE anonomous email is bad enough. But that it might have been non-existant… can’t they come up with better cover stories?!
When we ran right to the 30-minute mark once at Muskogee, neophytes that we are, Cedric the Fiddler of the Bedlam Bards (“The Master”, in posts from previous years) took me aside and told me “Y’know, Bruce, you guys are getting good enough to where you’re going to have to start winding up your shows about 4 or 5 minutes early so that your fans will have the contact time with you that they so crave”.
It was a very nice and very memorable way of telling me exactly what you’re trying to communicate to the act before you, and made me feel good about it, and less put upon. It was very benevolent of him not to get pissed about it, and I, for one, appreciated it.
FWIW….
They fired the Prince
They did? Was it the one who played Claude? Say it ain’t so Joe?
Having spoken to the prince…the email apparently had his actual phone number in it, which is the reason they chose to believe it.
The prince himself was quite the apologist for Mr. S., as he has decided he understands where they are coming from, although the fact that he is shipping out in December is strongly coloring his decision as to how to handle things. He doesn’t, in his view, have the time to deal with it in any other manner than to walk away.
From what he said to me, though, it was not the Entertainment Director’s choice to fire him. Pressure supposedly came from another in the management staff, most probably because they had made such a big deal about the “you will get fired, period, if you give your phone number to a patron” bullshit. (Although from what I know of how Jim generally softpedals to people to avoid conflict that could have been just a dodge).
It does suck, but ultimately, they can fire anyone of us for any reason they like at any time. And it would suck just as bad for all the same reasons. And of course, now, they won’t let someone get another gig at the faire, if you’ve been “fired” by any other section of the show, so when they fuck over good people, they are lost permanently.
D.
The prince that was to marry the Princess of Vulgaria has been replaced.
D.
I don’t adlibb. Everything that I say is in my script, it’s not my fault if your script is different.
Apparently JS does not realize that he has used the ole “another in the management staff” a little to often. He needs to find a new scapegoat but it seems to have worked at least one more time.
Observation: Prince Claude is in The Princesses Group. I believe all group leaders would have the phone numbers of their members.
And I make this obeservation very reluctantly as I like The Princess but I think she is very very crispy this year (her third or fourth?).