FriendsOfMDRF.org - THE BLOG!

Because we were at my 30th HS Reunion all weekend (fri-sat at least) and we couldn't pick up the dogs from the doggie daycare till after 5pm on sun, we decided to head down to MDRF for the day and go in civvies.

Made for the perfect day too!

Stopped by Steak on a Stake and not only was I greeted with a smile and a yummy piece of dead animal flesh, but the group behind the ledge sang for me. I tipped 'em an extra $5 for treating a non-garbed customer so well!

Next stop was to be some water but was stopped by two castmembers that I didn't recognize who wanted to help me decide what show to see first (I was glancing over the map of Revel Grove while walking). They gave Cyn and I some direction, with a smile, then set upon the next set of wandering guests.

We got our water and the young lady behind the ledge recognized me out of garb and complimented me on my new, stylish black bowler. . .she got a $2 tip for being so nice.

Since not a lot of folks recognized us out of "uniform," we got to run here and there without stopping to chat with different peeps. It was a wonderful day, albeit short (we left at 1pm).

It just goes to show that it doesn't matter what you wear when you walk through the gates of MDRF, you're always greeted with a smile by everyone, be they cast, crew, vendor, or guest. . . . and the smiles are always addictive!

By Royal invitation, I made my way down 95 for an hour-and-a-half from Delaware through what I thought would be rush-hour traffic. I wanted to be at the grounds no later than 730 to catch some of the "Six Wives" show and of course the full "Don Quixote, Book II" with friend Fred in the lead. I left at 5pm on the nose figuring in an extra hour for traffic.

I was pulling onto the parking lot outside of Revel Grove at 6:45. No traffic. . .not even a delay in the B'more tunnel.

I got my trusty camera, phone and iPod touch (I was told to bring a flashlight. . . I have an app. for that). Met up with

Ray Partenheimer, who plays one of the king's guards. . another friend. We got a seat in the back of the Globe, stage right.

I was very luckiy to get there so early as I was able to see three full shows, not the 1.5 shows I'd expected.

The most amazing of the three was the first show. . . The Chess Match. YES, I said the Chess Match. This is my eleventh season (when it starts on Saturday) and in all the seasons (and I've seen all the Chess Matches therein), I've never seen one so well performed as this. It is the funniest thing I've ever seen the cast do on stage. . . I'm talkin' "Shakespeare's Skum" funny here folks. I won't give it away but by the end of the match the cast gets to make fun of themselves and when all hell brakes loose, look for Middle J. Middle (J. Owen Dickson) whose work with a baking pan is music to the senses. GO SEE IT EVERY DAY OF THE SEASON! I expect the end to change unexpectedly with each show, given the free reign of the actors!

The second performance was "The Six Wives" which presents a wonderful "what if?" scenerio. What if five of Henry's wives had a confab over the impending marriage of the sixth wife? Six wonderful actresses on stage giving incredible performances. The show is very entertaining and makes you think about the truths and legends of each wife.

The last dress rehearsal was that of Don Quixote, Book II and I can best sum it up this way:

"See Fred sing, see Fred dance, see Fred once more in his underpants."

In fact in Book II's program you'll get double the underwear and now has 50% more lather. There's great acting, great fighting, choreography, singing, comedy, and listeneing to the funniest lisp in the world by Glenn Evans (think Thane Redwald from the BBC "Dark Ages" TV series).

Go see all three shows. . . . see them often. Get everyone you know to come with you because the performances are wonderful. I was told this was a dress rehearsal. . . . but they all looked pretty polished to me.

Link: http://www.rennfest.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=26

Scroll down the entertainment page of MDRF's main site and read "The Royal Court Agenda" and see what's happening at The Globe. "Who better to ask about the King as husband and lover than his previous five wives. All most certainly have opinions to give to the woman who may be the sixth wife!"

That's right, Carolyn Spedden (The Entertainment Director) has penned into play a wonderful idea that I personally can't wait to see! The idea of having the unlikely meeting of all of Henry's wives for a confab is GREAT!

According to Carolyn: I have been toying with the idea of a show featuring all six of Henry's wives for many years. What would they say to each other? And how would you structure a show - obviously some of the women are dead, and I don't want to do a ghost story.
I thought of the old television program, Steve Allen's "Meeting of Minds" in which various historical characters from all time periods gather for a round table discussion.
I've decided to use that approach - just ignore the fact that four of the women are dead. But I am giving all of them the opportunity to speak to each other.
For the history buffs, I will offer this disclaimer - I have researched, read, and written for these six famous women for more than twenty years. I shall offer my interpretations on their personalities. You may completely disagree. I am not trying to present an educational lecture. This is how I see these women after twenty years of trying to get inside their heads and their hearts. Enjoy!

I, for one will try to catch every show, every weekend!

I was hoping you could get the word out on your RennFest site about an upcoming show featuring Fest actors. I am co-directing the production and costumes are being done by Fest's own Linda Swann (from Tall Toad). Mary S. Wakefield (Lady Mary), J. Owen Dickson (Sherriff Middle), and Ruta Kidolis (Wolgamut dancer) have prominent roles. The playhouse is in Bowie, about 10-15 minutes from the Fest site. I'd love to see a bunch of Faire Friends come out to support our actors in the off season!

Thanks!

http://www.2ndstarproductions.com/

Link: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/anne-arundel/bal-ar.jung07mar07,0,5922669.story

The British are coming! The British are coming!" the lady in the silk dress yells, arms flapping as she careens through the crowd. "This can't be happening! The British are coming!"

It's hard to blame Rosalie Stier Calvert for panicking. She'd only fled her war-torn native land for Maryland a few years before, after all, and now enemy troops are massing outside the gates of her new home.

It's Aug. 24, 1814, date of the Battle of Bladensburg - or so it seems to 200 or so eighth-graders at Ellicott Mills Middle School.

Their eyes go wide as Calvert - or Mary Ann Jung, the actress portraying her - kick-starts a one-woman show that will give flesh, blood and feeling to the early years of the American republic, an era they've only read about.

Every March is Women's History Month in Maryland and in the United States as a whole, and for Jung, 49, of Arnold, that means opportunity. It has been 20 years since she left a job in corporate America for a career as a living-history actress, and she's in demand.

Today she isn't Margaret Brent, the first Colonial woman to own land, or Clara Barton, who founded the Red Cross. She's not Amelia Earhart or Julia Child or the other characters she portrays in as many as 200 self-written shows per year.

She's Rosalie, a blueblood born in what is now Belgium whose family fled a Europe damaged by the wars of "that devil, Napoleon," in 1794, and ended up in Maryland, where she bore nine children, wrote scads of letters home and ran two bustling plantations.

The British invaded just outside the gates of the second one, Riversdale, during the War of 1812.

"This can't be happening!" she bellows with a French accent. "I left my own country ... to escape the war, but now we're being attacked right here in [Bladensburg]. The British are coming, and you don't care!"

Is it coincidence that Jung grew up near Bladensburg, a port town on what is now called the Anacostia River in Prince George's County, where the Riversdale mansion still stands?

"There's plenty of history in our neck of the woods," says Michael Goins, the principal of Ellicott Mills, as he chats with a fully costumed Jung before the show.

Goins also happens to have grown up in Bladensburg, a town where schoolchildren still hear accounts of the one-sided battle that took place just days before the Redcoats invaded Washington and set it on fire.

None of that kept Jung from growing up an Anglophile. Her parents (Dad was a World War II Navy vet, Mom a Realtor) kept the family library stocked with biographies and history books, gathered everyone around the TV for the 1971 BBC series "Elizabeth R," starring Glenda Jackson as Queen Elizabeth I, and in general laid the groundwork for Jung's lifelong love of England.

Only a handful of Marylanders work full-time as living historians - one, Alice McGill, has done powerful Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman shows in the schools for years - and Jung had no clue her early life augured a career.

Even as she went on to major in British history at the University of Maryland, studying to be a teacher, her Anglophilia felt like a mere oddity.

Then love and fate conspired.

Jung says a friend of hers had an equally unusual hobby - falconry - not to mention a crush on her he was too shy to act on. So when organizers of the fledgling Maryland Renaissance Festival asked Michael Moreland to create a show for them, he invited her to partner with him.

Dressed in period garb and bantering in period style, she worked the crowds as Moreland worked the birds. She loved it. "I never realized what a ham I was," she says. The two never dated seriously, but they performed the show for seven years, and Jung realized what she wanted to do with her life.

It wasn't teaching - not exactly.