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Renaissance Festival Brings Magic, Merriment
 | | Carol L. Moyer | | Jousters in full armor prepare for a match at the Maryland Renaissance Festival in Crownsville. |
Imagine walking into a 16th-century English village and being greeted by King Henry VIII. Crowds throng the front gates, hoping for a glimpse of the king. Musicians stroll the streets, playing hammered dulcimers, harps and bagpipes. Jousters in full armor do battle. A glass-blower demonstrates his craft, while fortune-tellers offer their services from gypsy wagons scattered throughout the village.
For nine weekends beginning Aug. 23, 30 acres just outside Annapolis in Crownsville will be transformed into such a Tudor village at the 27th annual Maryland Renaissance Festival.
The nation’s second-biggest renaissance festival has grown markedly from its start as a ramshackle village in 1977, and organizers expect 225,000 visitors this year, an average of 12,000 daily.
Each day begins with the king’s welcome, and crowds at the "Revel Grove" village gather at the gates at 10:15 a.m., eagerly awaiting his presence.
Performers in 1530s period garb play the parts of villagers and courtiers of King Henry VIII and Queen Anne Boelyn and act out a story each day until the 7 p.m. closing. The storyline changes each year, and given this year’s festival is set in 1533 England, the queen will have just become queen to King Henry VIII.
The story, complete with a daily coronation of the queen with a replica of the Crown Jewels of England, plays out on 10 stages and throughout the village streets lined with restaurants, theaters and more than 150 craft shops.
When visitors stream past the big garden fountain at the entrance, they’re immersed in a sensory extravaganza. Follow your nose, you may end up heading in one direction; your ears, another; and your eyes, yet another.
 | | Diane Shapiro | | Performers put on a show on one of the 10 stages. |
"Once you get past the first entrance place, you may walk by and see someone playing a hammered dulcimer. Over there, dancers. Over there, street magic," says Tony Guida, an actor who’s been involved in the festival for 18 years.
"People are always greeting you and trying to engage you in conversation. In fact, with all the street performers, craft shops and demonstrations, there is no way anyone could see everything the faire has to offer."
All the world’s a stage here, it seems, as even many of the visitors don costumes (available for rent at the festival costume shop) and play the roles of lords and ladies, jesters and Benedictine monks.
Perhaps you'll stop and listen to one of the traveling musicians. Celtic harpists, bagpipers, and singers join characters such as Mimi the Mime and The Butterfly Man.
Mimi can often be found playing with fire, walking on stilts, or blowing bubbles for the little ones, while The Butterfly Man juggles for his audience. Crowd favorites "Hack and Slash" wow spectators at the Globe Theatre with crossbows, sword fights and comedy.
Be sure to enjoy some smoked turkey legs, steak-on-a-stake or barbeque pork pockets while checking out the many clothing, leather, footwear, armor, jewelry, masks and art vendors.
Kids will find plenty to enchant them: face-painters, the "bubble wand" salesman, a huge slide, pony rides and a knighting ceremony.
At the Renaissance Festival, of course, there’s romance aplenty – and not just the Shakespearean drama variety. In fact, some couples couldn’t imagine a
 | | Karen Modeski | | A woodcarver toils in one of the 150 festival shops. |
better place for a fairy-tale wedding.
Guida, a minister ordained in the Universal Life Church, has been performing wedding ceremonies at the festival for 18 years. He recalls one when everybody wore Renaissance garb, mainly Scottish, including kilts for the men.
"Six formally attired Scottish nobles made an arch with their swords, and the bride and groom approached and departed under the arch," Guida recalls.
At another wedding, the bride approached riding a big white horse, accompanied by two knights on horseback. Others don the costumes of a Tudor village for the 11 a.m. ceremonies on the Thistledew Theatre stage.
Costumes are required for the wedding party and encouraged for all the guests, and the festival office schedules weddings on a first-come, first-served basis.
Couples can even purchase wedding bands at the festival at R.E. Piland, Goldsmiths on White Stag Grove.
"Guida relishes the role-playing. When he’s not joining couples in matrimony, he’s Cardinal Sinnius Vice, a naughty cleric who spends much of his time encouraging villagers to sin.
"I was captured by the magic one year, so the next year, I auditioned," says Guida, whose first festival role was food-tester. "I would walk around at the feasts, take food off people’s plates and taste it. Since I didn’t die, it was OK for them to eat."
Now he works hard to share the magic with others.
"There is a tremendous amount of effort on behalf of the staff to transport you to another place," he says. "It’s festival day in a medieval town. Everyone conspires to make that atmosphere seem real."
Another Renaissance Festival diehard, Debra Hathaway, met her husband, Eric Heath, at the festival when he was the pretzel man. Now they co-own Dragon Wings, which sells hair ornaments, jewelry and marionettes from a shop on the Queen's Path.
"It's wonderful being an artist," Hathaway says, "but then to be at a fair, with all the acting taking place and everyone speaking old English, it is a dream."
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For more information on the Maryland Renaissance Festival, including directions and entertainment schedule, visit www.rennfest.com/mrf.
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