Queen for a day...
What fun!
Last Saturday I got to play as Queen Elizabeth for the first time and I am hooked!
Things that were fabulous:
1) HeLLOOO! Being Queen! :-)
2) Being supported by the Guild of St. George. They are the gold standard of Courtiers and their costuming and character research are meticulous and considered. They made my job easy and looked great doing it!
3) Wandering the Huntington for the day. There are truly few places on earth more beautiful than this.
4) Badger's period cooking - I only wish I could have eaten more of it!
5) Gar's photos!
6) Perfect weather. Sunny and bright but not too hot.
Things that were not fabulous:
1) It was only one day
2) I didn't have time to make my own dress, though the dress Jeff had for me was a treat itself.
One thing I really liked was that we were portraying one day. Yup. While many groups aim to recreate "a chapter, not a page", we were recreating a sentence. :-) It was the first day of 21-Elizabeth - or November 17th, 1578 - and we are at the Accession Day festivities on Richmond Green after 11 weeks of Progress. *whew* The cool thing is that you can eliminate a great deal of what you have to know by scratching everything after that date. The hard part is that you have to know enough about that date and what comes before to have a convincing conversation with a patron who may know more than you do! The Huntington audience is educated, interested and SOBER! A far cry from the masses at the faire, LOL! If I have it right, we did make one exception to the date - Humphrey Gilbert wold have been at sea fro maybe a month, so we let him stick around a hair longer than he did. And the Huntington had one other date-exception: they had a band of players doing Shakespeare, and he would have been something like 11 years old. Both minor exceptions I could easily live with. LOL! What a difference from the big faire!
Anyway, it was great fun, and probably the best situation I could have hoped for to start with the role. Photos of the whole day are here on Gar's site, and a couple of me as her nibs behind the cut. :-) Pix are kinda big so be forewarned...
The grand entrance
Those sleeve puffs! ARRRRGGGHHHH! The only thing about that dress I didn't like...
Dancing Chiara Stella with Andrew...
And my first try out of my new ruff set with the silver lace - made by the Renaissance Tailor, and worth every penny!
Last Saturday I got to play as Queen Elizabeth for the first time and I am hooked!
Things that were fabulous:
1) HeLLOOO! Being Queen! :-)
2) Being supported by the Guild of St. George. They are the gold standard of Courtiers and their costuming and character research are meticulous and considered. They made my job easy and looked great doing it!
3) Wandering the Huntington for the day. There are truly few places on earth more beautiful than this.
4) Badger's period cooking - I only wish I could have eaten more of it!
5) Gar's photos!
6) Perfect weather. Sunny and bright but not too hot.
Things that were not fabulous:
1) It was only one day
2) I didn't have time to make my own dress, though the dress Jeff had for me was a treat itself.
One thing I really liked was that we were portraying one day. Yup. While many groups aim to recreate "a chapter, not a page", we were recreating a sentence. :-) It was the first day of 21-Elizabeth - or November 17th, 1578 - and we are at the Accession Day festivities on Richmond Green after 11 weeks of Progress. *whew* The cool thing is that you can eliminate a great deal of what you have to know by scratching everything after that date. The hard part is that you have to know enough about that date and what comes before to have a convincing conversation with a patron who may know more than you do! The Huntington audience is educated, interested and SOBER! A far cry from the masses at the faire, LOL! If I have it right, we did make one exception to the date - Humphrey Gilbert wold have been at sea fro maybe a month, so we let him stick around a hair longer than he did. And the Huntington had one other date-exception: they had a band of players doing Shakespeare, and he would have been something like 11 years old. Both minor exceptions I could easily live with. LOL! What a difference from the big faire!
Anyway, it was great fun, and probably the best situation I could have hoped for to start with the role. Photos of the whole day are here on Gar's site, and a couple of me as her nibs behind the cut. :-) Pix are kinda big so be forewarned...
The grand entrance
Those sleeve puffs! ARRRRGGGHHHH! The only thing about that dress I didn't like...
Dancing Chiara Stella with Andrew...
And my first try out of my new ruff set with the silver lace - made by the Renaissance Tailor, and worth every penny!