HI Folks,

I have attended Ohio faire off and on for about 10 years and and last season performed one weekend as "guest cast" along with a large group of nobles from my own faire (when we arrived we literally doubled the size of their cast).

So, from my own experience and observations I can tell you that Ohio faire has dramatically changed in recent years. To the best of my knowledge they have always been a faire with only a passing acquaintance with history and a relatively small cast. As far as I know they have always been much more focused on events and stage shows rather than character and interaction.

For a long time they had a court of about 20 players plus the Queen, a cast of townsfolk and some theme characters but they mainly did a few small cast shows that lead up to the combat chess match and the end of day joust. There was very little of the "characters in the lane" sort of thing. For many years they did make some attempt to play historical - they just never really played much - the only time you saw the queen and the court all day was on parade, at the chess match and at the joust...the Queen and court were always people in pretty clothes to be admired from afar.

About 4 years ago there was a change in managment and a big revamping of the cast and style of the faire. They have had 3 queens in 4 years and their nod to history had pretty much disappeared with the exception of character names - they use the names of Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers, but that is pretty much where the history ends.

As a guest performer working with their noble cast one weekend last season, I had several chats with their "guildmaster" (the poor man had the desire to be a real guildmaster but was not permitted to do so) who was greatly surprised and a bit envious to discover that at our faire the guilds chose and developed their own characters, created their own parts of the show, designed and created their own costumes, practiced dialect, etc. It seems that at the "new improved" Ohio faire ALL decisions re: characters, how they are played, what they do what they wear, etc is dictated by one person in faire management and the actors have little or no input in the matter. Unfortunately, the decision of management seemed to be to toss all things historical out the window but the names and turn the cast into a bunch of slapstick cartoon comedy characters who wear whatever costume "goes with the character" whether it fits the actor or not. All costume approvals come down from on high with the guildmasters having no chance of approval or correction so you see a lot of things like ladies skirts ending 2 inches above their ankle and worn with clearly visible jeans and sneakers underneath (in cast!) doublets that have the waist seam below the hips, etc.

As to what the management has chosen to do with the characters; that is truly a sad thing...last season, Lord Burleigh carried a whoopee cushion everywhere he went and made "fart" noises constantly, when asked about the odd acting choice he explained that "its what the director wants me to do", The Earl of Leicester was played as a "shrieking mimi" who was afraid of mice and would leap into the arms of any large man nearby whenever he "saw a mouse" . He was also played as being far more romantically interested in the "big strong pirates" than he was in Elizabeth and he wore a top hat and drank from a tea pot which hung from his belt in place of a goblet (really)...I don't know what management was thinking when they came up with that one, but the character was far more a bad attempt at a "Mad Hatter" than the Earl of Leicester! All of the characters are totally "one trick ponies" that have only one thing that they do such as fart, act drunk, shriek, etc.

And yes, they do indeed have a combat chess match which in years past has been done by good fighters and been interesting and thrilling to watch and displayed a variety of combat styles using character appropriate weapons ranging from food items and farm tools to swords and daggers. In previous years, the chess match would be fought well by both sides and end in a draw - the winner to be determined on the joust field. (thus setting up the end of day joust).

Last year, there were two teams of pirates who fought for a bit for no reason other than they were pirates and then the fight changed and became a sword duel between the Queen and the Earl of Leicester over some money that Leicester stole from the Mayor...and yes, our shouts of "Treason!" were loud but useless...Also I was concerned about safety in the chess match as at least two of the fighters had their moves and fight sequences written on the floor of their team's platform in sharpie marker and refered to the list frequently as if they really didn't know what move came next from minute to minute...

I am very sad to say that in my opinion, Ohio faire has gone from a nice faire with a small and aloof but historically based cast to what now looks like a nice hard site that has been taken over by a pack of highschool kids doing a poorly conceived attempt at "shock theater" directed by Beavis and Butthead...

As my own group of nobles left Ohio Faire after playing with their court for the day, the Ohio court guildmaster gave me a big hug and whispered in my ear "I wish they would let us be like you!" It is my understanding that he and several other of last season's Ohio cast who were interested in "really doing faire" did not return this year...which may explain at least in part the greatly reduced cast size this season.

Vel