Right: A royal subject displays her costume to the visitors last year. Entertainment at the Renaissance Festival includes a parade of the royal court.
Below: David Volmut, Topeka senior, left, and Ian Johnson, St. Joseph, Mo., junior, battle each other in Renaissance Festival in Bonner Springs. They are participants last year in a Pennsic war between kingdoms in the United States.
KANSAN file photo
KANSAN file photo
Renaissance Festival returns to times past
By Sanaka Samarasinha Special to the Kansan
If you are feeling the pressure of classes, the strain of bills or just tired of the life's routine and want to find an alternative to bar-hopping on Saturday nights, the Kansas City Renaissance Festival in Bonner Springs may be your answer.
The festival, which runs every weekend through Oct.17 from 10 a.m.to 6.30 p.m.is a refreshing option for students looking for quality entertainment at a relatively low price. For the price of a medium pizza, you can extract a whole day's merriment out of the variety of talented entertainers at the festival.
If you are making your first visit to the 17th Annual Renaissance Festival, the chances are you have already heard much about it. However, if you have been the victim of highly-rated theme parks you may be just a little skeptical of the popular event, which is a 20-minute drive from the KU campus on I-70 east.
In Merry Ole England
However, after walking through Cotswold Commons, North Bramble and Sheffield Way, more than likely you will succumb to the joys of this unique, entertaining and educational event.
"For the money you pay you get four times as much entertainment as any other place around here," says Mike Owens, Leawood junior.
The Renaissance was the great revival of art, literature and learning which enveloped most of Europe from the 14th century through the 17th century. This period marks the transition from the medieval to the modern world. As liberated and creative thought spread, nobles and commoners alike developed a new interest in classic civilization.
The Renaissance Festival captures and preserves the spirit of this period through the replication of a typical 16th-century village. Castles, manors, pubs and boutiques, manned by more than 150 crafts people, adorn the 14-acre fair ground, as over 300 performers provide continuous entertainment on nine open-air stages, street corners or where ever they may find you.
As Bob, The Incredible Juggler, stands on a ball juggling six cigar boxes at the Mermaid Theatre, Magician Estavon Peyton is busy burning somebody's $100 bill and then making it reappear.
While the Renaissance Acting Troupe is making its comedic debut at the Three Lion's Theatre — the troupe largely performing the improvisational commedia dell'arte show — and keeping the audience in hysterics, Ian O'Donell, the Irish bard, is keeping another audience enthralled with his tunes.
As a large group gathers to watch an
Funforall
armored joust at Renaissance Downs, another group attentively listens to KUstaff member Pamela Keller strum beautiful melodies on a Celtic harp at Canterbury Court.
Meanwhile, the blacksmith is busy making custom ordered swords at The Blacksmith Shoppe, the potters are shaping intricately designed pots at Pinetree Pottery, the artists are creating interesting combinations of colored sand in glass bottles at Sand Art and several painters are attending to their customers at the numerous face-painting stalls.
Keller, a program analyst at the KU computer center, said that she was participating in the festival for the first time.
"I had been here before, and I liked it. So I auditioned for this year," she said.
"It gives you an opportunity to step back and enjoy the Renaissance without the negative aspects of the era," she said, referring to the absence of highway robbers, regional wars and the bubonic plague.
Jeremy Povenmire, marketing assistant for the Renaissance Festival, said that since all the participants are dressed in period costumes, there is a more authentic feeling of a Renaissance village.
"The fact that they also speak the language of the period, with an English accent, helps you to think you are in 16th century England and not Bonner Springs, Kan., in the 1990s," said Stephen Taylor, Wichita freshman.
KU graduate Leigh Reinhart, who is the marketing assistant and ticket sales coordinator for the Renaissance Festival, said there had been more visitors this year in comparison with the same period last year.
"We try to make it all as authentic accurate as possible," said Robin Mesh, assistant entertainment director for Renaissance Festival.
"That is partly due to the great media coverage we got this year," she said.
Mesh said 27,000 people attended the opening weekend of the festival this year. A total of more than 176,000 attended the festival through its duration last year.
Reinhart said that tickets are available at the gate and at several locations in Lawrence. She said the cheapest tickets are available to students through Student Union Activities.
SUA, which sells an average of 400 tickets each year, has tickets available to students at $8 per adult and $4 per child.
Owens said that more students should make use of the discounted prices and come to the festival.
"It is a fun place to come with your friends if you want to get away from Lawrence," he said. "And since you get all the shows, it is well worth the money."
September 24,1993 K-you • ENTERTAINMENT '93
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