Welcome to our merry crew
of piracy and pleasure!
Do everything you’ve dreamed to do
And do it to full measure!
Cheer our brave knights
And honest fools,
Sail into this port
Where fantasy rules!
Let the world slip
‘Tis time to dance!

So there I was, “a wandering minstrel I,” at my first Renaissance Faire with melons a-bobbling and fa-la-la-ing with the best of them, The Briton Ensemble, and I had a great time!

The Renaissance Faire started in 1963 in Los Angeles when school teacher Phyllis Patterson held a very small version of the faire as a class activity in the backyard of her Laurel Canyon home in the Hollywood Hills. Now, it has become an eagerly awaited-for and extremely successful yearly Los Angeles tradition. After that first manifestation in the backyard, later that same year, Phyllis and her husband presented the first Renaissance Pleasure Faire as a one-weekend fundraiser for radio station KPFK, drawing some 8,000 people. The Patterson family’s company, Theme Events Limited, and its non-profit affiliate, The Living History Center, are generally credited with developing the Renaissance Faire concept as it exists today, with “Maying” customs and partaking of rich lore and age-old English springtime markets. There are now over 100 independently owned and operated Renaissance Faires throughout the United States and Canada.

And lo these many years hereinafter, the original Renaissance Pleasure Faire of Southern California (RPFS) and its land of Port Deptford, after being held in a number of different Southern California locations, finally has a home at the Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area in Irwindale.

Doesn’t this sound educational and charming? Well, it is, but this event is also beyond authentic, and “there’s the rub.” This event is not for the faint of heart nor any garden variety voyeur looking for buxom wenches or an occasional cod piece. Whether you’re there as participants, for sport or as a spectator, 99% of the people are in costume and speak “the language,” my fine gentlefolk. These costumes are very authentic, for the most part — nary a zipper or button in sight but lots of laces and lacing. The participants, most of whom are yearly attendees, are experts at their craft, besides being great actors able to stay in character for the entire time they’re at Port Deptford.

The Faire has showcased a large ensemble of performers, fine artists, craftspeople and crew. Having always drawn on the rich variety arts movement in Los Angeles and the explosion of outdoor public events, the Faire has grown to such proportions that interactive environmental theatre and stage shows are now overlaid with large scale processions featuring giant puppets and courtly displays, including no less than Queen Elizabeth I. The London-based Reduced Shakespeare Company, San Francisco’s Fratelli Bologna, Tutti Frutti, St. Stupid and the Los Angeles Fools Guild are all developed from improvisational-focused ensembles that initially worked together at the Pleasure Faire. Famous actors who worked at the Pleasure Faire in their youth include Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Rosanna Arquette and Penn Jillette.

For this, my first-ever visit, I became intimate (no, gentlefolk, not in that manner) with two groups in particular: The Briton Ensemble and the Los Angeles Fools Guild. Both know how to have a good time, and both groups are very talented and dedicated to their crafts and are professional about perpetuating tradition.

The Briton Ensemble, a madrigal group, was started by James Briton Hendricks — hence the name Briton. To my understanding, the group started very informally as an outgrowth of a bunch of fools who got together regularly for friendship, not unlike many of the participating groups at the Faire. James and a friend were part of a madrigals group that was formed to sing at the Faire — by audition — maybe twenty or twenty-five years ago. Eventually, when the Pattersons lost control of the Faire, the madrigals group splintered and then drifted apart. Rumor has it that there were some dark ages of the Faire, where not much music was performed at all, unlike now where music of all kinds is continuously being performed. In fact, at this very same Faire this year, the entertainment included special guest appearances by the Anjani Dance Theatre of India and the Russian Souvenir Dance Company, which preserves the traditions of Russia.

James Hendricks started to sing with a merry band of Faire friends at dinners and get-togethers of fools. I’ve been told the Fools Guild was formed by the artistes (sic) of the RenFaire patterned after the Guilds of the historical Renaissance era. Singing first simple catches and rounds, they then started harmonizing the traditional Faire tunes, such as “Three Merry Men of Kent,” “Health to the Company,” and “Mad Tom of Bedlam.” After a while, the group increased in capability. Now, having been together for nearly seven years, the Briton Ensemble rehearses and performs on a regular basis around Southern California.

The Fools Guild was formed not by “the Faire” but rather by a random group of fools, jesters, jugglers, mimes, etcetera, who happened to be working the Faire and hanging out together in the late ’70s. There was, and still is, a “Guild” system at the Faire which organizes performers into different functional groups, such as Nobles, Peasants, Fishmongers, Washerwomen, etc. This works well because it helps performers have a focus, plus it echoes the Medieval tradition of craftsmen’s guilds which were a big influence on everyday life in the Tudor period. The Fools Guild was never an official Faire-sanctioned Guild. It was sort of an “anti-guild” formed in gentle, gleeful mockery of the real Guilds. The first Fools Parade was held around 1980 as an unsanctioned, un-permitted “anti-parade” because the fools thought the official parades were boring and predictable. Hasn’t it always seemed that the court jesters and “fools” told the truth in a manner that sometimes cut a little too close to the bone?

Whether it be a play of the period on one of the many stages, musicians, magicians, a parade of spectacular pageantry and heraldry, just about whatever sparks your fancy or piques your imagination, it’s all there at The Renaissance Faire, and not to be forgotten, such as authentic foods including the obligatory huge roast turkey legs that you see lots of people wandering around gnawing on — the very same people who normally eat pizza with a knife and fork.

And Hip-Hip Huzzah, says I!