Get on your best swashbuckling pirate outfit, your wench outfit, your courtier outfit, your bishop or monk outfit, and join Access to Art, Inc. at the Cape May Ren Fest scheduled for Oct. 2nd and 3rd at Willow Creek Farm, l68 Stevens Street, West Cape May from l0 a.m. t 5 p.m. Or come in your casuals.
 About Queen Elizabeth
Cape May Renaissance Festival which will feature the era of Elizabeth I of England, a patron of the arts, remembered for maintaining the peace, sponsoring theatre, poetry, rhetoric, languages, music, and keeping the budget of England balanced. Daughter of Henry VIII and the ill fated Anne Boleyn, she was surrounded by plots and courtiers, future and past descendants of her lineage, who wanted their shot at the throne, and her motto was "I look, and say nothing."
She played the lute, loved to dance the Galliard, went breakneck horseback riding with Sir Robert Dudley, and studied all the courtly arts of the era. She spoke six languages and was proficient in translating Greek into English and back again, and Latin into English and the reverse. She woke and performed dance exercises each morning, preceding her hunt, where she was well known to bag quite a few does. She was a reckless and passionate horsewoman.
Featured Acts
The Elizabethan Court
The Elizabethan Court will be headed by actress Karen Case Cook, a veteran of East Lynne Company in Cape May, a New Yorker, who has directed and acted in regional theatre and theatre in NYC. She will be intercepted by a tavern wench, known in the area as Susan Tischler, an editor of Cape May Magazine, who has a plaint to put before the Queen. Courtiers of various ages and types will surround Good Queen Bess on her progressions throughout the countryside. We invite you to join them for two days of delightful entertainment and playing Renaissance style.
The Renaissaonics
Renaissonics Band, led by John Tyson, who performs in England, France, Canada and the U.S., will bring two Renaissance dancers in costume to perform, and a stilt walker. Renaissonics performs with the efficacy of jazz musicians, but with Renaissance instruments. They perform in England, France, Canada and the U.S. and on NPR to rave reviews.
Press release on Renaissance Festival (PDF) | Renaissonics John Tyson's biography
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As You Like It
"As You Like It," a Shakespearian comedy, will be presented by East Lynne actors, Mark E. Lang, Alison J. Murphy, and regional actors Lisa Di Bruno and Jim Maher who have appeared at the Ritz and with South Jersey Regional Theatre. This was a production developed last year and written by actor/director/writer Mark E. Lang, a graduate of Vassar College in theatre, who studied with actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company, and directed the actors at the NY Ren Faire.
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Bart Singer
We will have songs by Bart Singer, a collector of Elizabethan songs, art songs and ballads who has sung both in Philadelphia and in our area.
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Haddonfield Memorial High School Madrigal Singers
The Haddonfield Memorial High School Madrigal singers will join us on Sunday, along with another group of Madrigal Singers from Cherry Hill East.
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The Coeur de Lion Band
Coeur de Lion band with Michael & Grace Peters, regulars at the NY Ren Festival, the Medieval Festival, and the Maryland Ren Festival.
 
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A Couple of Note
Singing sweetly through all this mayhem and magic will be A Couple of Note, who have performed Renaissance music and Medieval Music at both the New York Ren Festival, and the Medieval Festival.
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Lucas the Magician, who does razor blade swallowing, puts his assistant into a 23'x23' foot box in which he plies his three foot long sword. In his spare time, he does fire eating, and sets his tongue on fire. He studied magic since he was 9 years old. He can perform professional magic for either stage, parlour, or street and brings a collapsing table where he does his cups and balls act in which the balls protrude through the cups. For light entertaining, he does juggling, which will surely be easier on your heart conditions or agitata than watching him swallowing swords or eating fire.
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Felix the Bubble Meister, who has been making bubble machines from l983, originally for kite flying to provide a visual reference for what the ground wind is doing. These machines were self contained and battery powered. "When I got involved in going to Ren Faires, I thought how can I bring bubbles to the Faire? said Felix Cantagena. "I documented that bubbles were made in the time period. Pieter Breugle the Elder painted a picture in l560 called "Children's Games," and in it , one of the children is blowing bubbles. The actual machine, while there is no documentation in that one actually existed, is constructed using technology that was used in the time period, a bellows and a simple lever. The machine is mounted on a wooded cart so that it is portable and self contained, and of course, uses only muscle power to make it work." Cantagena said. "My favorite experience with children at these events, was a ten year old boy, who watched me and watched me, and finally came up and said: "You're not like other adults, are you?"
Students in the court, practicing in the vineyards at Barbara Brae Wilde's home in W. Cape May.
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