Castle at Muskogee 2006
What a sweet little Faire we just played this past Memorial Day weekend! The Castle at Muskogee restored my faith in the way a good Renaissance festival can affect people for years afterwards. Our day began with my reluctant and somewhat tardy (I thought) trudge toward the surprisingly charming metal building made to look like a castle on the outskirts of windswept Muskogee. Randy had pulled a fast one on me though and what I thought was a 9 o’clock morning meeting turned out to be at 9:27 (?). Glancing up from my sporran (still keeping the cell phone timepiece hidden even though the opening gate was a half hour away… duh) I looked out to see what we had gotten ourselves into. What was this? Was that really a giant shaded pub done in dark wood complete with a covered stage? And are those paths actually lined with the kind of shop buildings one would expect at a Faire like Scarborough or Maryland? Okay sure there were also a lot of tent shops but is that chapel actually made of real sandstone? Whoa. The real thing, okay… I had underestimated this place. And just how far did all those paths go anyway. I never did fully explore the Muskogee Faire and I spent the whole weekend finding cool little nooks and crannies all over the place.
I remember back in the early 90’s playing TRF with Tom Campbell and Randy, it might have been the Rogues first year, when there was a buzz going around about a guy visiting from Oklahoma who was going to start a Faire up in Muskogee and he was going to have some indoor castle thingy and was looking for performers and such. I left the Rogues before I heard of what came of it and had heard mixed reviews of how this Faire was as a performer but now that I’ve had my own experience albeit in the Faire’s 11th year I’ve got to say it’s a real gem of a festival. It’s as if someone who really loved Renaissance Festivals started his very own and incorporated the best parts of the Texas Faires into it. At the morning meeting I found a couple hundred very enthusiastic performers cheering each other for the past weekend’s accomplishments. Having toured with the Rogues for the past two years I’ve gotten to know how a vision or lack of it in the management can produce a cast that has the pallid look of a group of mall food court employees or one that is fresh and looking for the fun in every moment. This cast was definitely the latter and though the weather held at a fairly uncomfortable hot on the final weekend, there seemed to be a surprising amount of fun being had. I was struck at how the management at Muskogee had boiled down what we all love about Faires in general. First there’s a pub practically every twenty feet. Second there’s shade both man-made and nature-made within three steps of almost anywhere. One of the most excellent nooks we found was the “boardwalk” of wooden paths winding around each other out of sight among the forest in the back of the Faire like a Rennie Escher drawing, guarded by a cute freckled barmaid in her wooden beer stand and attended by some pleasant musicians. Veteran faire-goers will immediately realize with a pleasant shock that this lovely shaded path-maze serves no commercial purpose but has instead been constructed because someone thought it would be “cool”. OMG.
Third: the Coin of the Realm is actually metal commemorative coinage that looks and feels and spends like you would imagine Inigo Montoya would use to pay for an ale after storming the castle and avenging his father. It reminded me of being in Scotland and buying Guiness with pound coins and imagining I was in a Dragonlance novel. The best part: you don’t have to use it!!! All the booths accept coin and dollars! And you can trade it back in to the bank a the end of the day!!! …Dude! (Not like this one Faire I did with the Rogues that forced it’s poor patrons to stand in not one but two lines to buy an overpriced bottle of water with some stupid paper notes and then at the exit put a coffee booth so you think ” right on, I’ll spend my last couple funny money bills on a little cup of coffee for the road” but hold on….they’re the only drink booth at the un-named faire that doesn’t accept sucker-dollars! Aarrghh!)
The coin at Muskogee gets a big thumbs up for adding to the atmosphere.
Fourth: Decent tavern entertainment. There was Heather Alexander, a beautiful redheaded singer who delivered exactly the kinds of songs and shanty’s that made you want to bang the table with your tankard but wasn’t overbearing. Also the belly dancers (Tulsa Desert Wind Dancers) were a beautiful, elegant, and spirit-lifting act MC-ed by a hilarious drummer and backup band. The Bedlam Bards were another expert group of musical entertainers that made you want to stick around and hoist another pint in the pub.
Fifth: A really sweet farewell song at the end of the day. Apparently someone went to Scarborough Faire where the final song of the day “The Parting Glass” is a truly magical experience. So at Muskogee the patrons who stay past the pub sing actually walk a “gauntlet” of the singing cast members as they sing the many-versed anthem that was written in honor of this Faire. It’s like 30 feet of nice voices singing this sweet song at you. hmm. A couple of notes I disagreed with but mostly a really nice song well sung.
So it appears somebody in Muskogee has a clue about why we all do this and about making the price of a ticket well worth it.
EJ