A festival on the cutting edge
Come each spring, thousands of people in Middle Tennessee fervently look forward to the past. The 23rd annual Tennessee Renaissance Festival, running every weekend this month plus Memorial Day, will take place in Triune, just a catapult's throw from Nashville but centuries removed, for the occasion, from the hurly-burly of modern life. The festival, one of the largest and best known of its kind in the country, is the only one held on the grounds of a real working castle. The man whose home is his castle is Mike Freeman, a photographer by trade, who designed and built much of the edifice himself. His construction is very much a work-in-progress; last year Castle Gwynn acquired the second of its two copper dome roofs. The roof, 34 feet in diameter and 32 feet high, and built entirely in true 16th-century fashion (no nails were used; the joints were fastened with wooden pegs), crowns the five-story, 100-feet-high tower, which is visible for miles and miles.
The master plan foresees a four-tower castle area to include a Great Hall.
Each year since 1986 Freeman has hosted the festival, giving the public its only opportunity of the year to tour the 12th-century replica castle. A lover of history and collector of antiques, Freeman has a particular interest in the late Middle Ages - he's a Renaissance man. Each year the Renaissance Festival transports visitors, Connecticut Yankee-like, to 16th-century England, when knighthood was in flower. Fully armored competitive jousting is just part of the entertainment; jousting is no jesting matter for the finely tuned athletes from around the world who will meet in true competition, including during the International Jousting Tourney May 24-26. There'll also be pirates, swordfighters, wandering minstrels and other musicians, jugglers, human chess players, knife throwers, glass blowers, puppeteers, magicians, balladeers, singing milkmaids, and debating astronomers at the Festival. Performers on hand will include Axel the Sot, Paulo Garbanzo (one of the Flying Karamozov Brothers), Giacomo the Jester, Baraki Mundi (Middle Eastern dancers), Empty Hats, the Washing Well Wenches, Master Falconer Kitty Tolson-Carroll, Master Magician Isaac Fawlkes, Lady Ophelia (period dancer), Lady Ettie (period etiquette and fashion expert), Rabbie the Piper, and firewalker Johnny Phoenix. (And maybe even a surprise appearance by Theodoric, Barber of York.)
Unusual artisans from all over the U. S. will demonstrate and offer for sale the perfect gifts for those hard-to-shop-for parties of your acquaintance, such as armor, scented oils, henna tattoos, custom-fitted buffalo hide boots, Medieval costumes, painted capes, walking sticks, bird chimes and whistles, and Renaissance pottery and art. And psychic readers will be on hand to tell you what exactly the 20th century will hold. Food on the Festival menu will include steak on a stick, gyros, and huge turkey legs (suitable as a weapon, no doubt, should a wayward jouster or sword wielder accost you).
Speaking of sword wielders, Ryan Gigliotti, the Renaissance Festivals entertainment director, is one of the best in the business. He learned the art of swordsmanship at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair, whose staff included three teachers certified by the Association of American Fight Directors, a group devoted to improving the quality and safety of staged combat. He performed at the Fair for six or seven years while sharpening his skills; he met his wife there, and the couple went on the road, doing two-person shows at Renaissance festivals all over. He took over as entertainment director at the Tenn-Ren five years ago. His duties include hiring and scheduling the stage acts, casting and training local actors and writing and directing a couple of shows. He has managed to do this while holding down a full-time job at Disney World's Magic Kingdom in Orlando, as a principal in the Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor. It's the first time in ten years, he says, that he hasn't had a job involving swordfighting, but he hasn't laid down his blade altogether: He's been asked to put on special events at Disney World involving swords. Miniver loved the days of old/When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;/The vision of a warrior bold/Would set him dancing. For all those with a least a little Miniver Cheevy in them, the Tennessee Renaissance Festival will stir their hearts and perhaps even set them dancing.
The Tennessee Renaissance Festival will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on May 10-11 (Romance Weekend), 17-18 (Pirate Invasion Weekend), and 24-26 (International Jousting Tournament Weekend), which includes Memorial Day, May 26. Triune is 25 minutes from Nashville, off Highway 96 between Franklin and Murfreesboro, easily accessible from I-65, I-24 or I-840. Parking is free. For admission prices, an updated schedule of events, and a whole pirate's chest of other information, visit www.tnrenfest.com, or call 615-395-9950.