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Latest ATF News: 11/23/2023 - Two Renaissance festivals in Ames, Iowa?
Latest ATF News: 11/23/2023 - Two Renaissance festivals in Ames, Iowa?
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Sure, I know the Washer Well Wenches of Wybreg personally. In fact, I helped get them together. And yes, I have been dating the head wench for almost two years. Sure I realize I helped write a bit of their act and also help them out, but that doesn't mean I can't provide an unbiased review of their show, now, does it?  |
THE WASHER WELL WENCHES IN WEVIEW It all started when the Renaissance Foundation hired festival veteran John Mills to organize and run the Wybreg Village Renaissance Fall Festival in 2000... John Mills is apparently a legend of some sorts. He had a lot to do with the forming of the festival that today is known as Bristol and he has ties to some of the best renaissance performers in the industry. Somehow the Renaissance Foundation found him and brought him onboard to help turn around the struggling Wybreg Village event held in Bonaparte, Iowa. Could a big city producer help a small town festival? The answer turned out to be a mixed "yes and no" but one thing was clear—John knew his entertainment.
That event, of course, was just the beginning. There was no show. They were simply street characters and, due to their special talents, they received a rather nice mention in a newspaper article about the festival. This kind of attention must have gone straight to their heads as the next thing you know the girls had put together plans to be an actual performing troupe for the 2001 season. And so our story begins... Whine, whine, wine...
After a handful of other meetings (at Kierra's house, then at Willa's) three new scripts had been developed, with at least two of them being mostly complete. I see the script has arrived. The Letter - While doing laundry, Mistress Sheila discovers a note in one of the laundry baskets. Unable to read, she recruits a man from the audience to read it for her. As he reads out the wonderfully poetic words on the page Keirra overhears the man's voice from the other side of the laundry line. Sheila just knows the letter was left for her and she is as giddy as can be, while Keirra is convinced she is being serenade by a secret admirer. When Mistress Willa arrives she soon gets the girls back on track doing laundry and, one by one, she hears each confide in her about her new secret love. Interesting, she thinks, until she discovers the letter herself which turns out to be a page from a book she recently read. The tale twists and turns as Willa has fun with the other wenches until the truth is revealed.
How to Get a Wench in Advertising - This story started out not with the wenches finding a letter in a basket, but with them finding nothing in the baskets. Business was slow at the well, so soon the girls are trying to find out ways to drum up business. Since this story has never been publicly performed I won't go into details about some of the ideas that are expressed, but the basic outline promises to be alot of fun if they ever come up with a way to actually end the performance ;-) Opening knight.
The event was classified as a success even though every prop seemed to fall apart. There was no pay for this event, but the wenches could collect tips. The pressure of the large audiences didn't seem to shake the girls. Following this event the wenches would repeat their efforts at the one day Waterloo Renaissance Festival (using a new and improved wash line that did not fall apart), then again at the incredibly hot Faire of the Midlands in Council Bluffs, Iowa. In spite of poor event organization (causing the wenches to lug all their props from one end of the faire to the next repeatedly), the shows went down, overall, without any hitches. Due to the lack of stage space for one of the Midlands performances, Sheila and Keirra attempted to ad-lib a small version of the Advertising play. A small sunbaked audience was grateful when the wenches encouraged everyone to go seek out shade and return for a later performance at a real stage. After Council Bluffs, the wenches considered changing the act's name to the Washer Well Winches or the Well Washer Wenches since the festival decided to misspell their name three out of six times they performed! The future? As of this writing, the Washer Well Wenches have a few more potential performances in the fall (Geneseo, Iowa Renaissance Festival, and Wybreg Village) but, truth be told, I don't know if the girls have had a chance to decide if the effort required to get them all together is worth it. Sheila is three hours south of Willa, and Keirra is two hours east from there. They understood that the first year would be sans payment as they built up an audience, but the harsh reality of rising gas prices and extended road trips is not something that anyone should envy.
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As
part of the planning process, John was set on having a good storyline,
a strong queen, a play and many other things including washer well
wenches. Since Mistress Willa and I already were involved with the
Foundation (doing their web site and working at the festivals), and since
Willa was a certified wench, it seemed natural that she would get the
job of putting together some washer well wenches for the Fall festival.
Mistress Sheila (Marci), whom we had met at Hamlet of Slater earlier in
the year, was the first to be recruited for the group. Our friend Cale,
whom we met at the spring 2000 Wybreg event, recommended a lady he worked
with and thus Keirra Mayholme (Jennifer) was brought in. We now had three
women willing to lace up and play the roles of the Washer Well Wenches
of Wybreg.
An
early Des Moines meeting had the three girls creating storylines over
dinner followed by script development at a hotel room over wine. As the
evening progressed, the outline for The Letter had been created.
The script, involving a misinterpreted letter found in a laundry basket,
was pieced together very quickly. A video tape of the first run through
of this play exists somewhere in the AtTheFaire archives and it awaits
the day when its unveiling might be most profitable. But I digress...
My
Faire Lady - In an amazing new storyline, Keirra finds a bark-like
substance in the laundry and, unable to read it, she turns it over to
Mistress Willa. Willa immediately sees that this is an invitation to a
fancy ball being held by a rich bachelor. Since the wenches don't have
the status to attend such a fancy ball, they hatch an elaborate plan to
find someone they can turn into a lady and sneak into the ball to get
the attention of the bachelor. They plan to make him fall for the lady,
marry her, and then they can work in the castle and live a life of luxury.
Keirra, due to being married, is out of the running very quickly, and
Mistress Willa believes she has what it takes to be a lady until she is
reminded that her one true love, John-Paul, might not care for this idea
much. All eyes turn to the rather wild Mistress Sheila who is not only
single, but very popular with all the men in the village. ("There
are reasons why the men love her!" exclaims Keirra.) The two plotting
wenches attempt to dress up Sheila and teach her manners. If you've ever
thought about what it would take to make a wench ladylike, you will be
able to guess what happens...
A
dress rehearsal was held in the backyard (and recorded on video tape for
future blackmail) and soon the wenches would be on their way to the debut
at Salisbury Faire in Des Moines. This festival would be a very big
event, drawing in over 21,000 visitors during its single weekend run.
Will
there be wenches in the Fall? I hope so—there hasn't been a Midwest
wench act in years and these girls have alot of wonderful potential. Best
of all, they seem to draw a very large audience, usually much larger than
other acts appearing at the same stages. Stay tuned and be sure to check
out wench pictures, videos, and news at the official 