Access to Art Presents Cape May Renaissance Festival

WEST CAPE MAY– Access to Art, a N.J. not for profit, that has presented the visual and performing arts in Cape May County for l8 years, will present a first ever Cape May Renaissance Festival at l68 West Stevens St., West Cape May, Oct. 2nd and 3rd this year, from l0 a.m. to 5 p.m. bringing together the arts, food, a beer garden and a two day event burgeoning with family fun and Elizabethan accents.
Access is presenting an Elizabethan Court, on progression, through the l6th century summers with Queen Elizabeth I, visiting her people through the shires and hamlets, castles and vineyards of Elizabethan England. Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was a patron of the arts.
It was an age noted for the development of theater (Shakespeare, Marlowe, Ben Johnson) and Elizabeth studied rhetoric, enjoyed plays and masques, played music, encouraged poets, jousts and horseback riding. She commanded six languages, and had a court full of ambassadors from Spain, Italy, France, and her own courtiers consisting of noble family members of English descent. In an age of Religious wars, she was a moderate. On these tours of the English countryside, she often took l,000 courtiers, and they descended upon noble’s estates who were under the obligation to entertain the Queen, ply her with presents, and feed and house her retinue. The stay could not be too long, since that number of visitors in castles and manor houses strained the primitive plumbing and the houses had to be fumigated after the visits. The Queen repaid her courtiers with appointments at court, with procurements of royal rights to selling this or managing that, and with castles and lands to the accommodating families. Feuds and power struggles were in order, and various factions struggled for the Queen’s favor. Elizabeth’s motto was: ” I look, and say nothing.”
“Presenting Martha Graham Dance Company, Miami City Ballet, North Carolina Dance Theatre, Robert Battle’s Battleworks, Philadanco, a classical summer music series, or a major retrospective on the WPA with Ben Shahn’s wife, Bernarda Bryson Shahn, or Aquila Theatre Company’s “As You Like It,” is all small potatoes as far as presentations go compared to the mammoth organization needed to present a Renaissance Festival. We are beginning small, but, then, so did the NY Ren Festival, and the Medieval Festival at Fort Tryon Park, and now they have hundreds of thousands of attendees.” said Barbara Beitel, event coordinator, and Access to Art, Inc. Director. “However, speaking with the former arts coordinator of the NY Medieval Festival, their budget for the arts part of it is the same as ours. So we will have music, theatre, puppetry, a royal court and two days of entertainment including Renaissance bands and madrigals. We have a beautiful, if undeveloped site, at the gorgeous vineyard and property of Barbara Bray Wilde in West Cape May which consists of 40 some acres of vineyards, meadows, and woods tucked into the quiet farming and residential community of West Cape May. We hope to have this festival grow, and become a major tourist destination event, and a promoter of the arts, in which we specialize, in the Cape May area.” Beitel said. “It’s good to have a multidisciplinary approach to the arts, which we always have done, and this brings art, costuming, acting, music, singing together.” she said. “And we love having a harvest festival.” she said.
“Just keeping in touch with the acts, scheduling their appearances, ordering the tents, choosing the material for costumes, working with the costume designer, doing the media, hosting the auditions, all of it is labor intensive.” Beitel said. “Thank God that Jenn Matthews, Mastergardener from Rutgers, is on the committee and dealing with the infrastructure, and Patrick Mulvaney is laying out the site and working with the actors. Angela Pakruda and Gwenne Tempest are working on seeking craft vendors for us. Michael Pakruda is helping by lending us a big 20×20 square inch tent, and a dressing room for the actors. Barbara Wilde has been graciously allowing us to use her home as a rehearsal and audition space and has her help mowing the back 40.” she said. “Tom Thaler is doing all our signs, and creating order out of chaos with that.” Beitel said. “Our costume designer, Janet McShane, is a wonder with her designs, her careful study of the period, and the amazing costumes she creates seemingly effortlessly.” she said. “She was a student at Moore College of Art in Costume Design, and she also studied at the Pa. Academy of Fine Arts where she garnered many awards. She has a truly in depth love of history, and has a gallery of her art in Dennisville on Rte. 47 where she lives in a very old house, with a keeping room.” Beitel said. “We have the Knights of Columbus, at Our Lady of the Angel’s R.C. church in Cape May Court House helping us man the beer garden. We still need some people to volunteer for the day of the event with giving out maps, directions, and organizational work at the festival. We would love the community to get into the spirit of things, and don Renaissance costumes.
If anyone is interested in helping us create a major theatrical and musical event, and likes the Renaissance, and would like to work on the committee, call Barbara at (609) 465-3963.