Auditions Aug. 26 for Renaissance Court-Actors

WEST CAPE MAY — Access to Art, Inc. will hold auditions for the Cape May Renaissance Festival’s Queen Elizabeth I’s Court on Thur., Aug. 26 at 1 p.m. at Willow Creek Vineyard/Farm, l68 Stevens St.
The farm is off Fourth Street off Broadway here, and runs into Stevens Street. It is the first house after Rea’s Farm Market, a yellow mansion, on the right hand side of the road behind a vineyard.
It can also be accessed from Sunset Boulevard onto Stevens Street, in which case, it will be on the left. Professional actors will join students, and community members, in the court of Elizabeth at the Renaissance Festival.
Auditioners are asked be prepared to read a Shakespearian sonnet.
Elizabeth was surrounded by ladies in waiting, who accompanied her every move, and by gentlemen who were courtiers, chancellors, adventurers and explorers, and members of the English nobility.
Call Access to Art at (609) 465-3963 for information, or e-mail barbarabeitel@verizon.net.
Check the website at www.accesstoart.org or capemayrenfest.com.
The Renaissance Festival to be held on Oct. 2-3 will feature a Queen’s Court, Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” Renaissonics, a band from Boston, that performs in Europe, Canada, the U.S. and on NPR radio will perform both days.
A Renaissance band, Collegium Musicum from Rowan University will make several appearances on Saturday, joined by various singing acts from the New York and Maryland Ren Festivals.
On Sunday, Madrigals, The Sea Dogs, A Couple of Note, and Coeur de Lion, will make cameo appearances at the festival.
Explore the age of Elizabeth in music and theatre, a time when the arts and prosperity were burgeoning in England.
It was the glorious age of the Defeat of the Armada, famous above all for the flourishing of English drama led by playwrights such as William Shakespeare, Ben Johnson and Christopher Marlowe, and for the seafaring prowess of English adventurers such as Sir Francis Drake. Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.
She lived a life in and out of favor, which precipitated her motto: “Video et taceo,” “I see, and say nothing.” This strategy, viewed with impatience by her counselors, often saved her from political and marital misalliances.
She offered her hand to various suitors from other countries for international alliances, and never quite gave it.
Her favorite, Lord Dudley, Earl of Leicester, she might have married but her counsellors would have none of it. She had known him since she was a girl of eight and he declared that then she had said that she would never marry.
She told her people that she was married to England, and that was her allegiance, and was called The Virgin Queen.
Elizabeth set out to rule by good counsel, and she depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers led by William Cecil, Baron Burghley. One of her first moves as queen was to support the establishment of an English Protestant church.
Her father broke from the papacy, and the former Defender of the Faith, established himself as head of church and state. Henry had studied theology, and would have been prepared for the church, had his brother, Arthur, not died at l5-years-old.
He was married six times in pursuit of a male heir, trying to establish the Tudor dynasty. He sent two of his wives to the tower for execution, divorced several, and banished one.