Colorado Renaissance Festival is no jest > About Town > Stories > Castle Pines

RECENT STORIES

ID theft and business webinar ( Susan Trost )
Free mulch from Douglas County two days in October ( Douglas County )
Fall reads from Douglas County Libraries ( Sherri Ober )
Transafrika benefit concert ( Steve Baroch )
Paulson gets power for empty promises ( Tamara Thoene )

share a story | more postings »

YourHub.com \\ Castle Pines \\ Stories \\ News \\ About Town

Colorado Renaissance Festival is no jest

e-mail to a friend | print this | link to this

NEXT › ‹ PREVIOUS

Contributed by: Joseph Kirchmer/YourHub.com on 6/9/2008

Behind all the turkey legs, jousters and swashbucklers, the Colorado Renaissance Festival is a serious business.

The annual summer festival, which accounts for more than half of Larkspur's economy, features more than 150 performers, musicians and actors. Some go on to perform on a bigger stage, including magicians Penn and Teller, who got their start at the festival.

One half of the pair -- Teller -- performed at the Colorado Renaissance Festival in 1979.

Other notable renaissance festival performers include Puke and Snot, who first appeared at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival in 1974, and Arsene from Paris, who has performed at the White House, Disney World and Las Vegas.

Betty Spreen, who has worked as the entertainment director for the Colorado Renaissance Festival for 11 years, said the festival remains a popular draw because of the low turnover rate among its performers.

"A lot of our performers have been with us for 10 years," Spreen said. "We have a great return rate of people coming back to our show, which is great because they can really grow into their roles."

One of those performers is H. Rali Gilchrist, who has been with the festival for 13 seasons. The Castle Rock resident, who also works full-time at a car dealership, willingly gives up 10 of her weekends each summer to rehearse and perform for the show.

"The one thing that I like is that we have a small cast, but it's a very tight-knit cast," she said. "We look out for each other like a family. It's really refreshing to have that."

Jim Paradise Jr., the festival's marketing director, said the show can be a stepping stone to bigger things.

"There really have been a lot of performers who have went on and done successful things," he said.

And he's not shy about touting it. After all, the festival expects to draw more than 225,000 visitors this summer.

"We really have the best entertainment in Colorado," he said.

UP NEXT

What: Opening of Colorado Renaissance Festival

When: Opens at 10 a.m. June 14 and runs weekends through Aug. 3

Where: Larkspur. Use exit 173 when coming from Denver and 172 when approaching from Colorado Springs.

Cost: $17.95 for adults; $8 for children ages 5 to 12; free for children under 5

Info: www.coloradorenaissance.com

[Report this as objectionable content.]

SUBMIT COMMENT

Rate the above story

Talk Back : submit comments to the story

*Note: you need to log-in to add a comment or rating.

Thank you! Your comment has been updated.

SAVE AND SHARE THIS STORY

digg	Google
del.icio.us	Yahoo!
reddit	newsvine

What is this?

STORY RSS FEEDS

All stories

All stories in Castle Pines

All stories by Joseph Kirchmer

WANT TO WRITE FOR YOURHUB.COM?

Want to see the stories you write and the photos you shoot featured in the YourHub.com Thursday print section available all over the Front Range and with home subscriptions of the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post? All you have to do is register, then post a story or column, start a blog or tell everyone what events are happening in town. We will print the best stories, columns, event listings, photos and blog entries in our print sections.

Loading Ad