The Drama Club sponsored their annual trip to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire on October 11.

The Drama Club offers this field trip every year, because it can help Drama Club students improve their acting skills while other students can learn about history and culture.

This year 12 people went on the trip, which cost them each $25; that money went toward admission and some travel expense. The Drama Club payed the rest of the money which was about $300.

The different plays in the Faire teach the members of the Drama Club how to improve their acting skills. Drama teacher James Craley said, “They’ll see shows in language of Elizabethan time and in costume of that style.” There were many small skits and plays to see, but there was one main story that changes every year.

The story of the main play centered around two royal families from France and England that challenge the others to a joust to the death.

This causes the characters to stab each other in the back. Eventually, however, the kings make up and decide to be friends.

One of the smaller skits included a reenactment of Hamlet with only three actors to play all the characters. Junior Viktoria Panayotova said this helped teach her what it meant to be a professional actor.

Another activity that the students were able to see was Human Chess. Actors pretended to be pieces of a chess board and even acted like they were fighting with each other when their pieces met.

While there, students can even go up and interact with the characters the actors are portraying. A sophomore and secretary of the Drama Club, Lily Kreiss, said that this teaches the Drama Club members how to be in character for an extended period of time.

Another interesting aspect of the fair for Drama Club members were the costumes. The costumes that the actors wore were fantastic and realistic to the time period.

Kreiss said, “All of the actor’s costumes were really beautiful and a lot of other people had really nice ones too!”

Some students also dressed up for the trip. Girls often wore long skirts with blouses and small corsets.

At the Renaissance Faire you could buy costumes from that time period and wands.

Students also had the opportunity to buy food from that time period; for example, chicken and turkey legs, chicken on a stick, and giant pickles. Vintage style soap was sold, too.

There are a lot of interactive activities that students were able to participate in like old style of dances and glass blowing.

All students had something that they could enjoy; history fans, students interested in culture, and Shakespeare readers.

“I was intrigued by the technical aspect,” said Molly Holtz, member of the technical crew for the Drama Club. She wondered how the sound for all the plays worked because she did not see a sound crew.

Everyone in the Drama Club enjoyed the trip to the Renaissance Faire. Panayotova and Hultz were especially impressed because they had never been on the trip before.

The students also enjoyed their time with friends and the food at the fair. Although most of them didn’t get the chicken on a stick or turkey legs, there were other popular dishes.

Panayotova found chicken dumplings and soup in a bread bowl.