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History

JP and PirateThis is J.P. here with a bit of history behind this group. The Pirate Comedy Show was, indeed, inspired. It was August 2003 and just a few weeks before the 12th Annual Iowa Renaissance Festival (and Harvest Faire). I had been recruited to work at the Iowa State Fair in the Tourism Building to help promote the upcoming festival (and harvest faire). I was in my normal (and very non-piratey) renaissance costume when I took a break and walked through the fair and heard visitors making comments such as . . .

  • "Hello Captain!"
  • "Pirates say Arrrr!"
  • "Pirates like beer!" (I, uh, heard this one while getting a beverage...)

Why did everyone think I was a pirate? In the past six years of wearing basically the same style or garb, no one had ever mistaken me for a scroungy old pirate. Something must be afoot. But what?

A few days later I was back at the State Fair doing festival promotions again and I heard more pirate comments. Could that Disney movie really have made such an impact on average everyday non-ren touristy types? Apparently it had... And with this realization came the goal to capitalize on it.

Here is a brief timeline of how the act came to be.

Brief Timeline Of How The Act Came To Be:

  • August 7 - J.P. (and ATF Pub member Queen Cate) works at the state fair Tourism Building in garb to promote the Iowa Renaissance Festival. During a walk to get food, J.P. gets called a pirate. Repeatedly. Queen Cate finds a real pirate on the midway and takes a comparison picture. (See above, right.)
  • August 9 - J.P. works at the state fair again in garb and gets called a pirate again.
  • August ? - To aide his bad memory, AtTheFaire (ATF) Pub member, Raien, e-mails J.P. a complete rundown of the sequence of events in the Pirates movie.
  • August ? - ATF Pub member, zski, contributes some details about Legolas from Lord of the Rings. Since she also runs Wench Wear Costumes, she gives advice on how to convert him to a pirate: "Lost the hat - tie a scarf around your head. Get a big gold earring. Don't wear the vest - just the shirt and pants." Easy enough...
  • August ? - ATF Pub member, Queen Cate, contributes an idea on how a tip pass might work (yay Cate!). Now the show has an ending, but little else.
  • August ? - Iowa Renaissance Festival is contacted to see if they want a comedy pirate show. (Why wait until the last minute when there are still so many valuable seconds left?) They say yes.
  • August 23-24 - Cordelia and J.P. get together in Des Moines and write the show.
  • August 28 - piratecomedyshow.com registered. Pirate flag/sign hastily made.
  • August 29 - Business cards and buttons are made. Website goes "live" with one of those tacky coming soon page.
  • August 30 - Pirate Comedy Show debuts at the Iowa Renaissance Festival, 2 shows per day over three days.
  • August 31 - J.P. buys a new pirate hat thing from Fantasy Fynery while at the festival. Everyone agrees it looks really spiffy.
  • September 5 - J.P, Cordelia, and Bill (formerly Marco the Magnificent) get together in Iowa City to revise the script and work on new props.
  • ...another rehearsal in Iowa City...
  • September 27-28 - Nebraska Ren Faire, four shows on Saturday and three on Sunday.
  • October 5 - J.P. attends the 2nd Annual Nishna River Renaissance Faire in Avoca, Iowa and does a non-scheduled impromptu street performance in front of the great folks at Amos Fabulous Foods. Cordelia was unavailable, so Captain S.M. Tymburs (aka Captain Condiments) stands in as the pirate wench.
  • 2004 arrives, and the Pirate Comedy Show wonders what resolution it should break first...
  • January 2nd - the Pirate Comedy Show goes off its diet.
  • January 26, 2005 - we do our first birthday party gig.

More detail will be filled in as soon as I get the dates. (I always have trouble getting dates.)

Cordelia incognito, working on the show.
Auguest 2003: Cordelia works on show ideas...

There have been 109 pirates sacking the village within the past 24 hours.
35,694 visits to this page (40 today, 476 this week, 2,391 this month, 7,671 this year) [104 yesterday. Best day was 159 visitors]

Pirate Comedy Show - c/o AtTheFaire.com - P.O. Box 22031 - Des Moines, IA 50325-9401

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