When we got to the FPIPN (First Person Interpreter Practitioners Network) conference we had no idea what to expect. When sitting in the meeting house in the middle of Mystic Seaport we were surrounded by people, but they were all bundled in their normal 12st century coats and Jackets (there was a negative degree wind chill outside, and the building was not being heated) so it was really hard to tell who these people were and what we were in for. After a quick introduction by one of the conference hosts the keynote speaker warmed us all up with a few jokes about working at Plimoth Plantation long enough to now be his own father-in-law (the first season he was at Plimoth he played the role of a pilgrim who gets married in 1627, now he plays the father of the pilgrim that his first role marries.)
One of the funnier warm-ups was this:
When we all get old and imfirm they will need a special nursing home for us. When our memories start to go, we’ll have trouble figuring out who we really are. He said: “all of us at the plantation, we’ll all be Priscilla Alden.”
What an image!
It is not schizophrenia, I really was the wife of a baron of Bavaria, if only on the weekends.
When I started in living history 30 years ago I was portarying a real woman who was 22 at the time (1846). As I've aged, she couldn't, so now I'm a 'composite' character who is whatever age I am now. I could have switched to the original character's mother, but then we'd have the same age issue since she was about 45 and I'm 55. Heck, composite works for me!
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