OUR OFFERINGS
N.B.: This page is specifically for the offerings of 'Scoundrels Alley'. For more information on the offerings of Faire Wynds Entertainments or Parson John Living History, please go to their respective pages at www.fairewynds.com and www.parsonjohn.org. Thanks!
Why 'Scoundrels Alley' and what can it do at your event to set you apart from other 'Historical Reenactments'? Let's talk...
Available for Historical Reenactments, Town Festivals, Lectures, Dinner Meetings but no, we do not do birthday parties!
Imagine walking into a reenactment. The smell of woodsmoke, the laughter and banter of good friends. The public is looking at the wares of the vendors, everuyone is talking about how great life was 'back then'. But there is one nagging question-where are the 'common folk'? How did they survive? Wouldn't there have been more poor people than middle class?
That's where we come in.
Over in another area you see a group set slightly apart. There is a big banner in front announcing 'Scoundrel's Alley'. Around it are smaller signs...'How Dost Thou Buff'...' 'Beware the Tiger in Petticoats'... 'Fast Children Wanted...' 'Do Not Play This For Money...' There are four tents in a semi-circle. One tent has green and black fennials and a sign that reads 'Bizarre Jobs', the next is a fly with a coffin and a grave, the third is colorful and festooned with banners, a large one announces 'Curiosities and Natural Wonders' and another fly that has a table and sign that says 'Do Not Play This For Money'.
You have found 'Scoundrels Alley'. An area designed to be family-friendly but also lets you peek into the underside of society where the poor, outcasts, scoundrels and rogues live. And you realize that this is 90 percent of the population in the 18th century and the whole area is designed to make you ask yourself basic 18th century questions of life...
What would you do to survive? To feed your family for just one more day? How did the common man live, laugh, play?
Throughout the day here at Scoundrel's Alley you have a chance to peek into the life of the common people. Their struggles to live and survive. Some, like the pauper are forced to work at jobs that are almost impossible to imagine today-a Purefinder. Watercress seller. Nightsoil man. All of which you can learn about in the Museum. You can meet and see how the more enterprising found ways to do well by selling corpses for medical research at the Ressurrectionist fly. Meet the women who would show you the strange and unusual one moment at the Curio's tent, then find out she only wants a chance to pick your pocket-and hire your children to take the stolen goods away! Go to the 'Ruffin Ken' and see how the earlier gamblers-the 'Sharpers'-would take everything you had just because they could.
Throughout the day in the center you will be invited to hear lectures-"An Introduction to the Crew', 'Lessons from a Canting Crew', 'Ressurrectionist and Burial Society', '18th C. Circus Entertainments' and finally, a group discussion and question and answer time at the end of the day 'What Would You Do To Survive'.
It's a full day of entertainment and education. All of our costuming, props, lectures and shows are based upon research of the common people of our past. The people that you would have seen every day, who you rubbed elbows with, nodded to in passing. The ones you would have worked and lived and laughed and died with.
All trying to do one thing: Survive.
There is a lot more we can tell you, but time that churl has beckonned and we must away. So after you have looked around, read about who we are and what we do and offer, let us pose this last question:
Why haven't you contacted us yet?
No worries, you can do that right here. Just click anywhere along this line and be taken to our contact page.
See you at the show!