Renaissance Faire Invades Historic Smithville

The New Jersey Renaissance Faire is held every year in June in Columbus, NJ and features jousting, full scale human chess, six stages and entertainment during each day it runs.

Although a smaller event, Smithville's Renaissance Faire features many of the same performers from the area, and in many ways is a precursor to the larger event in June.

"This has been great for us as a pre-show marketing thing," said TJ Miller, one of the organizers of the event who goes by the name "Roger Awesome."

Awesome, when in character, plays music (often anachronistically) with an acoustic guitar and sings, covering songs by musicians and bands like Bob Marley, Flogging Molly, or Old Crow Medicine Show. Still, despite the modern music, he tries not to break character, choosing instead to joke that those are old standards (or even songs he wrote) from centuries ago.

Many of the participants in the Renaissance Faire in Smithville do not break character, including a boisterous and cheerful pickle seller, Jack Bold, another one of the event's organizers, who also, it is told, is Awesome's brother. Bold carted a barrel of pickles around Historic Smithville on Saturday, imploring anyone around to buy one and joking with each of his customers.

Many of the performers not only bring their shows to Renaissance Faires, but also to schools. One such performer is Daniel Kostelec, who has portrayed William Shakespeare at festivals and schools since 2005.

Kostelec has taken Shakespeare's work and has made it what he called "edutainment," and at fairs he focuses more on humor, but in schools sometimes focuses as much on explanation when necessary.

"If you're laughing you're more likely to walk away having learned something," he said.

On Saturday, he had the crowd laughing, especially when ran out to grab audience members for the performance, feeding them their lines and making them play roles they may have never heard of.

Little Egg Harbor resident Greg Roswall had not been to a Renaissance Fair for decades, having seen one in New York years ago, but decided after seeing a recent advertisement for Smithville's fair that he would attend, though not in costume. He was there as a spectator.

"They did a nice job," he said. "Especially considering how small Smithville is; they brought the flavor of a Renaissance festival, too bad it's only for one day."

This was the second annual Renaissance Faire in Smithville.

For more information on the New Jersey Renaissance Faire, see the organization's website.