"The Faire Is Open To All"

The Shrewsbury management kindly allows me to organize and lead parades. One of these is the Opening Parade. Making the Opening Parade happen involves running around the Faire with deer antlers on a staff, giving three curtain calls to about one hundred people (this includes frightening the merchants who are still setting up their stalls), then leading them in parade and song at the appointed hour through the faire grounds and out through the opening gate to greet our first guests.

After we were through the gate and facing a queue of guests, there was improvisation and singing. And then I flung my arms wide and proclaimed, "...Our Faire is open!"

I looked at the ticket booth built in on the right side of the main gate.

It wasn't open.

Ergo, no guests have paid admission.

Ergo, they can't enter our Fine Faire (which is Now Open To All).

And I've just run out of pre-planned improvisational lines. I very cleverly said the first thing that came into my head, "...and the gate's closed."

Leaping like an over-caffeinated MC with a band and an audience but no stage, I pretty much assaulted the ticket booth. Pounding on the wooden windows frames and shutters with my fists, I shouted, "Open! (pound!) Open the gates! (pound!) In the name (pound!)of the Virgin Queen (pound!), open the gates!"

And they did. It was a Capricorn's Dream Come True.

Huzzah!

(PS: About five minutes later I realized that possibly the ticket takers and change makers might not have appreciated a frenzied actor turning their booth into a percussion instrument, but I asked and they apparently thought it was great.)