And the next addition to our wandering performance cast is the incredible Danson and his band of misfits.

What can you say about Danson?  Here’s just some of what he does:

Stilt Walking
Balloon Sculpting
Pantomime
Slapstick
Character Voices
Holiday characters (Maybe Jack O’ Lanter, if we ask nicely)
Comedy and Magic
Fire Eating and Manipulation
Sideshow Stunts
Penny Farthing Bicycle Rider
Strolling Comedy Juggling
Vocalist and Singing Karaoke Host
DJ and Games
Game Show Host
Airbrush Temporary Tattoo Booth
Leather Fantasy Mask Artist
Statuing Pie Thrower
Fantasy Make-up Artist
Face Painting
Costume and Prop Design
Chair and Plate Balancing

..and that’s just for starters, folks.

“The Extraordinary Adventures Of Baron Munchausen” was described by BoardGameGeek.com as ‘This not-quite-a-role-playing-game requires players to sit around telling fantastic (but completely true!) stories. Players may attempt to trip up another player’s story by wagering a token (“But the Prussian Army had dissolved by that time, m’lord, so you could not have possibly fought it single-handedly”), whereas the storyteller must counter with another token (and an excuse) or swallow their pride and incorporate it into their story (with another excuse). There are also a few, minor details, mostly used to get boring storytellers to stop. The game is won after each player has told one story. Each player, in turn, gives *all* their tokens to another player they believe has told the best story–so collecting the most tokens doesn’t make you the winner, it makes you be able to choose the winner. Of course, the best story-telling wins the game.’

Here are some photos from last year’s Celebrity Munchausen game:

Who will die at this year’s Munchausen game?  Well, everyone, presumably…

“I imagine a child. That child is me. I can reconstruct and vividly remember portions of my own childhood. I can see, taste, smell, feel, and hear them. Then what I do is, not write about that kid or about his world, but start to think of a book that would have pleased him.”

-Daniel Pinkwater, author of “Lizard Music” and many, many other great books

Adults – and, for that matter, older kids – get a really lousy deal when it comes to Halloween parties.

I’m not saying that Halloween parties for older people can’t be fun, but they’re usually fun mostly for the same reasons other adult parties are fun.  It’s Office Christmas Party/Superbowl Sunday/Arbor Day/whatever, only with some costumes.  And in terms of the costumes – don’t get me wrong, the modern trend of “sexy elf / sexy witch / sexy ghost / sexy doughnut / sexy houseplant / sexy fire hydrant” is perfectly cool, but it doesn’t necessarily surprise or delight the way costumes did when we were younger.

I’m going to say that, in a lot of ways, the best Halloween parties belong to, say, eight-year-olds.  You’ve got enough comprehension of the world around you to have an idea of what’s going on, but you probably don’t quite realize there are consequences to eating sixteen pounds of candy in a half hour.  Clothing is new enough for you that costumes are extra-exciting, and at some point in the evening, the Great Pumpkin will probably be coming by to give you presents.

Well, folks, I propose that we mug the eight-year-olds and steal their candy.  …metaphorically, I mean.

The question we’ve asked our design team is: “If you were eight, and loved Halloween, but were putting on a Halloween party with, not just all the abilities and powers of an adult (you can drive!  you can buy things!  it’s like being a superhero, for a kid) - but with the full resources of a large and ingenious convention of weird people behind you.

Hold on to your hats, and wait impatiently for February.  Wondrous things are afoot.

Okay.  We admit.  We don’t know what the heck “Mega Trick Or Treating” is going to be.

But we do know this:

It’s going to be awesome.

“We had a kettle; we let it leak: Our not repairing made it worse. We haven’t had any tea for a week… The bottom is out of the Universe.”

 - Rudyard Kipling

If you’ve heard the rumour that we’re shameless about stealing great ideas from ourselves, it’s totally true.   Gods know it’s rare enough for Jeff Mach to have even a good idea…

[Admin Note:  The author of the above words has been severely reprimanded and beaten with a broken teakettle.  Please pay him no mind.]

..at any rate, two years back, we held “The Mad Tea Party”, and amidst much madness, there was, shockingly… tea.

And we found that the vastly assorted, vastly sordid, vastly unsorted strange and unusual folks who call Wicked Faire home… pretty much all ruddy well love to sit around a table with friends and strangers and drink tea and chat.  We had tea-goers during epic musical performances, bondage demonstrations, circus acts, dancers, hypnotists, Rocky Horror showings… apparently, while Wickedgoers love lots of things, and while many of them don’t even like tea, there’s a whole lot o’ people who love a tea party, even an impromptu tea party with random people.  …especially an impromptu tea party with random people, in fact.

So we decided to steal the idea for the years to come.  You’re welcome.

This year, amidst all the awesomeness we’re generating, we may have a somewhat smaller space for tea.   But we invite you all to stop by at some point during Wicked and relax (or be wild and mad, if you’d rather) at Teatime For The Wicked!

“I’m sorry. This is supposed to be Hamlet or Private Lives or something and I keep rattling on like a maniac- I really do apologize. I just don’t recall attending a single rehearsal. I don’t know what I was doing. And also you came here to see Edwin Booth and you get me. I really am very embarrassed. Sorry.”

      -Christopher Durang, “The Actor’s Nightmare”

What’s that?  Yes!  It’s the return of the cast of our merry show, The Wicked Players!   Every Renaissance Faire needs Renaissance Faire performers, and the Wicked Faire is nothing if not a Renaissance Faire.  Okay, that’s not true.  It’s everything, including a Renaissance Faire – well, bits of a Renaissance Faire.  The disreputable bits of a Renaissance Faire which have crept away from the family-friendly image of other events and quietly made their way into Wicked via a side door, or possibly through hopping a fence and jumping in a window.  But we digress.

Come see our merry players act!  Sing!  Interact!  Forget their lines!  Pretend to forget their lines and then do acrobatics!  Forget they can’t do acrobatics and wind up suspended from the balcony upside-down!  They’re weird, fun, brilliant, improvisational, unpredictable, and somewhat more experimental than is probably good for them.  In short, they are this event, in a microcosm.

They took a short break last Faire, but are now back, with merry songs, rhymes, fistfights, and all the other things you’d find at any other event, if that other event were terribly, terribly weird and had a tendency to go slightly mad during full moons…