Lance Oppenheim interview Part 1
“I was really interested from the beginning with George (Coulam). We didn’t have any point of contact with George in the beginning. All I had seen online was that there was a man who had created the largest renaissance festival in the country and had basically built a city around the renaissance festival, of which he was the mayor of this city, and in a way kind of created a real life fiefdom. So I was curious psychologically what that does to you. You know, when you have absolute power in system that you control what does that do to you? What does it do to the people that work for you? But in terms of the culture, (the reason I wanted to talk with you all and I’m so glad that you’re lending this platform for me to do) this series, it’s not necessarily about a portrait of the community that you guys live in, which is beautiful to me and I feel so grateful for being invited into it. But to me, it’s really about an exploration of power in a setting that most people I think are enchanted by and really are unfamiliar with, right? And if anything, (really this is the thing I told every single person that participated in this) I hope that by calling the project “Renfaire” people will come in droves to the Texas Renaissance Festival and to renaissance festivals around the country. Because, for some people who are going to see this, they maybe have never gone to renaissance faire before, and I think because maybe the trailer and the title “Renfaire”, you know, the two things kind of stacked up against each other. I think people took maybe the wrong things away from it. I hope that in watching it, they’ll realize that this isn’t a smack down at all or anything like that. And to me it’s hopefully a celebration of the community and then also an interrogation of what happens to the community once George is no longer around.”
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