It's TudorCon Time!

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Yes folks, you heard (read?) that right! TudorCon.

The world’s first ever TudorCon, in fact.

And The King’s Legacy has been booked to provide the Saturday night entertainment at the con’s inaugural year with a concert of music from the show!

“So, what is this thing?”

“What are you doing there?”

“And why should I care?”

I love your propensity for questions, dear reader!

Image by Jill McGlennon McCracken

Image by Jill McGlennon McCracken

What It Is

Heather Teysko has been running the Renaissance English History Podcast since 2009, making it one of the longest-running indie podcasts in existence. On her podcast she describes herself as:

“a storyteller who makes history accessible because [she] believes it’s a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and more deeply connecting to our own humanity.”
— The Renaissance English History Podcast

Heather has been running something called Tudor Summits over the past few years, which are online events where people can gather and learn more about the time period from expert historians and writers, which have been very successful. She then had a crazy idea…

What if she created an in-person event?!

Is it doable? Would anyone be interested? Would anyone come?!

And thus, this first ever TudorCon was born! Here’s how she describes the event on the website:

“The world’s first Tudorcon is about to happen October 18 - 20 in Manheim, Pennsylvania. And it’s going to be an amazing weekend, bringing together leading historians, authors, bloggers, and podcasters in a weekend devoted to learning, fun, music, and, most importantly, friendship. For three days we will hear speakers, see live music and entertainment, enjoy feasts and parties, show off costumes, and get to know Tudor history on a much deeper level. ”
— Englandcast.com

The event will include:

  • Period Music

  • Period Dance

  • Period Costumes

  • CosPlay

  • Experts

  • Amateur Tudor Historians

  • Live Performances and Entertainment

  • A Feast

  • A Renaissance Fair

  • Over 100 Tudor-holics

Lancaster PA won’t know what hit them!

 

What I’m Doing There

I reached out to Heather last winter - having listened to the entire podcast over a 6 month period - with information about The King’s Legacy, basically to just make her aware it exists and see if she had any interest in chatting about it.

Well, it turns out that one of her favorite things in the world besides Tudor history and Renaissance music is…musicals. Booyah.

She was stoked. Thrilled even. Her first email back to me went something like: “I love this idea and musicals! Can we chat about this on the podcast? Can I help raise awareness? Do you want to perform at TudorCon???”

So we talked back and forth for a while and made a plan that I would be doing some sort of presentation or concert performance at the event, which sounded like a lot of fun and a great opportunity! We then scheduled a time to talk about the show on the podcast leading up the this past summer’s production, to help drum up some support and interest for those attending.

That interview with Heather on the Renaissance English History Podcast can be found at: https://www.englandcast.com/2019/08/episode-127-michael-radi-and-the-kings-legacy/

As things solidified more, it became more apparent that this would make a good night-out entertainment for one of the evenings of the con, which is how we ended up planning a concert of the music.

So now, we will be performing ~45 minutes of the music for the show at the First United Methodist Church in Lancaster PA this coming Saturday night, which will include:

  • 15 songs from the show

  • 4 cast members from this summer’s premiere production

  • 3 performers from earlier reading performances and the Feinstein’s/54 Below Concert

  • Lots of my fellow Tudor nerds :-)

Who better to learn more about the show than the demographic that loves these stories the most?!

 

Why To Care

Well, I’m not going to tell you that you have to care, of course.

BUT. I’m going to say that an event such as this is precisely why we do what we do and why we make art to be consumed by those around us.

How did most of the people attending this event come to fall in love with the Tudors and their stories? Perhaps, for some of them, they read some dry history book and thought it was interesting. But I would stake my extremely-thin-and-overwhelmingly-tentative claim to Hever Castle (I’m a veeeeery removed descendant) that the vast majority of them discovered their love through:

  • Adult Fiction Books

  • Young Adult Fiction Books

  • Kid’s History Books

  • Fan Fictions

  • Films

  • TV Shows

  • Period Music

  • Contemporary Music of the style

  • Period Paintings

  • Modern Renderings

  • Period Clothing

  • Modern Costuming

  • Blogs

  • Podcasts

  • Theatre (and now also Musical Theatre)

  • Etc.

Basically…through Art.

Collections of art in every genre have been made on this topic for centuries, and it has sparked something artistic and wonderful in these people. A topic that these artists cared about was shared, and now those who have encountered and consumed that art have found themselves caring about the subject just as much as the artist had.

Isn’t that why we do it?

So that a large convention of people nerd-ing out over what we love and create can gather, play games, listen to music, learn from experts, create and wear period clothing, and exchange thoughts and ideas?

Art is powerful. Never doubt that.

 

To The Con!

And so, with preparations almost complete, I will be off to the first TudorCon to share my art with a delightful world of people.

Is it bound to be silly? Yup.

Is it bound to be fun? You betcha.

And who knows? Maybe I’ll see or hear or learn something there that will spark me right back.