Becoming a Renaissance Faire Lady

"It is escapism," says Carro of their Faire adventure. He's based in Orlando but, as Hopps' best friend and monster museum business partner, he comes to North Texas every spring for a spin as Sir Daniel and a good long visit with Dallas-based Hopps. The Mythical Monster Museum, now in its fourth year at Scarborough Renaissance Festival, is the product of years of the kind of "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" speculation favored by those for whom comic books, monsters and superheroes could never be too real. The pair honed their imaginations together in their 20s when they worked together on Florida tourist attractions. Carro and Hopps have little patience for folks who scoff at the very tangible world of magic contained within the walls of their museum.

"I want to prove that there's magic in the world," says Hopps, a statement I'd normally be quick to dismiss as fluffy schlock dripping with Disney-esque pap if it weren't coming from a bearded, burly, wolfish man who creates said magic by sculpting models of trolls and ogres so fearsome that kids who are way too old to be scared by such things refuse to enter parts of the monster museum. It is one thing to let oneself be mentally whisked away by J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, or some other author with initials and an overactive imagination, and it is another to physically find oneself surrounded by house elves and golems, looking into the face of a man who swears he brought them there himself.

The magic lies in the moment when a surly dad finds himself enthralled by a detailed examination of werewolves or a child refuses to pass by the live troll cage. Sure, the smile of a child is always magical. But his terrified cries? Purely priceless. Certainly, Hopps' intention isn't to incite terror, but he and Carro have pulled off a remarkably effective, spooky bit of realism. Just two guys putting in years of work, spending untold hours sculpting, animating and drawing, with the ultimate hope of creating an Orlando theme park-quality attraction in North Texas.

"Wouldn't it be great if we could build a cool world for people to come and visit?" Hopps remembers musing when he first thought of the idea for the museum in 1995. And with thousands of words explaining each slain monster, brilliant details like a beast scat display and a seemingly endless body of slaying and vanquishing knowledge available in the minds of Carro and Hopps, the Mythical Monster Museum is perfectly real for anyone willing to entertain the idea that in an alternate universe, two monster hunters named Raptus and Krane spend their lives slaying all that is evil before doing what any good monster hunter would—return to a somewhat stuffy manufactured building in Waxahachie and put their trophies on display.

There are three kinds of people who go to Renaissance fairs. The first group includes my mentors, people like Carro and Hopps who get paid to dress up in period costume and develop intricate characters that make the experience come alive for patrons. They are dorks, and they have figured out how to make a living off it.

The second group has cash to burn, a kid or two, and a free weekend to dedicate to the frivolous pursuit of goofiness. They are dorks, and they are happy to help other dorks make a living off their shared dorkitude.

And then there are the others.

The third group spends many hours and dollars adorning themselves in costumes that may or may not have anything to do with medieval history so that they may walk around the fair grounds saying "Huzzah" or "Die, stormtrooper, die!" or whatever phrase they have determined is relevant to the day. They're the kind who "bring their anime to the Ren fair," as Hopps puts it. These are the dorks without whom festivals like Scarborough Ren Fest would merely be amusement parks, rather than bastions of escapism. These dorks want to be among the cast, not merely entertained by them. I must avoid being one of these dorks.

"We portray; we don't pretend," says Carro, stressing the difference between the kind of dork I'm supposed to be as Whiskey Grimes and the kind of dork who wants to wear chain mail while chugging a Bud Light in his Ray-Bans. With a full court, including King Henry and Queen Anne Boleyn (played for the last 20 years by Allen Hopps' wife, Shannon, who has ruled at Scarborough for far longer than the real, ill-fated Queen Anne sat on England's throne) as well as ladies-in-waiting, guards and foreign dignitaries, Scarborough Faire is one of the best-respected Renaissance fairs in the country. The players are experienced actors and, most important, grown-ups.

"You know you're in trouble when King Henry is 17 years old," jokes Hopps, who started by performing all over the country at fairs as an experienced stilt-walker. Up to 12,000 visitors a day trudge over the 35-acre fairgrounds, open weekends through Memorial Day. Scarborough is now in its 28th year and getting bigger with each spring. And it's a family business—the same two families have owned and operated the fair since its inception.