Though it might not seem so at first consideration, the worlds of the theater and a Renaissance fair go together, kind of like a meat pie and a tankard of mead.
“The Venn diagram between a Renaissance fair and theater is basically one circle,” said Nell Benjamin, who with her spouse and writing partner Laurence O’Keefe have crafted the world-premiere musical comedy “Huzzah!” for the Old Globe. “It’s people building a reality, living in it and having fun with it.”
Married musical writers Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin will present the world premiere of their new musical “Huzzah!” at the Old Globe. (The Old Globe)
She and O’Keefe, whose credits together include the “Legally Blonde” musical on Broadway and the Globe’s “Come Fall in Love – The DDLJ Musical,” consider themselves “big fans” of Renaissance festivals.
“It is a place where nerds are safe and sexy,” said O’Keefe. “I feel very at home there.”
When attending their first Renaissance fair years ago, the couple expected something silly, “but that was not what we found,” Benjamin recalled. “To us, nothing was stupid, nothing was lame. They (participants) loved to perform and they had a sense of humor, a sense of history. These are our people.”
Cailen Fu as Kate Mirandola, left, and Liisi LaFontaine as Gwen Mirandola in the Old Globe’s world premiere musical “Huzzah!” (Jim Cox)
“Huzzah!” arrives with Ren fair costumes and lively sword play and a traditional maypole, but it is a family story at heart. Two sisters at odds, Gwen (Liisi LaFontaine) and Kate (Cailen Fu), band together in an effort to save their father’s financially failing Kingsbridge Midsummer Renaissance Faire.
“We loved the idea that these amazing entities start out as mom-and-pop stores and are very vulnerable to the headwinds of capitalism,” O’Keefe said. “The family is the fair, the fair is the family. The family gets in danger and has to heal itself in order to save the faire. We wanted to tell the hopefully truthful, funny but scary story of a family that nearly ruins itself and figures out how to pull back from that.”
Benjamin likened the sisters’ predicament to a “Thanksgiving where you go with your family and some of them drive you crazy, but for one holiday you have to make it work. This resonates with us all. Also, we’re in a democracy and you have to make it work with people you really don’t like or agree with. Once we had this sense of who the characters were, that drove us.”
After meeting with Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein “way back in the distant past,” as Benjamin recalled it, and receiving an enthusiastic response to the project, the initial plan was to stage “Huzzah!” in Balboa Park in the summer of 2020, or in 2021 at the latest.
“Then there was the pandemic,” said O’Keefe. “But we were patient and it’s paid off.”
“Huzzah!” features a cast of 17 and scenic design by Todd Rosenthal, who also conceived the set for the Globe’s recent production of “Noises Off” that previously occupied the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage. Haydee Zelideth is the costume designer, Alejandro Senior the music director, Katie Spelman the choreographer.
Liisi LaFontaine as Gwen Mirandola, left, Leo Roberts as Sir Roland Prowd and Cailen Fu as Kate Mirandola in the Old Globe’s world premiere musical “Huzzah!” (Jim Cox)
Making her Old Globe directorial debut is New York-based Annie Tippe.
“My pleasure and joy has been working on new plays and musicals,” Tippe said. “This musical is big and bright, and I feel like the work I’ve done in the past has been more intimate in size and scope. But my work always has an emphasis on athleticism and on comedy, and anything that has good music I want to be a part of that.”
To Tippe “The beauty of a Renaissance fair is people of all different backgrounds coming together to build a world, and the world is not a reflection of our current world. It’s the world they’d like to see.
“It’s a space that represents complete freedom, a space for creativity and a space for history buffs and people who embrace the crafts and traditions of the past. It’s also somewhere people can reclaim the past and write themselves into the kind of world they want to live in, that they want to be part of.”
Renaissance fairs date back to the early 1960s when what is believed to have been the first was staged in Agoura, northwest of Los Angeles. They’re typically set anywhere between the 14th and 17th centuries depending on the fair, and remain popular around the world. The biannual Escondido Renaissance Faire returns Oct. 25 through Nov. 2 at Felicita County Park.
“Early fairs were teachers teaching kids about history,” said Benjamin, “and they got bigger and bigger because of the same thing that happened to us: People who came discovered it was a place they’d never seen before. You have to make your own fun. You have to be part of it to get the most out of it.”
Said Tippe: “A Renaissance fair says ‘Come as you are, come as you want to be. Come be your truest self.’ I think that’s why Renaissance fairs attract beautiful queer communities. They are body positive. They attract actors, people who want to role-play, and they also attract families. People bring their kids there. It’s a place of playfulness.”
Tippe said she’d never been to a Renaissance fair before she began working on “Huzzah!”
“When I went for the first time,” she said, “I was nervous that I didn’t have the intensity to be there. I found myself really falling in love with all the players and the people who were so committed to what they were doing. I liken that to going to see theater. We go to see people giving their all.”
Re-creating the world of the Renaissance fair in a proscenium theater at the Globe comes with its own challenges.
“Some of the physical execution was very much with us from the very beginning,” O’Keefe explained. “Nell writes amazing visuals. We made a list: Horses? Sadly, no. There’s a joust that is mentioned as happening offstage. Other things like people swinging swords, we knew we wanted to have actual people swinging swords. What we do not have room to put on stage is the question.”
As for the musical score, “We did our research,” said O’Keefe. “We’ve studied Renaissance music and we use some of that. We’re always trying to bend musical forms and turn them into storytelling. This show has Celtic elements, ancient elements, Renaissance music, pop music.”
O’Keefe and Benjamin met while students at Harvard and have been writing musicals together for a quarter-century. They call their collaborative process “a back-and-forth” passing of drafts in progress.
“You have to bring your ‘A’ game,” said Benjamin. “We’re competitive absolutely.”
She joked that “Sometimes ‘I don’t like that lyric’ can turn into ‘I don’t like your tone’ or ‘I don’t like your mother.’ There’s something lovely to have a concrete thing to fight about. It’s almost like there’s a built-in referee to every fight because there has to be a resolution.
“One of the worst insults we can deliver to each other is ‘Yeah, it’s clever, but it’s filler.’ At that point someone needs to take a walk around the block.”
‘Huzzah!’
When: Previews, Saturday through Sept. 24. Opens Sept. 25 and runs through Aug. 3. 7 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays
Where: Old Globe Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park, San Diego
Tickets: $55 and up.
Phone: 619-234-5623
Online: theoldglobe.org
Cailen Fu as Kate Mirandola, left, Leo Roberts as Sir Roland Prowd and Liisi LaFontaine as Gwen Mirandola in the Old Globe’s world premiere musical “Huzzah!” (Jim Cox)
Originally Published: September 7, 2025 at 6:00 AM PDT