As people dressed in medieval fashion walk through the winding dirt paths of Rotary Park in Wentzville, loud and vigorous laughter can be heard. The cause? A wild and entertaining performance put on by the FHC Spotlight Players. Junior Jailen Hodge, one of the performers at the show, shed light on the strategy they use to keep the spotlights on in the theater department, and the dual purpose behind the performance.

“We performed an original show that our director wrote herself. It’s called ‘Medieval Mayhem,’” Hodge said. “We put on the performance so that we could draw more people towards our booth, specifically and fund the things that we do throughout the year.”

Like most clubs, the theater department is entirely self-funded, which means that it must be able to afford all its materials and the rights to every play that it puts on. This can be troublesome for a club with a sizable membership. Luckily, they have come up with a clever solution to the problem: Renaissance performances ever since the faire started on Sept. 14. 

Right next to the stage where they perform is a booth. This booth sold several things, among them are small, handmade crochet spiders called Richards. According to the head of the theater department, Kimberly Gueydan-Harrison, this strategy ended up raising about $31,000 dollars in profit for the theater department.

“The booth is to sell the Richards, the spiders,” Hodge said. “The profits that come from the booth go to fund all the stuff that we do for the school year for theater.” 

However, funding the theater department is not the only thing The Spotlight Players managed to do with these performances. Their performances serve to create another fun activity for the Renaissance Faire and to improve the experience of everyone going. One such person who went to the Renaissance Faire, senior Aiden Whitman, felt very positive about the performance.

“There’s not a lot of activities that really engage the audience there, but [The Spotlight Players] did a really good job with that,” Whitman said. “I thought it was great. I loved it. It was really funny. I liked how they allowed the audience to interact with them as they were performing.” 

With a funny and engaging show that also helps them put on more performances, The Spotlight Players are not just gathering funds, they’re having fun.