King Richard’s Faire (Chicago)

The original King Richard’s Faire in Chicago was a multi-week festival that ran from about 1974 through 1987.  The owner/operators, Richard and Bonnie Shapiro, had purchased a former KOA campground and set up the festival there in 1977.  Ostensibly, the festival was modeled after an English, renaissance-era faire, where citizens and performers gathered to celebrate the goings on of the fictitious King Richard and Queen Katherine and their ever-changing court.  This was one of the earliest and most successful events of its kind in the United States.  The show always offered a tongue-in-cheek approach to its entertainment, hiring a number of variety acts with backgrounds in street theater, vaudeville and circus arts.  Musically, the show featured an evolving number of approaches that sought to balance historical music with contemporary theater.  Often, the scenario cast offered stage shows that featured parodies of both classical and theatrical hits with librettos and dance choreography that succeeded in entertaining large crowds.

The featured musicians that entertained apart from the ongoing scenario varied from Celtic to folk to classically trained instrumentalists and vocalists.  Some featured sea shanties or maritime-themed songs, but there was no special emphasis on this genre until 1985 when Rob Middleton was hired as the assistant music director.  He had a particular fondness for Tom Lewis, Johnny Collins and Stan Rogers and introduced many of their songs into the training portfolio of the theme park’s performers for that year.  From that point forward, the maritime sound became endemic to the American renaissance faire scene.  Because of his efforts, one can hear maritime music and sea shanties at renaissance faire locations all across the United States, and stimulated the formation of many popular groups, such as The Jolly Rogers, The Corsairs, The Pyrates Royale and Bounding Main.

In 1988 King Richard’s Faire closed due to business complications and a group of vendors purchased the site, creating a new renaissance faire on the same location, calling it The Bristol Renaissance Faire.  The ownership has evolved under that name, continuing into 2026, where many maritime-themed musical acts regularly perform, embracing the styling of the authentic, historic city of Bristol being a thriving port town during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I in 1574.