Five years ago, the FHC Spotlight Players arrived at the St. Louis Renaissance Festival with original shows, handmade costumes, several carloads of props, and a crocheted spider named Richard.
This was our first mistake.
At the time, we believed Richard was a product. A charming little handmade spider. A whimsical theatrical mascot. Something delightful we could sell to raise money for our students.
Richard believed he was an emerging global brand.
We should have noticed the warning signs. The enormous eyes. The unsettling confidence. The way he sat silently on a shelf watching people walk past the booth as though calculating their disposable income.
But we were young then. Innocent. Unaware that a crocheted arachnid could develop both a fan base and an aggressive five-year expansion strategy.
Now, Richard has followers. He has merchandise. He HAS 3 CHILDREN’S Book written by me and illustrated by a former student (available on Amazon) He has associates. He has a social-media presence. He has people who return to the Faire every year specifically to see him.
I have worked in theatre for more than 30 years, and a spider made of yarn has surpassed my celebrity in approximately five.
I am handling it beautifully.
FROM HUMBLE SPIDER TO FEUDAL OVERLORD
Richard’s rise to power was not immediate. It began quietly, as hostile takeovers often do.
Someone bought a Richard.
Then someone else bought a Richard.
Soon, people began returning to the Faire carrying Richards from previous years. They brought him back to visit his birthplace. They introduced him to new family members. They sent us photographs of Richard on vacations, in restaurants, at schools, beside famous landmarks, and participating in situations for which a crocheted spider has absolutely no training or certification.
Nobody asked whether Richard should have this much freedom.
By the time we realized what was happening, it was too late. Richard had become a celebrity.
A very small celebrity made of yarn, but that has never stopped anyone before.
He began acquiring friends. Then associates. Then what I can only describe as a court. Our booth stopped being a booth and became an embassy for Richard’s rapidly expanding kingdom of handmade creatures.
Every year, he returns to the Renaissance Festival to greet his subjects, collect tribute, and sit around while everyone else does the work.
So, basically, royalty.
THE SPIDER WHO FUNDS THEATRE
Here is the part where this ridiculous little yarn tyrant becomes something genuinely wonderful.
Richard and his friends help fund the FHC Spotlight Players and International Thespian Society Troupe 5743. The money raised at the Faire supports educational theatre—helping us create productions, provide scholarships, and give students opportunities to perform, design, build, paint, sew, invent, and discover that theatre might be the place where they belong.
School theatre is expensive. Lumber is expensive. Fabric is expensive. Microphones are expensive. Licensing is expensive. Paint is expensive. Apparently, every item needed to place teenagers under stage lights and ask them to experience personal growth costs approximately one king’s ransom, three goats, and the better portion of a small duchy.
So we crochet spiders.
It is not the traditional arts-funding model, but traditional arts-funding models have clearly failed to account for Richard.
Every creature who leaves our booth carries a little piece of our theatre program into the world. In return, the money raised helps a young artist get onto the stage or discover a home behind it.
Richard would like it noted that he personally finances the arts.
The rest of us would like it noted that Richard has never held a crochet hook, loaded a trailer, filled out a purchase order, or completed a single piece of paperwork.
This has not prevented him from taking full credit.
THIS YEAR: RATS, TIME TRAVEL, AND TERRIBLE DECISIONS
Of course, we do not merely arrive at the Faire, release several hundred spiders into the economy, and go home.
The FHC Spotlight Players also perform original interactive shows created especially for the Renaissance Festival. This year’s production is The Oddbottom Chronicles, which began when our students apparently asked the perfectly sensible question:
“What if the Pied Piper of Hamelin crashed directly into Doctor Who, but with more rats, fewer safety regulations, and absolutely no budget for actual space travel?”
And thus, art was born.
The Oddbottom Chronicles follows the student imaginings of a world where medieval folklore collides with time-bending nonsense. There is a piper. There are rats. There are Oddbottoms. There are people who should never be allowed near the natural order of time.
There may be a rat-related labor dispute.
There may be historical confusion.
There will almost certainly be someone confidently explaining something that is completely wrong.
At the center of the commotion are Oswald Oddbottom and Buttons, who find themselves tangled in the sort of adventure that begins with an unusual problem and ends with everyone wishing somebody had read the instructions.
They are joined by Bob the Pestilent Piper, because apparently “pestilent” is the quality one looks for when hiring musical pest control. There is also Miriam Piddlewick, a mayor attempting to maintain civic order, a Rat Union with demands, and several other characters who appear to have been created after our students were given theatrical freedom without adequate adult supervision.
This is exactly what happened.
Imagine the Pied Piper story wandering into a time-travel episode, colliding with a Renaissance village, and being forced to resolve a municipal rodent crisis while Richard watches from the sidelines and considers merchandising opportunities.
That is The Oddbottom Chronicles.
Probably.
The story may have changed again while I was writing this.
LIVE THEATRE, BUT OUTSIDE WHERE NATURE CAN INTERFERE
You can find our particular corner of the chaos on the Normandy Stage, with performances at 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
These are original interactive shows, which means the audience is not always safely separated from the story. You may be spoken to. You may be recruited. You may be accused of something. A rat may attempt collective bargaining in your general direction.
No two performances are quite the same because no two Renaissance Festival audiences behave the same way. Small children answer rhetorical questions. Adults become unexpectedly committed to imaginary conflicts. Passing characters join scenes that did not previously include them. Insects ignore all theatrical boundaries.
There is weather.
So much weather.
And yet, the show continues.
Our students learn to project outdoors, adjust to changing audiences, improvise when reality attacks the script, remain in character during catastrophe, and continue performing while a turkey leg the size of a toddler passes directly through their sightline.
You cannot recreate that in a classroom.
We have tried. Administration objected to the livestock.
WHY WE KEEP COMING BACK
Performing at the Renaissance Festival is exhausting, dusty, unpredictable, and slightly feral.
We love it.
For our students, it is part theatre education, part small-business laboratory, part creative writing experiment, part survival challenge, and part annual reminder that Missouri can provide blazing heat, freezing rain, wind, mud, and locusts before lunch.
They learn to tell stories, solve problems, support one another, talk to strangers, sell their handmade work, stay in character, and perform the same show repeatedly without allowing it to become stale.
They also learn that if something goes wrong onstage, they should keep going until either the scene recovers or the audience assumes it was intentional.
This is not only a theatre skill.
This is an excellent general philosophy for adulthood.
For me, the Faire involves directing, costuming, packing, unpacking, supervising, troubleshooting, answering questions, finding missing objects, locating missing students, locating missing objects that are being carried by missing students, and testing how many props can fit into a vehicle before the suspension submits a formal complaint.
For Richard, the Faire involves sitting on a shelf and being adored.
Again, I am handling this beautifully.
COME WITNESS THE HOSTILE TAKEOVER
The 2026 St. Louis Renaissance Festival runs Saturdays and Sundays from September 12 through October 25, plus Monday, October 12. The gates are open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., rain or shine, at Rotary Park in Wentzville. The official festival site has current ticket information, themed weekends, maps, and visitor details: St. Louis Renaissance Festival.
Wear comfortable shoes prepared for uneven ground. Bring water. Check the forecast, then pack for three completely different forecasts because Missouri enjoys improvisational weather.
Allow yourself time to wander. The Faire is full of performers, artisans, food, games, music, royalty, jousting, peculiar creatures, and people wearing garments with more structural engineering than most municipal bridges.
Then find the Richard the Spider booth.
You may adopt a Richard. You may meet one of his increasingly questionable associates. You may see our students perform The Oddbottom Chronicles. You may become involved in a time-traveling rat emergency against your will.
You may even convince yourself that you are supporting theatre education and not surrendering to the expanding influence of a crocheted spider.
Both things can be true.
This is our fifth year at the Faire, and I am enormously proud of what our students have created, built, performed, and learned there. I am proud that their strange ideas become original shows. I am proud that they are willing to stand in a field dressed as medieval oddities and commit completely to the story. I am proud that something as joyful and absurd as Richard has become a very real source of opportunity for young artists.
But I remain concerned about his long-term ambitions.
Today, the Renaissance Festival.
Tomorrow, municipal government.
By Christmas, Luxembourg.
FIELD REPORT
Wentzville
Missouri • 2026
THE OFFICIAL KIM TRAVEL REPORT
🕷️ Spider Aristocracy: Firmly established
🎭 Original Theatrical Nonsense: Twice daily
👑 Actual Person in Charge: Allegedly the director
💰 Chance Your Purchase Helps a Theatre Student: Excellent
🌦️ Number of Missouri Seasons Possible in One Day: All of them
YOUR TURN
Have you already adopted a Richard? More importantly, where has he gone—and what evidence do you have that he is not quietly organizing a coup?
WHERE SHOULD KIM GO NEXT?
Do you know about a strange festival, secret museum, peculiar tradition, underground tunnel, suspicious parade, or deeply unnecessary roadside attraction that Kim absolutely needs to investigate?
KEEP WONDERING
Somewhere is always next.
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