After hours entertainment

[tenthmo]

What kind of activities occur in or around the camp after the Saturday battle?
In most cases, someone organizes a "ball." Folks put on their best duds and gowns and dance under the big top or in a shelter house. Some others put on a fashion show. What kind of Saturday afternoon entertainments do you see at events?
Personally speaking, I have seen a minstral show and a stage drama.
Speaking about the latter, several "outdoor dramas" were hosted in the Missouri/Kansas region during the period of the late '80's. These are called tableau vivants (French for living pictures-or something like that). In the tableau, actors assume a position of action and hold that action as if frozen, while an off stage narrator describes the scene.
In a play called YIELD NOT TO TEMPTATION, or a Promise to Mother, two brothers join to restore the Union, but one becomes corrupted by drink.
I have submitted some photos of this tableau as was held for the Western Battalion at Gettysburg, 1988.
They can be viewed by going to:

Temperance Tableau Illustrated

Beware of a view harmless pop ups.

Please enjoy the photos. What Saturday afternoon/evening activities do you see/participate in other than dancing?

[HOG.EYE.MAN]

Re: After hours entertainment

"What kind of activities occur in or around the camp after the Saturday battle?" (instead of battles, insert Drill Demo's, Marches)

My answer is: Guard Duty..... Cooking rations.... Relocating camp... Resting....

With most authentics around the country, "Saturday battles" are usually non existent.

The events you go to sound very festive. Neat!

Hog-Eye

[Skeet]

Re: After hours entertainment

Sounds like a carnival! Dancing? Maybe pulling guard duty when it's 38 degrees outside! Dan Morgan 10thVA(IVR)

[Yellowhammer]

Re: After hours entertainment

Robert (and an open letter to other new Forum Members),

Since you are new to the AC Forum. Please allow me to address your post as politely as possible.

This forum is for the discussion of authentic events by reenactors interested in authenticity. I'm very sorry, but "Saturday battles" and "balls" smack of mainstreamer farbdom and that is not the purpose of this forum.

The members of this forum primarily attend preservation events (marches, educational programs, etc...), living histories, and immersive events. On the occasion that the members of this forum do attend a mainstream carnival type event, it is as part of a authentic or campaign-based adjunct to the "main" event.

If you are looking for something to do "after a battle," I don't think a tableau or minstrel show is it. In spite of all my readings and research, I can't imagine the horrors presented by an actual Civil War battlefield.

Some of the programs you are mentioning could be fit into certain authentic events. Certainly an abstinence meeting could work nicely at an event in a place like Harper's Ferry. Authentic Minstrel Shows or other kinds of music are right at home in the camp or the field if done correctly. However, these are not substitutions for balls.

In any case, the members of this forum are either currently doing or working towards 24-hour non-stop immersive type events. These events include picket scenarios, food issues, marches, drill, first person interaction, and camping with only what is on your back. If that doesn't appeal to you or some of the other newer members of this forum, I very respectfully submit you might be in the wrong place.

I hate to sound like a "mean old hardcore" or "stitch-counter" or whatever but this forum has existed for several years to advance the authentic/campaigner/hardcore movement within our hobby. As such, discussions of mainstreamer activities outside the aforementioned campaigner adjuncts to mainstream events have no place on these forums. I suggest you take a look around, learn all you can, and start going to campaigner events. You may not know what you are missing.

Sincerely,

John Stillwagon
Forum Officer