Medieval Times gets its first queen

It's good to be the queen.

It's especially good when you're a first queen. Elizabeth I, for instance. Or Mary I. Or even Queen Doña Maria Isabella — the first female monarch in the 34-year history of Medieval Times, who will be taking the throne on Thursday.

"I'm very, very excited to be playing her. She's a really rich character," says Jessica Schear-Tolles of Rutherford, one of six actors who have been tapped to play the character at the 28-year-old Lyndhurst venue.

A damsel, yes, but never a damsel in distress, Schear-Tolles says.

"When she's challenged, she lays down her authority," says Schear-Tolles, who spends most of the two-hour show sitting majestically on the throne, watching costumed knights on horseback thwack, crack and bludgeon each other.

"She's written to be a very fair queen, but she has authority behind her," says Schear-Tolles.

For 34 years, the master of ceremonies at all the Medieval Times "dinner & tournament" venues, which bring jousting, broadsword fighting and other dark-age amusements to a modern audience (there are nine Medieval Times locations in North America), has been a king.

This week's introduction of a queen in all nine venues, for the sixth and latest reboot of the show, was not prompted by the current cultural moment — the reckoning about male privilege and female empowerment that has led to the #MeToo hashtag and the firings of executives and entertainment figures. This new story line, called "Sovereign," was in the works long before then, says Leigh Cordner, the show's writer and director.

"People have accused us of following a trend, but actually we were working on this show for 18 months before we launched it," Cordner says.

Just the same, the timing may be providential.

OPINION: Women must band together to achieve true equality

GAME CHANGERS: 'Their Eyes Were Watching God' launched a renaissance

AROUND TOWN: Lyndhurst celebrates its 100th birthday

"I feel it was meant to be, because it's falling in such a very interesting time period in the world now," Schear-Tolles says. "It's just been declared the Year of the Woman, and here we are making history with a queen in the castle."

It was important, says Jaci Hernandez, a Medieval Times spokeswoman, that this queen not be a mere figurehead who curtsies and nods and looks fabulous in a 14th-century gown. "In parts of the script, the queen has to assert herself," she says. ""She doesn't need a husband or brother to prove herself in charge of the realm."

There have been women in past Medieval Times storylines, Schear-Tolles says. She has played a princess in the past — just another gig in an acting career that has spanned stage, television and independent film. But to play a queen, in this faux-Gothic world, is to break the stained-glass ceiling.

"We have the little girls who come in and look at you with these huge eyes, and they see a princess — and now, of course, she's going to be a queen," says Schear-Tolles, an Emerson native. "And they look at you, and they believe."

As Queen Isabella of the Realm (it has no name, but is presumably somewhere in Spain, as a tip of the hat to the franchise founder, Jose Montener), Schear-Tolles gets to lead the procession into the 1,300-seat arena on a magnificent Andalusian horse.

She gets to preside over drubbings, gorings and unhorsings, and say imperious things like, "I have seen the face of war and I know it well — and I know well the faces of the widow and the orphan that are the fruit of such labors."

As a matter of fact, she has a lot of dialogue. Cordner, a burly ex-Marine and former disc jockey with a savvy sense of showmanship, has rifled through Shakespeare, Tolkien, and other relevant materials (though not "Game of Thrones," he says) to borrow the right flavor for his "thees," "thous" and "good, my lords."

"You can't go with the pure [medieval] vernacular, because it won't be intelligible to the audience," Cordner says. "It can't be so complicated the audience can't follow it."

Cordner, an Orlando, Florida, resident, got involved with the franchise 30 years ago for the same reason as the 20 young daredevils in the Lyndhurst cast: He had an athletic bent, some ability as a horseman, and a sense of fun.

Eventually he graduated to become Medieval Times' main showrunner. Whenever a new Medieval Times storyline launched, he and his partner, the stunt choreographer Tim Baker, visit each of the nine sites (the one in Lyndhurst opened in 1990) to rehearse the cast. And this may be the most exciting launch yet.

"This is quite a departure for us," he says. "After 34 years of having a king in charge, we decided it was time to let a woman try and run the kingdom. … The girls have always been three-dimensional characters, but they've never been the focus of the show. They're getting to ride a horse for the first time in the history of the company. It's involved getting the girls in in the daytime in order to teach them the fundamentals of riding."

But when, you may ask, will Medieval Times have a lady knight?

That's still a bridge they're not quite ready to cross, Cordner says — but for logistical, not cultural, reasons.

It would involve, he says, finding at last four talented horsewomen (multiple actors rotate in each part), with stage-combat experience, in each of the nine locations. "We haven't gotten to that point yet," he says. "What happens when we get into that is the number of people required to cover a position."

Still, he says, this is a start.

"This is a first step for us," he says.

If you go

WHAT: Medieval Times

WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday; 7:30 p.m. Friday; 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday; 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday, 4 p.m. Monday.

WHERE: 149 Polito Ave., Lyndhurst. 1-888-935-6878 (WE-JOUST) or medievaltimes.com

HOW MUCH: $62.95 adults; 36.95 for children under 12