Meeting someone from a different era ought to be a memorable experience, because it needs to be believable. Often, though, it may not be. Just dressing up in something close to an idea of what the past looked like is, in our view, not enough.
The encounter can be a much more rounded experience, so by looking at and talking to the character you can find out more...about life in that time, why the character looks and behaves like they do - because they are part of that era. The other difference is that by interacting with the audience we can gauge their levels of interest in different parts of our historic lives, and explore the differences between our lives (in character), and theirs.
For us as living history actors, the ability to do this comes with experience, and professionalism in presentation.
The confidence comes from the detailed background research we undertake in preparing for our roles. So it isn't just about dressing up...it is about dressing up authentically, knowing what was available to the actual character at the time they are in. The character would know about their bit of the world at the time of their era...but be unaware of modern life now, so the interaction with visitors from now - the character's future - can be particularly fun and revealing. To ensure a convincing interaction, we keep in role from start to finish...it is a performance, confident, natural and responsive due to the detailed preparation which gives the believability.
Doing it this way is considerably more fun for us than just being dressed up - our dressing up and any set-dressing is accurate due, again, to our background knowledge and experience - and has proved to be more fun, interesting and thought-provoking for our audiences.
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