Interview With A Former Medieval Times Employee: "All the dudes who worked there were total babes"

Previously in Medieval Times coverage: I grew up in two of the great Medieval Times strongholds during their glory days, first California’s San Bernadino County (second-ever castle built in Buena Park in 1986, the same year as my birth, a scant fifteen minutes away from my hometown of Chino Hills) and second Illinois’ Cook County (fourth-ever castle built in Schaumburg in 1991, an even scanter ten minutes away from my hometown of Hoffman Estates).

I read enough as a child to know that I was being brought up in a series of cultural deserts. By rights I ought to have been one of Evelyn Waugh’s children, jaundiced and sophisticated by twelve, babysat by Virginia and Vita, fluent in Latin, sick of London and life by fifteen; instead I went to church services held inside a movie theater twice a week and was taken to the theater once a year to see either The Nutcracker or a traveling production of Les Misérables. I knew only enough to know that I was missing a critical opportunity to become a beloved chronicler of my catastrophically troubled upper-class childhood in interwar Britain. I wanted the drama of the bullfight, the cachet of the Cave of the Golden Calf, the intrigue of Ripley in Venice. I had Medieval Times.

While reporting for an upcoming piece in Food + Wine Magazine about my most recent trip to Medieval Times, I was fortunate enough to interview several former knights and servers. Some of these conversations far exceed my initial word count, so I share them here directly with you, the consumer.

My first conversation was with Amy Sumpter, formerly of the Schaumburg Castle (1994-1997), presently a stand-up comedian and part of Chicago’s Beastie Boys tribute band She’s Crafty.

DANNY: How did you get the Medieval Times job? Can you tell me what an average shift looked like?

AMY: Memories of Medieval Times…days of yore…I went with friends in early ‘94. I became obsessed. I was in high school, a drama nerd – I wanted to be an actress, and I thought, holy shit, Medieval Times is how I will be discovered. And it didn’t hurt that all the dudes who worked there were Total babes.

DANNY: They were. [I was eight at the time, but I do remember specifically that the Schaumburg Castle was Hunk City.]

AMY: So I applied and they called me in for an interview to be a photo wench. Yes, wench was part of the title.

[N.B. To this day, Medieval Times will only hire men for the squire position, and the only way to become a knight is to start as a squire and work your way up; they claim it’s for ‘historical accuracy,’ which is absolutely insane. This seems like such a no-brainer to me! People love lady knights, and have since at least Spenser’s The Faerie Queene! Remember how Britomart is always taking off her helmet in slow motion and everyone sees her beautiful ponytail and makes fireworks sounds at her?]

AMY: It was the day they found Kurt Cobain[’s body]. Q101 was playing in the lab — the photo department’s office, where everyone worked together in a windowless room. They were announcing his death on the radio and all the serfs and wenches in the lab couldn’t stop talking about it. It was really sad, and it’s why I always remember the day that I was interviewed.

The Photo Department was a real Isle of Misfit Toys. We didn’t work in the gift shop. We didn’t work in the kitchen, or serve the food — we weren’t old enough. So we made minimum wage and got commissions off the commemorative photos we sold.

DANNY: Do you remember if staff meal was the same as the audience meal? Did you get a dinner break and leave campus?

AMY: When I first worked there, the show was two hours, and they gave the audience a full Cornish hen, plus a tiny glass at your table with sangria. They served soup before the Cornish hen, and they called it Dragon Soup (because they “dragged it in” from the kitchen).

DANNY: I KNEW I remembered that! It was just tomato bisque when I went this summer, but I REMEMBERED.

AMY: They also served apple turnover for dessert, and they were DELICIOUS. I would beg my friend Angie — she was a server, we called it F&B — to give me her extras. Beg. F&B couldn’t give us any food. We had a break, there was a vending machine. I may or may not have asked her at one point to just drop a pastry on the floor so I could pick it up.

DANNY: Do you remember much about the run of the show itself?

AMY: We would clock in at 5:45 — in costume. Show was at 7, went til 9 — then we would clean up — I always wanted to go to the after-show, to try and sell more souvenirs and spy on the cute knights, but typically clocked out around 9:45.

About a year into working there, they cut the show length. The sangria disappeared, and now we had less time to sell merch. But I loved working there. I made friends that I still talk to. We hung out afterwards at Bennigan’s or Denny’s, relics of the 90s.

[N.B. People still go to Denny’s!]

Most of my memories were of just being nerdy and goofing around. Sometimes we talked in fake English accents and I think we role played a bit, really trying to get into character. I got really into pewter. People had to eat with their hands, we didn’t offer silverware…I would always tell the MC if someone brought silverware (I know! Nerd!) But then the MC would call them out, a spotlight would be put on them — it was amazing.

And it helped my friends who were in Sound & Lighting. They wore all black and seemed incredibly cool. I hope this helps your piece!

[Image via]