E-Mail This Article to a Friend A family, a faire The courtly ladies of King Richard BY MIKE MILIARD

In 1972, Bonnie Harris Shapiro (a dancer and musician) and her husband, Richard Shapiro (an actor and theater producer), decided to start a Renaissance festival. Renaissance festivals were not common in those days, and neither Bonnie nor Richard even had any special interest in the Renaissance. They simply thought, says Bonnie, "what a great idea. Let’s do something big."

Their brainchild, King Richard’s Faire, kicks off its 31st season — its 22nd in Massachusetts — next weekend, and much has changed in the decades since its inception. Richard Shapiro, who played the kindly king for almost a quarter-century, passed away in 1996. (Bonnie, of course, used to play the queen: "I wore a 55-pound costume; I used to almost pass out because of the steel ribs they put in the corset.") From its beginnings in the Chicago-Milwaukee area, the extravaganza has moved to a sun-dappled 80-acre stretch of forest in Carver. And of course it’s a much bigger beast than when it began, with more falconers and fire eaters and magicians and musicians and jugglers and jungle beasts than ever.

One thing hasn’t changed: the operations director and caretaker and entertainment liaison and bookkeeper/controller and musical directors and writers and costumers that have come on board over the years notwithstanding, the sprawling spectacle is still a family-run affair. Bonnie is the owner/producer, her daughter Aimée Shapiro Sedley is the general manager, and second daughter Samantha Harris — a TV personality on shows like EXTRA and The View — helps out when she can. After three-plus decades, these three still believe that the family that plays together stays together.

"I hope so!," Bonnie laughs. "Not only do we play together, but out there we also live together! Very close quarters. If you interviewed Aimée, she probably wouldn’t be as kind as I am! But it’s a wonderful thing. I trust her, she trusts me, we can say anything to each other, we talk to each other a hundred times a day because we’re negotiating all these contracts together and making all these decisions all day long. But sometimes it does creep a little bit into the sweet family life you’d like to have, which is just seeing each other for happy occasions. But I think we do pretty well, I now have a grandson, so it’s very fun for me. If I have to see her 20 times a week, I’m thrilled he’s also there."

She’s also thrilled about the myriad new additions to the ever-growing King Richard’s Faire experience. "We have camel rides this year! Which we have never had at King Richard’s Faire in Boston." Other beasts in the Royal Zoo: elephants, lions, tigers, and ligers — half and half, and "the hugest animals I have ever seen," Bonnie says. "Nine-hundred-some pounds, standing 11 feet tall on their hind legs." There’s also a falconer on horseback.

A perennial favorite — at least to a former peanut-farmer-president — is back: the Sturdy Mudbeggars show. Explains Bonnie: "they dive in mud, pick their noses in mud, it’s very funny. I actually had President Carter and Rosalynn Carter in Chicago one year, and their favorite show was the Mudbeggars." One new event will be a Renaissance reality show, Who Wants To Marry a Monarch?, that aims to find a new queen for a lonely king. Another is even more adult-oriented, according to Bonnie: "We have one guy who’s gonna do a torture show. We advise parents to keep their young children away."

Kids might find more to like in a stilt walker and puppeteer who’s just been added to the cast. "He lurks in the woods, and one minute he’s wearing a costume that looks like a garden, and his tutu grows, and tulips come out of it. He changes characters every couple hours. You never know who’s gonna greet you in the forest."

King Richard’s Faire runs Saturdays and Sundays from August 30 through October 19 (as well as Labor Day and Columbus Day) in Carver, off Route 58; call (508) 866-5391.