Denise Groason aka the Nortorious Madame Red
Skin tight corsets and bodices aside, it ain’t easy being a sexy wench these days…
Take Denise Groason – aka Renaissance Festival’s Notorious Madame Red – who is sitting out this year’s, whether it goes down or not.
“If the pandemic had not happened, I would have been performing for my 40th season,” she says. “But I have opted – along with my performance group – to not be involved.”
Groason’s bottom line:
“Not only do I not wan t to die, I don’t want to die the way Covid takes people,” she says. “Until there is some kind of effective treatment for this, I don’t have a life. Everything I loved about my life I don’t get to do now.
“This is a disturbing nightmares Hearne. It’s insane and it’s going to get worse. It’s going to be New York City everywhere.”
Renaissance Festival officials did not return repeated phone calls for this story but…
“They’re trying to open the show safely and they have a general plan on how to do that,” Groason says. “I personally would like to see the show not run. The thing I would like to see happen is 2020 needs to be a wash. There just needs to be a pause. And hopefully by 2021 they can come up with medical treatments and a vaccine.”
As for organizers continuing to sell tickets with all of the uncertainty, “I understand why thy are,” Groason says. “Absent a government order their leases still run. So they’re working with the Unified Government health department.”
The reason for Groason’s great personal apprehension: while she is well under the age of 60, she has a number of the so-called “underlying conditions” that could result in a worst case scenario.
“I’ll be happy if I’m still alive in a year,” she says. “Because frankly, if I get the coronavirus I’m going to die.”
Madame Red…… what nice cans you have !
Easy theremins snappie