Comedy feature Rennie to be filmed at KC Renaissance Festival using locals for background

Courtesy of KC Ren Fest

Barley Moon Productions and One Truck Productions will be holding background actor auditions for their newest feature film Rennie at this year’s Kansas City Renaissance Festival.

Rennie is a heartfelt comedy about a group of ren fest performers and merchants that are on a quest to save their small town. The film is written, directed, and produced by Jessica Dressler and Jen Frank Klenke.

Dressler and Frank Klenke both have close ties to the KC Ren Fest scene. Dressler was a performer at the fest in her late teens and Frank Klenke spent many years attending the festival with her family. During the pandemic, they started to pursue screenwriting together. When deciding what to write about, they quickly turned to their joint love of ren fest culture. “We’re both madly in love with it. It’s basically untapped media, there aren’t a lot of Ren Fest movies out there,” says Dressler. 

Crew members for the film include Johanna Brooks, cinematographer, Marie Doughtery, supervising producer, Jor-El Washington, line producer, and Wyatt Farrow, gaffer. “We’ve learned through friends in the various arts that Kansas City has a ton of talent as far as filmmaking goes but they haven’t got into feature filmmaking in recent years,” says Frank Klenke. 

Much like the work of Christopher Guest, Dressler, and Klenke are using film as a platform to highlight and uplift subcultures in a feel-good way.

While auditions for main cast members took place in July, auditions are currently being held for 16 background actors every festival day by the visiting booth outside the King’s gate from 9:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. until September 30. Chosen actors will need to be available to film on Oct 1.