"Some fool's going to walk this wire... over the audience... wearing a kilt... choose your seats wisely!" - The Squire of the Wire

Michael Rosman is the Squire of the Wire - a hilarious kilted tightrope walker, juggler, and comedian. He is a professional entertainer outside of the faire and has appeared on Leno and Letterman, and his kids (who also juggle) have been on the Ellen Degeneres Show. He performed at the Renaissance Festival up through the 2013 season.

Although Michael was known at the festival as being the wire walker, he also has a lot of other skills and was always coming up with new routines to include in his show. One of our favorite tricks was one of his wacky warm-up tricks called the Flaming Flying S'more, where he put a lit a marshmallow on fire, put it on his shoe, and kicked it up in the air to land on the graham cracker held between his teeth. During his show he juggled knives, did a box routine, a balancing trick on a rolla bolla and bowling ball, a diabolo routine (our favorite), and his big finale always included walking the tight rope over the audience. He always drew a big crowd and had many people that would come see him week after week.

We first met Michael in 2004 and the festival still feels kind of empty and lacking without him in the entertainment schedule. There are no other acts at the faire that do what he did and it's sad to see the trees where he used to have his wire up at the Fortune stage. He still has an entertainment career outside the MD festival, and we hope that he is able to return again in the future!

Photos

2004