Pilgrim Labor Crisis

The Plimoth Plantation, the nation’s leading producer of 17th Century Impersonators, announced this month that – in the face of dramatic drops in attendance and revenue at its ‘theme park’, and following on the announced layoffs of experienced staff members, that it is considering several dramatic new business strategies, up to and including changing centuries.
The following is a list – obtained from a former Lieutenant Governor of the Plymouth Colony who wishes to remain anachronistic, of the key strategies being considered by Plantation leadership.

The 20th Century:
Instead of Plymouth in its infancy (circa 1627), the Plantation is considering shifting its focus to the Plantation in its infancy – namely, the Plantation in the mid 20th Century (circa 1968), when it served the community as a kind of de-facto commune, getting the region’s long-hairs off the streets. (Ironically, ‘coole’ and ‘far oute’ were expressions used in both of these historic periods.)

1610
Ten years before the Pilgrim’s landed, the Wampanoag village of Pawtuxet flourished. A focus on that year would allow for the layoff of the entire impersonator staff, the refinancing of every unoccupied home on Leyden Street, the installation of basic utilities (specifically, flush toilets), and the addition to the town’s low income housing, of 11 desirable units.

Pilgrim FX
For this approach, the impersonators remain faithful to the historical record BUT, sophisticated digital technologies and effects are utilized to create horrifically realistic portrayals of the more bloody (and therefore crowd-pleasing) moments in the Pilgrim story, including:
§ The beheading of King Phillip.
§ The drowning of Dorothy Bradford.
§ The big splinter that John Billington had removed from his butt.
§ And the last big layoff (2001) of 17th Century Impersonators.

The Mayflower III Paddlewheel Plymouth Harbor Booze Cruise
Three times a day, five times on weekends, the Mayflower – equipped with it’s own working Paddlewheel, would offer mini-historic-booze-cruises of the harbor during which costumed impersonators - confined to cages on deck, could be taunted and teased by the paying customers.

The Haunting of Burial Hill House
Requiring no Pilgrim impersonators at all, the 17th Century Pilgrim Settlement would instead, be transformed into a first-rate haunted house

The Pilgrim Improv Troupe?
You buy a ticket and we make it up as we go.

Timeshare Anyone?
Imagine spending a week in your own 17th century home, eating gruel, fending off pesky savages, and – helping to keep the towns’ rapidly rising number of wild turkeys in check. For just $10,000 you could spend one week every year in one of the world’s most famous single family homes (the first to order will have their choice of the Bradford, Winslow, or Standish units) – or, exchange your unit for a fortnight in a 9thth Century British hovel (eating gruel, fending off pesky Vikings) or a long weekend in 3rd Century Rome (eating gruel, fending off pesky barbarians).

Seven Flags, Plymouth
You want rides? We got rides! Well, one at least. The Mayflower Experience: a sort of roller coaster with only one large car – in which up to a hundred ticket holders are forced together, doused with saltwater, subjected to nasty smells, tumbled like clothes in the dryer, blasted with pre-recorded religious aphorisms, then left to fend for themselves somewhere else.
Want to go again?

Alternative History?
What if?
What if little Johnny Billington had actually discovered the Pacific Ocean (and not the pond that now bears his name) settled in California, planted a vineyard, developed the famous ‘Pilgrim Pub & Grub’ chain, eventually moving their massive World headquarters (designed to look like a big glass hamburger) to Plymouth’s non-historic, honky-tonk waterfront?
What if?
What if the term ‘Pilgrim’ were synonymous with ‘party animal.’
What if?
What if Squanto’s plan was to wait until he had earned the confidence of the Pilgrims then, when they were all asleep...

Let The Inmates Run the Asylum!
What if, instead of cutting middle management and asking the indentured servants (impersonators) to do more with less, we get rid of ourselves (the high-priced upper management, museum types, Mayflower descendants, retailers) and instead, really, honestly, obsessively, focus on creating an actual working, 17th Century settlement.
Hire dozens of additional impersonators and have them actually on site, all the time.
Instead of giving into today’s economic realities, fully embrace the 17th Century’s realities. Live off the corn we grow, the livestock we raise, and the beer we brew. Have perhaps, two or three sets of impersonators for each historic personage.
Script an entire year – and give visitors a chance to travel back in time – to a specific day, happening in real time.
Now that would be exciting.
That would be a reality worth paying for.
Let the Pilgrims actually run Pilgrim Town!
What a concept!