Lake View Terrace : Actress Takes On Role Fit for a Queen

For years, Patricia Adams has behaved like a queen. It’s not her attitude, it’s a character she plays.

The Canoga Park resident has been performing as Queen Elizabeth I at medieval events all over Southern California for the past three years.

This weekend and next, she’ll be at the California Renaissance Festival at Lake View Terrace’s Hansen Dam Equestrian Center.

She makes her living as a “couples counselor” in Venice, but Adams says it’s a love of acting and a fascination with English history that motivated her to become what she calls a “recreationist” in her free time.

“I love the clothing and I love the way that a woman actually ran the country,” she said.

Adams admits she’s sometimes accused of acting the part when she’s out of costume, but notes that she’s quite a bit different from the monarch.

“The queen is very proper, very ladylike, very virtuous,” Adams said.

She describes herself as “very flirtatious and outgoing.”

Under heavy layers of authentic period clothing, Adams performs entirely in character during public appearances, offering fair-goers a chance to see history in the flesh.

“My major goal is to let them walk away with the idea that they actually met Queen Elizabeth,” she said, although it’s a goal she believes she hasn’t met.

And where the queen goes, so goes her court--approximately 40 members of the St. Elizabeth’s Guild who accompany Adams as courtiers, peasants, heralds and bodyguards.

“It’s a big ceremony when the queen moves,” she said.

During her 3 1/2-hour festival appearance today, she said guild members will perform a scripted show involving the queen visiting a horse tournament and improvisational bits throughout the fairgrounds.

But there’s one stage Adams hasn’t conquered.

“I’ve always wanted to perform at Disneyland,” she joked.