Tom and Stephanie walk through a door with peeling brown paint and leave behind the ordinary.
They play Queen and King at the Hoggetowne Medieval Faire chess match. It plays out like a drama, and they both play key roles.
"It's good to be the king," said Henry II, played by Tom Dalton, a 43-year-old network engineer.
The king and queen are from Gainesville and Lake City, respectively. Tom Dalton is a network engineer and Stephanie Tyson is a librarian.
They've been members of the Thieves Guilde, the acting troupe that works at the fair every year, for a combined seven years.
The chess match includes fight scenes, witty dialogue and complex costumes. Inside a staging area, members of the troupe rehearse scenes and stunts and give each other pointers on things like holding weapons and rolling without injury.
Dalton is a 6-foot-7 ex-basketball center for Osceola High School in Seminole.
"I never would have seen myself doing this in high school," he said. "I was not a drama guy."
He's in a purple shirt. On his head is a simple crown. On his back, a black and silver cape lined with silver diamond-shaped studs. He's proud of his decision to be the king.
Next to Dalton, sitting in a fold-up lawn chair, is 6-foot Stephanie Tyson. She's in a purple-and-beige dress with gold and white sleeves. She jokes with other cast members, but once outside and in character, they are measly peasants.
She's been an actor for about a decade and loves performing for others.
"I was really bad at auditioning back then," she said.
Now, Tyson has played a lead role three out of the four years she has been with the Thieves Guilde.
The duo's day jobs are a far cry from the fantasy of the fair. Tyson tells stories to middle and high school students, and Dalton works in the IT department at Main Street Broadband.
"By day, I configure routers, and on the weekend I am a smart-ass king," Dalton said.
He found the troupe when his 16-year-old daughter wanted to learn stage combat, which the guild specializes in.
"Any time your teenage child asks you if you want to do something together for the next eight weeks, you say yes," he said.
The guild offered an audition toward the end of his training. He didn't want to audition at first, but his daughter encouraged him.
Actors audition in September and start rehearsing in October for the fair, usually held around the beginning of the year.
He said he stuck with the troupe because of the members' commitment to acting and the family atmosphere.
All members of the troupe are volunteers and have to pay for their own clothes. Being a large man in need of fairly specific clothes, Dalton sometimes has trouble putting together his wardrobe.
"It's tough finding ladies boots in size 12," he said.
There is a script for the actual chessboard, Dalton said, but he likes to improvise, which is a skill he displays as he walks around the medieval village and encourages people to see the show.
The king spouts phrases such as, "It's a pleasure for you to meet me," "She can come, but you can't, sir," and "Come out to the chessboard and bring your ugly children."
"Wisecracking around with people," he said with a laugh. "There is nothing like it."
Next to the king, Queen Eleanor invites her subjects to "come and see the violence."
As they walk by, people high-five the royalty and chant "Huzzah, Huzzah!"
At the chessboard, people cheer for either the white or the black side.
The hour-long show is full of swords, heckling and organized chaos.
Once the first show is over, the cast eats and then waits. They'll perform twice more that day and 15 times the whole fair.
"I love to be on stage and I love to entertain other people," Tyson said.
She uses her librarian skill set to talk to children as the queen. When she invites them to the match, she gets down low and smiles.
"I like putting on the big pretty dress and putting on the pretty crown, but that part isn't important. The important thing when you were a kid was playing with your friends," she said. "The great part is that I get to put on a costume and act goofy for four [more] days with my friends."
After the fights and the fanfare, the cast went back to the warehouse. They took off their costumes and prepared to go home. Back to their homes and their lives where, until next weekend, they are normal again.
Queen Eleanor, played by Stephanie Tyson, 30, and King Henry II, played by Tom Dalton, 43, march through the 26th annual Hoggetowne Medieval Faire on their way to perform in a live-action chess game.
