178 Minutes With ... Erin Zapcic

Otherwise known as Doña Maria Isabella, queen of the Lyndhurst, New Jersey, Medieval Times.

- Allison P. Davis

SEVEN YEARS AGO, Erin Zapcic— a petite, muscular woman with hair dyed the raven-feather hue of Snow White’s—walked into Medieval Times in New Jersey, looking for a job. She was an aspiring actress who had just moved to the area (18 minutes away from Port Authority) to be closer to classes and auditions. Zapcic got hired in the gift shop and a month later was promoted to “bar wench”; after a few more months, she worked her way into the show’s cast, as one of the four rotating princesses who wait for a knight or a king to rescue them, two shows a day, three days a week. At that time, it never really occurred to Zapcic, now 29, that she might one day sit on the throne or that perhaps there was some sort of glass ceiling to break. But today she is Queen Doña Maria Isabella of the Lyndhurst, New Jersey, Medieval Times, in between the Courtyard by Marriott and the Quality Inn. She no longer has to wear the wenches’ corset, a perk of the promotion.

Since the first Medieval Times opened in Florida in 1983, the chain of dinner theater monarchies has been ruled by men. The announcement that it would be replacing kings with queens arrived in October, just as the first wave of #MeToo stories emerged, and the introduction of a female ruler seemed irresistibly resonant. Media outlets from Vogue to the New York Times covered the news, and when Zapcic appeared on local TV, she described guests approaching her with tears in their eyes.

Whatever the coverage, the transition had actually begun 18 months ago, inspired by requests on audience comment cards: People wanted to see women featured more prominently in shows, and corporate answered. It was more a question of entertainment than politics, Zapcic explains, as she gives me a cheerful all-access tour of her castle. “Women make great stories.”