What's in a name?...

I.Love.Shakespeare. Some people I happen to know don't appreciate this love, but I don't care. Oh, and it's not like I love him personally or anything - I love reading his plays! Almost better than reading them - acting in them! I have only been a part of two Shakespeare productions: 'Romeo & Juliet' and 'A Midsummer Nights Dream'. I was only 14 when we did R&J..and guess what? I got the part of Juliet! I think it was the most exciting thing in my entire acting career thus far! Looking back on my acting job, I consider what I did very amateur and withdrawn. I remember not being very confident in myself, and the whole romance thing...SO not happening! That was just one big AWKWARD!!! And we won't go on in that, though there are some funny stories...

Anyway, I think that if I was to play Juliet now, in my old age of almost 17 (:D) we would see huge differences in my portrayal of Juliet Capulet. I have since read a lot more Shakespeare, and I feel like I can understand what he says. I've also been working on being myself a bit more openly with people, starting with my own family, so I'm pretty sure I would have the confidence to do whatever it took for the emotions and thoughts of Juliet to leap off the stage. But that is probably never going to happen..

When we did the play "A Midsummer Nights Dream" the summer after "Romeo and Juliet", (we did a Shakespeare every summer-3 summers in a row) I got the tiny part of a fairy. Peaseblossom, to be exact. After basically planning the show (my mom is always the costumer, and production manager...I help her out a lot)and dreaming of the part of Helena, this was a blow to my ego. At the time I was really bummed. Now I'm glad it happened, because otherwise I would be some sort of prima donna with expectations of always getting the juicy parts. Now I know that if I want a part, I have to work for it. (I haven't exactly gotten the opportunity yet - we took this summer off at the ol' theatre...) Besides, in hindsight, being a fairy was fun. All of my friends were also fairies, and since we were only really in like...5 scenes tops, we got to hang out a lot. And we got to decorate posters, and dance...I choreographed some amazing dances that no one else in the cast appreciated, but whatever. The director liked them, so what do they know? (my fellow fairies liked them, too. It was our moment to shine...literally. There was a lot of glitter on our costumes...and in our hair...and on our skin...and on the floor as we walked by...you get the idea :D )

Now I'm hoping that we get to do a Shakespeare play next summer. I would personally LOVE to do "Twelfth Night", since it's been my favorite for like..ever! But it could get tricky, since we don't really have that many kids in our town that do Shakespeare - especially since most of them have graduated and moved on. And having girls play guys can get really confusing in that play! My mom's favorite is "The Tempest". I still haven't read that one...hopefully tomorrow! (My mom are planning to read it together tomorrow. :D )

If we do another Shakespeare next summer, you can be sure that I will be extremely involved. I might just take over as costumer...I'm also dying for a lead role again, (I don't mean that in a big egotistical way at all...it's just that they are so much more fun, and then you have the incentive to work hard at your role.) So I guess we shall see what happens! (I just realized that I did an entire post about Shakespeare plays without once quoting them! Sad...I'm a little rusty, though.)

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

(And yes, 'killing' myself was definitely memorable occasion :)