Today’s Date: 6/21/19

Show Title: Romeo and Juliet

Director: Miriam Burrows

Assistant Directors: Austin Harleson and Amalia Oswald

Production Interns: Margot Flanders (Stage Manager) Joseph Marsh (Dramaturg)

Rehearsal Room: Hunt West

What we did: 

We began with a “seaweed” warmup, directed by Amalia. Next, we got right down to business and blocked from Act I, Scene v to Act III, Scene i. At this point, 2/3 fights in the play are blocked, as well as all the major group scenes. Closing in on the last week of rehearsals, Romeo and Juliet is well on its way!

Quick and Quotable:

From the play 

“Holy St. Francis, What a change is here?” -Friar Laurence, Act II Scene iii 

From the Director 

“The idea of the grapes is that they keep us moving.”

“Nurse, you’ve got to interrupt them sooner, they’ve already had a baby at this point.”

From the Cast

“I am, I dare say, Stoked!” 

To the tune of here comes Santa Claus: “Here comes Romeo, Here comes Romeo…”

Production Insights 

Hello, this is Joe again! I was out yesterday after a brief bout with the illness had been ravishing the camp over the past few days. I am back, however, and readier than ever to put on what at this point is shaping up to be an absolutely incredible production.

Today, I had a chance to sit down with some campers and work through some of the textual eccentricities of Romeo and Juliet. The play was written somewhere around 1595, placing it just at the beginning of Shakespeare’s mature period. It is contemporary of some of my absolute favorite Shakespeare plays, a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard II, and Love’s Labors Lost. The strange parts of the meter are fairly regular; particularly, names, and how they are scanned. Scansion is the process by which we tell which syllables are to be stressed in iambic pentameter. Many of Shakespeare’s names (Romeo, Benvolio, Malvolio, Mercutio, Claudio, etc.) are able to be said either as a two syllable word or a three (ben-vo-li-o or ben-vo-lyo). Everything I asked our actors revolved around one question: why is that name that many syllables there? That led many actors much deeper in their consideration of their text, helping them look even further into the depths of their textwork and acting choices. Each camper came up their own answer to the question Juliet asks so poignantly in Act II: “What’s in a name?”