Today’s Date: 6/17/2019

Show Title: Romeo and Juliet

Director: Miriam Burroughs

Assistant Directors: Austin Harleson and Amalia Oswald

Production Interns: Joseph Marsh and Margot Flanders 

Rehearsal Room: Hunt West

What we did: 

We began with a readthrough of the play, all present, accounted for, and ready to work. From there, we allowed the campers to vote on their selection of the play’s time period and show song. Next, our Director, Miriam Burroughs, posed some questions to the campers surrounding characterization, themes of the play, and how we would go about producing the play. Finally, Miriam, Austin, and Amalia worked on staging some of the fight scenes while Dramaturg Joe Marsh gave the campers a short presentation on the play.

Quick and Quotable

From the play:

“Palm to palm is Holy Palmers’ kiss.”

From the director:

“Choose love. Choose joy.”

“It’s all fun and games until somebody loses a Mercutio.”

From the cast:

*Actors jamming out to the show song*

“We no longer do high fives, only palmer kisses.”

“I thought it was really cheesy and then I went and read it and it is so much more than that.”

Production Insights: 

Hello! My name is Joe Marsh, and I’m the Dramaturg for ASCTC 2019 Session one’s Romeo and Juliet! I’m a sophomore Shakespeare in Performance student at Ave Maria University. I was a camper myself for three years, in 2014, 2016, and 2017. ASCTC is and always has been my home; I’m extremely happy to be able to create the culture which I grew to love in my own camp days for the next generation. I’ll be guiding you readers through our production from today to the final performance festival through the eyes of our R&J, which is already shaping up to be an incredible production. This evening, we then met our fabulous cast, who came ready to work.

I can already say these campers are a model cast. After the end of tonight’s rehearsal, they collectively decided to meet again back in the dorms to read through the play again to get to know it more personally. This energy is what I love about camp. As Miriam Donald Burroughs, our director, said, “Choose joy. Choose Love.” She spoke in reference to the many choices Romeo and Juliet presents, but most especially the choice of love and hatred outlines by Romeo in Act I scene I: “Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate, O anything of nothing first create.” Romeo asks despondently why we create anything; the answer comes with the first word that springs to mind with the thought of Romeo and Juliet: Love.