My third show of 2023
was Romeo and Juliet at Curtain Theatre in
The last Shakespeare show I had done was The Comedy of Errors nearly five
years earlier. Before that, there was a seven-year gap since the last
Shakespeare play I did, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and I had
hoped it wouldn't be so long the next one. At nearly five years, it was a
smaller wait this time around, but still longer than I would have liked.
Mercutio had been a dream role for me for the longest time. I auditioned for this role in 2014, only to see it go to another actor and for me not be cast at all. I was only in my mid-twenties then and I thought I had more time. By 2023, however, I was thirty-four and feeling that I was starting to age out of the role. I felt that this might be my very last chance. While this is Shakespeare's most famous and often produced play, it hadn't been done anywhere in the North Bay since 2014, at least not that I knew of.
I was unable to attend either audition date. I was out of town on the first date, and I had a rehearsal on the second date. I emailed the director that I was interested, but not able to attend auditions and asked if it would be possible if I could send in a video or something. He responded that while I could send a video, he would be reluctant to cast someone in a major role without seeing them in person and finding out their chemistry with other actors. He invited me to attend the callbacks and he would have me read the sides for Mercutio and Paris.
On the day of
the callbacks, I started to have second thoughts on my way there because I
underestimated how far away
The director, Steve Beecroft, told me to come at 3:45, nearly two hours after the start time. It was held in a small room on the second story of a church, which had a great echo off the walls. Everyone sat on either side of the room, while pairs or groups of three would get up to read sides in front of the entire room. I assumed the role of Romeo had been cast because the same actor got up to read for that role in all the scenes in which Romeo appeared and he already had the lines memorized. I listened to the balcony scene not less than four times as he read with each woman, one by one. Fine with me, I didn't want that role.
I gave it my
best shot with the scenes as I read for Mercutio, trying to have the high
energy required for the role, and the actor who read for Romeo was a good sport
with what I wanted to try. At one moment, I asked if he wouldn't mind me
picking him up and spinning him around and he didn't mind it at all. Even
watching the other actors, I felt a good energy in the room, and I rather liked
it. I never did get to read for
Two days later
I received an email offering me the role of
I was not sure
whether I would accept the role of
I accepted the
role, though at the back of my mind was the worry that I was making a mistake.
This was a long commute, and I had no idea how this company would operate. I hoped
against hope that I was making the right choice.
The rest of the cast included Nick Moore, Dale Leonheart, Grace Kent, Nelson Brown, Ramon Villa, Kim Bromley, Glenn Havlan, Evan Winet, Amy Dietz, Tom Reilly, Marianne Shine, Heather Cherry, Grey Wolf, Alexandra Fry, Marc Berman, Thomas Thelly, Grisha Driscoll, and Adelaide Finnegan.
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| Cast and Crew |
We had lost
four people from the original cast list. Grace was one of the replacements and
in her case, I was rather happy that she joined, having worked with her
previously. Even so, I also knew and liked the original actress, and I wished
that someone else had dropped out instead to make room. But if one person in
the room at call backs could replace someone else, I’m glad it was Grace.
I had not given much, if any, thought to this company since they only had matinee performances on weekends. As such, since I worked on weekends for the longest time, I could never even go see a show they produced let alone work with them. The only time I was able to see a show from this company had been ten years earlier and the only reason I was able to see it at all was because I had been in a bicycle accident and had to take a week off from work. I could get an idea for how this show would be by the previous year's production, which was filmed and posted on Youtube. It was Two Gentlemen of Verona, and it looked rather good in my opinion. Costumes in the style of the Elizabethan era, sword play, dancing and singing with a live band and performed outdoors surrounded by redwood trees. What more could you ask for?
Rehearsals
would not officially begin until early July. Before that, however, the first
read through would be in mid-April and Steve would do some character work
developing background and relationships with the actors. In addition, there
might also be sword fight action started on. Unfortunately, for me, I was
not able to be there for the first read through. I was in
I waited (and
waited) to hear from him when we'd have my session with character development,
but April stretched into May and still nothing. I wasn't sure how to handle
Finally, in
June, I received word from Steve scheduling a rehearsal for a Saturday where
we'd do a character session and he'd also start working on my sword fight. The
location was to be at the stage in the park in
My sword fight
with Nick wasn’t very long (I had a few rounds recorded to study my form and
look for areas to improve). What Steve envisioned was that
When July arrived, rehearsals were held in two places. The weekday evening rehearsals were held at a church only two blocks from the park where we'd be performing. The weekend rehearsals, which took place midday, were held at the park on the actual stage where we'd be performing (with the exception of one day when there was a pre-scheduled event). It was like the church rehearsals were a warm-up and then the park rehearsals were to get a feel for the actual space. From the first rehearsal, I immediately fell in love with the space in the park. Outdoors, surrounded by redwood trees? Count me in. I may have gotten dirty every time I was there, but I could live with that. I will say, even though I had not been to that spot in ten years, it looked smaller than I remembered.
My first
formal rehearsal was on the first Saturday after they began and held in the park.
The main focus of this rehearsal was to stage the opening scene. In this, we’d
start with an original song, have two couples dance a “happy dance,” go into
the fight scene through the speech the prince makes and finally stage the
prologue.
The song,
entitled “If Only” was written by Don Clark, who was the leader of a quartet of
musicians who would be playing throughout the show. The others were Michele
Delattre, Jo Lusk and Hal Hughes. There was also a closing song that was
introduced a few weeks into rehearsals. This song was titled “L’Amore Vince La
Morte” and for this song, I only had to learn the third verse and sing only
“Ahs” during the chorus. Much easier than learning the entire song, as was the
case with “If Only.” In addition to the two songs, the band also play
incidental or scene change music, all of which they wrote themselves. That was
a specialty of the shows of this company- original music which really gave the
production a boost.
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| L'Amore Vince La Morte. Photo by Russ Johnson |
Since my character was not one of the fighting members of the Capulets or Montagues, I had to learn "If Only" and I was in one of the two couples that would do the dance that followed, along with Grey Wolf, Kim and Grace. I was partnered with Grace, which I was grateful for because she wasn't a stranger, and she had dancing experience. Grace’s character was Benvolio (renamed Benvolia for this production) and while her character was a family member of the Montagues, she wanted peace, so it made sense for her to dance in the beginning. This dance had quite a few spins in it, and I often got dizzy from it, especially after rehearsing it repeatedly.
Steve wore
many hats in this show. Not only was he the director, but he also was the dance
and fight choreographer, and he acted as one of the Montague members in
the opening scene. I found more reason to be cautiously optimistic after the
first formal rehearsal because he had something I rarely, if ever, saw in a
director: efficiency (or at least efficiency that satisfied my standards). He was never lost, he noticed little details in his
dances where mistakes were made or areas to improve and he also gave the actors
freedom to explore their own movements. I will admit he was a bit anal
retentive on minor details and I wish that he had spent a little less time on the two leads, but I could look past that since he was efficient.
In addition to
the happy dance, I had another one to do: the dance at the Capulet ball. At first, I thought I was the only one to have two, but Nick and Dale, who played
Romeo and Juliet respectively, also had two dances. Dale actually had three,
one of which was a solo jig that opened the second half of the play, but don’t ever ask her about it. For the
second dance, I was partnered with Marianne, who played Lady Montague and
understudied Lady Capulet. In this particular dance/scene, she was merely a party attendee. She was almost my height, and it was rather nice to
dance with someone tall. She was also relieved that I was her partner because I
was tall. It took us both a moment to remember everything we’d been taught.
While we did remember certain things we did, we couldn’t remember the order. But
once we got a paper copy of the steps from Steve it jogged our memories.
At every
subsequent rehearsal, I would take either Marianne or Grace aside (if they were
also at that rehearsal) and review my respective dances with them at least
once. Steve wanted that in addition to people reviewing their sword fights at
every rehearsal.
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| My dance with Marianne in the Capulet ball. Photo by Russ Johnson |
Since we were rehearsing outdoors in broad daylight, but in a shaded area, I decided to try my hand at photographing people while they were acting out scenes. Normally, I don't like photographing people because it was impossible to get a good natural and candid shot since people these days only look down and stare at their phones. In this instance, however, I could capture people being active and in the moment. What can I say? We had two photogenic leads and a number of animated supporting actors. Gold. The only sad part was that, as both Dale and Nelson mentioned to me, there weren’t any of those photos of me. Oh well. I also could never get any photos of Heather because I was onstage every time she was.
I showed a few examples to Nick, and he liked them so much he asked if he use them on the Curtain Theatre social media. Fine with me. He started using them for “Meet the cast” posts where each member got their own post with their playbill bio along with three or four photos each. Photos that were taken by Heather’s husband, Peter Bradbury, were also featured on the posts, though mine were used far more. Peter was often at rehearsals and performances taking photos of rehearsals and backstage moments, though many of his photos were not that good; he was not good at focusing his camera and, as a result, many of his photos were blurry.
As rehearsals
progressed and the show grew, Nick asked me if I could supply photos that
represented romantic and tragic elements of the show as part of a series of
posts he would be doing. I did my best to oblige him; Romantic was not a
problem, but tragic was very hard. The really tragic moments of the show,
meaning the double suicide scene, I could never get since my character had to
lie dead onstage at the same time. He also made posts for levity, violence and swordplay, all of which he used some of my photos for.
Though I did my best to get photos of
everyone during rehearsals, I found that I took photos of Nick and Dale the
most. While they were both physically attractive, they had such incredible chemistry
when acting together. After taking maybe 600 photos of the cast during the
rehearsal period, I told Dale that I still hadn’t had my fill of taking photos
of the two of them. They both gave me so much to work with. Nick was especially
a pleasure to photograph because it seemed as though he never did his
performance quite the same way twice. He did the basics the same, like being
where he was supposed to be at certain moments, but there were just little
touches here and there that were different. Like, he might say a line directly to someone one time and another time out to the audience. Or maybe he'd use his hands differently. Or he might slam the stage with his hand for one line, but not any other time. Or he might even just emphasize a word more than usual. In Dale’s case, even from photos
that other people took, I thought, “Do you never take a bad photo?” She was
that attractive.
These five photos of Dale and Nick are just a sample of all I took, but these are among my favorites. The first one is my personal favorite of the hundreds of photos I took. The fourth one was Nick's favorite (he even made it the wallpaper on his phone for a long time). None of these photos are poses; I captured these moments as they acted out their scenes. Sometimes, when I need something to make me feel good, I go back and look at the photos I took during rehearsals.
In addition to being wonderful photographic
subjects, the two of them were very talented onstage and very good people
offstage. They were the anchors of our production, setting the bar really high
for the rest of us. They were very close (as in best friends close) during the
production, I’m guessing because Steve already had quite a few character sessions with
them. They also had a shared connection in that they were both vegans. Often, they'd meet up before rehearsals and performances and arrive together, Nick might bring her a vegan treat or meal and if they arrived separately, they would have to greet each other and go off and bond or whatever. It certainly paid off because, as I said, the chemistry was incredible.
Nick had done a few seasons already and he
was pretty much a full member of the company, and he couldn’t have been more
welcoming to all us first-timers. He was as good an actor as I’d ever seen; he made his performance
interesting every time during rehearsal, he always projected loudly enough, he
never missed a cue and he never once called “Line” during rehearsal. I came to
be honored that he was the one who killed me onstage. During rehearsals and
performances, before he went on in his first scene in each act, he would put on his headphones and get into
the mindset to play Romeo (he called it “marinating”). I don’t know what he
listened to, but I couldn’t watch him before the second act because it reminded
me too much of me nearly ten years earlier after my father died and I spiraled into a dark place.
Like me, Dale was also a newcomer to this
company. She was a very lovely person and as sweet and kind to me offstage as her
character was indifferent and cold to mine onstage. Every rehearsal she greeted
me, and everyone else for that matter, warmly with a winning smile. She was
just one of those people whose presence could just bring a smile to one’s face.
She had one acting ability I wish I had: I never failed to see tears come to
her eyes when she was supposed to be sad in the scene.
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| My scene with Dale in the second act. Photo by Robin Jackson |
My main problem with my role was what to
do with my arms. You may or may not agree with this, but onstage, arms are so
useless if you’re not moving or holding something. I felt like a statue onstage
for many of my scenes where I just stood there, arms hanging at my side. I
thought of various ways I could stand, like arms behind my back or just one
behind my back, but I thought “Is that too modern?" I asked mentioned this to Steve and he said he could help with that, only it never happened. Eventually, I had to look up paintings of Elizabethan era nobles for clues as to what they did.
My main scene partner in this play, meaning the person I shared the most scenes with, was
Evan, who played Capulet, Juliet’s father. It got very trying to share the stage
with him because every time he spoke, he kept moving upstage, forcing me to
turn that way to deliver my lines. I would have given anything for him to
either stand still or move downstage a little. In time I learned to just look
out regardless of where he was.
At several rehearsals, we rehearsed some
big group scenes a lot. Steve had them all memorized by where they were in the
play; two that come to mind were “Act 1, Scene 1.5” and “Act 3, Scene 1.” I know there was at least one other, but those two are the ones I remember the most. Having
a decent enough memory, I learned what happened in those scenes fairly quickly,
but some people, especially the older cast members, never comprehended what he
meant when he called places for those scenes. I couldn’t understand why it was so difficult to pick up on a pattern, especially since we rehearsed these
scenes the most.
Rehearsals
went very well until one Sunday, with thirteen days left until opening. We were
rehearsing the final act, staging the last things that needed to be staged,
which was everything that happens after Juliet stabs herself. Nick, Dale and I were lying
"dead" onstage, waiting for the other actors to come on, when Marc
and Greywolf started arguing. I don't know what started it; at first, I
thought they were goofing off, as Greywolf was wont to do (he often did
ridiculous out of place accents with his lines, but only in rehearsals), but it
quickly became apparent the tones of their voices that it was not funny at all.
It looked like it could have gotten very ugly. Steve quickly moved to defuse
the situation, calling for a five minute break. He spoke to them both,
individually and privately. I saw them hug it out shortly after, so I'm
assuming they made their peace. That was apparently the first time there had ever been something like that during a rehearsal for any show at this company.
On a side note, Marc was the one person in the cast who was not popular, at least not by the younger members. He may have been able to project well, but that’s all he brought to the table. He had fewer lines than I did, but he took his sweet time getting off book and learning his entrances. He was also inconsiderate; often when we were performing scenes, he’d be in the back yammering away to somebody and not even whispering. Dale later said that she once very nearly yelled at him while she was performing one of her solo scenes (I wish she had). He had a tendency to give other actors notes (big no-no) and he was too rough with both Alex and Adelaide onstage; in one scene with Alex he actually pulled her back when he should have just grabbed her arm and let her do the rest and with Adelaide, he had a sword fight with her in the beginning and he fought a bit hard. He also became increasingly demanding of the attention of Jody, the costume designer. Often when she would be working on someone else’s things, he marched right up, interrupting and asking about the smallest things with his own costume. Since Dale had five costumes, she needed the most attention, but that didn’t stop Marc from thinking his things were more important. To top it all, he certainly did not respect Steve as a director. From what I gleaned from his complaints about Steve and comparing his opinions of previous directors, it sounded as though he preferred directors who let him have his way and shrug off his slowness and Steve wasn't like that. Fortunately, since Marc lived far away and always left immediately after rehearsals and performances, we didn't have to hang out with him.
There were two times that
some of the cast, mainly younger members, hung out in the park after rehearsal. I couldn’t go to
the first one since we didn’t end rehearsal then until 10 or later, it was
Tuesday night and I had to get up at 6:20. But the second time was the night of our
final rehearsal. On this night I could hang with them for a couple hours since
we ended before 9:00, the next day was my Friday at work, and we didn’t have
rehearsal the following night so I could rest after work. I was perfectly willing to endure one tired day
at work just to spend time outside rehearsal with (some of) these people. Our
little group that night consisted of Nelson, Amy, Grisha, Ramon, Alex, Nick,
Dale, Amy,
It was wonderful to
finally get to spend time with some of the cast after a rehearsal. This was the
kind of cast I wanted to hang out with afterwards. As it turned out, I had
fooled at least two people in this cast in some way. The first person I fooled was Nick. After talking to him about going to
The other person I fooled was Ramon, who played Tybalt. He told me that when he first met me, he thought I was going to be the quiet theatre kid type, but I was more talkative than he anticipated. He wasn’t technically wrong because I am a naturally quiet person; for example, sometimes at rehearsal the first thing I would say to someone whatever my character says to theirs. The main reason why I was more open to him than he might have thought was because he made the first move and made the effort to get to know me. Ramon also fooled me in turn. The first time I saw him in person was in the park during my first rehearsal there. He was on the stage getting ready to practice one of his sword fights when I arrived. When I found out who he was playing I thought, “That’s who’s playing Tybalt? He looks so... skinny.” I joked to him later that if he turned sideways, he’d almost disappear to anyone sitting far enough away. But then I started following him on Instagram and I thought, “Damn! This guy may be thin, but he’s a ripped surfer dude!”
I’m pretty sure I fooled
Steve with my headshot when I auditioned. He probably thought of me for the
role of
This was the first time I ever had to wear period
costumes for a Shakespeare show. While the company did have a few things, they
had to rent costumes from one or two other places, including from the
I would have two costumes: my
Unfortunately, we did not get the costumes from OSF
until a few days before opening. According to Jody, the woman who ran the
rentals there was delayed because of a series of personal tragedies in her life
(or so she said). While they did arrive before the run started, adjustments had to be made and
also, Jody kept working and adding onto some of them right to the last day.
Dale for example did not have any of her costumes all finished until opening
day. That being the case, we never got a full run of the show in the park with
our costumes.
For this company, we were responsible for our own costumes, taking them home and bringing them with us every day, since the show was to be performed
outdoors in a public park and there was no backstage area for us to leave our stuff. We had to wash
the shirts and the leggings we wore, but everything else had to be sprayed with
Vodka water. We were also advised to bring them in a garment bag. Since not everyone owned one, Jody offered extras to any in need; Dale got the
largest one since she had five costumes and she needed someone (which was
usually Nick) to help her bring her stuff down and back up the hill to her car. She was even given her own private costume rack.
Our backstage crew consisted of Diane and Lisa, the stage manager and assistant stage manager, respectively. Diane’s job was to follow along with a script and give everyone a one page warning for their next entrance. Lisa’s job was to help with quick changes and brush the dirt off our black shoes, no easy feat since dirt would get everywhere. Lisa was always the one with the calm head during these changes which I was very grateful for. In addition to that, she brought the snacks for us to munch on backstage, such as chips, candy and cookies. All sorts of goodies!
Before every show, Diane would lead us all in a circle to have us breath and bring us into the moment, share each other's energy and prepare us for our performance. At the end of it, we’d go around the circle, clockwise or counterclockwise and say, “I will hold you up,” to whomever was next to us.
I don’t recall the last time I was so excited for an opening day. The night before and the morning of it, I kept thinking “Yeah!
All right! It’s opening, I’ve been waiting for this for so long! Let’s do it!”
But time had a way of fooling us all that day. When we arrived for our call,
11:30, Steve had us do warm-ups and do a rehearsal of the dances, songs and sword fights. Then he
also had us run the big group scenes, meaning the opening scene, the ending
scene of the first half and the final scene at the end. When it was all done, I
looked at the time and it was only 12:40. And then it just slowly crawled to
2:00. It was exactly the same the next day, even though our call was 12:00.
Opening night was
universally referred to by the cast as an invited dress rehearsal, mainly
because of the delays with the costumes. My first costume change was meant to
be fast, and it went horribly. I ran offstage when I was directed to, but I did
not realize how little time that was to make the change and my costumes,
despite being all snaps and Velcro, were difficult to maneuver and it caused me
to be late for my next entrance and I looked terrible and disheveled to
boot. I couldn't get my head piece or my belt on, so I had to hold the sword I
wore in my hand and hope no one would notice. Not only that, but a few
other entrances were late, one of which was one of the ones I had with Glenn.
Glenn was supposed to lead us on, but the timing went badly because someone
onstage forgot a line and he just waited and waited while moving oh so slowly
toward the stage.
The second show of that weekend went much better. I knew immediately the previous day how to fix my costume change- leave earlier. Much earlier. Also, they (meaning the crew backstage, more on them in a moment) decided to have someone assist me with the change. Some entrances could have been improved, but it wasn’t as horrible as the day before. During my scene with Nick where he and I have our fight, he spit in my eyes...twice. Not intentionally, that’s just what happens sometimes from actors. I’ve been onstage with other actors, and I’ve seen spit just go flying from their mouths. It wasn’t that big a deal, but one of the times was when I was supposed to be “dead,” and when his spit hit my eyes, they reflexively shut before he mimed closing them. Oh, the crap I gave him afterwards for the rest of the run over it.
The weather for opening
weekend was perfect on both days. Sunny, but not hot and no wind to drown out
our voices. In the beginning, I thought I’d have to have sunscreen before my
death scene (Nick’s recommendation) and I put some on, but then, when I got to
that scene, I realized that the sun was behind the wall of the set by then and
I was completely in the shade.
In spite of the hiccups,
the opening weekend was a success. After the performance on opening day, I was
so overcome I hugged the first person I could backstage, which happened to be
Nelson. We got two good reviews (though I was not happy with what one said
about me; next paragraph) and the audiences loved it. The toughest critic came on our opening,
which was by all accounts the worst of the two days that weekend, and he gave
us a glowing review. But after the second show, I felt sad because we would not
be back until the following Saturday, a full five days later.
I would not have thought my character prominent enough to earn a mention in a review, but it happened. It said, "Michael Hunter's Paris, Juliet's family sanctioned suitor, is stiff and uncomfortable in social situations." Ouch. To make matters worse, when I mentioned it to people in the cast, one too many of them said something in the vein of "Isn't that how you've been playing it?" It was not and the fact that everyone was thinking it meant how I was trying to portray the character was not coming across. I had to rethink the whole thing.
The Saturday of the second
weekend had a much smaller audience than either of the first two performances.
It was also not a very responsive audience. To top it off the weather was not
ideal; it was very windy. During the last part where I was supposed to be lying
dead, I kept wondering whether leaves or twigs were going to fall on my face
from the branches overhead, though by some miracle, that never happened during the entire run. In spite of the less than ideal weather, it felt good to be back after
being away so long.
After the performance on
Saturday, a group of us got together and went to see Twelfth Night at Marin Shakespeare Company. Since we had no evening
performances for our own show, we could easily support another company doing
Shakespeare. Our group consisted of Thomas, Nick, Dale,
Sunday of the second weekend was a very ugly day. The ugliest of the entire run. It was unbearably humid with no breeze, and we were all soaked very fast. The first act was only bearable for me because I spent so much time offstage. After the scene that takes place in the Capulet masked ball, I had a long break before going onstage again and I stripped everything off from the waist up, even my undershirt. Shamelessly. By the end of the performance, I felt lousy. I was drenched, hot and incredibly thirsty, despite having drunk a lot of water.
My death scene on Sunday did not go as well as it had before. Though both Steve and Nick more than once complimented me on my dying (they felt I did it really well), on this day, it didn’t go as well. It started the same: Nick stabs me, I collapse into his arms, he turns me and brings me down to the ground and after I say my last line, I go limp. Usually, I drop my head to the side when that happens, but on this day, given where his arm was around me, I dropped it forward, thinking that might be a nice different way. That was a big mistake because my head with my eyes open went into his sleeve and that got them so watery that, even when they were closed, I kept thinking “I really need to blink a few times, but I can’t.” Nick’s leg got caught under mine, and I was stuck in awkward positions when my hat nearly slipped off me and my doublet collar got stuck under my neck.
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| Immediately after being stabbed in my fight with Nick. Photo by Robin Jackson |
I’m also going to say this
about my death scene: even though I was laying down on my back with my hands on my chest, it was not always very comfortable. It
was never so bad during rehearsals when I was in my street clothes, but in the doublet
and a hat, it was another matter entirely. The hat always seemed to end up in
an awkward position on my head and I never felt comfortable in it lying down.
At one performance it fell off, but that didn’t make matters better. I often
shifted myself ever so slightly to try to make myself more comfortable hoping
the audience wouldn’t notice. Sometimes I got an itch, but I couldn’t scratch it. It was always a long time before I could move again and I was often thinking
“Hurry up, hurry up. Hurry up already, I want to move again.” Dale told me she often thought the
same, lying onstage in between where Juliet takes the sleeping potion and wakes
up again. Months later, I found out how long the two of us were lying onstage. She had to lay there for a little over twenty minutes, and I had to be there for nearly sixteen.
Nick almost caused me to break onstage when I supposed to be dead, more than once. I stated earlier that he never quite did his performance the same way twice, though I will stress that he never did anything that threw a wrench in the works like ad-libbing or dramatically change his blocking in a way that affected everyone else. There was one time he changed his blocking, but only for safety's sake because a sizable section of the stage was wet and slippery from the night before. The first time he almost made me break was after he lowered me to the stage and took my hand before he would lay it on my chest. Holding my hand in both of his, he kissed it twice, having never done that before. Another time, he delivered one of his lines in an over-the-top way and it nearly made me laugh. Fortunately, I’ve learned a few tricks how to prevent myself from breaking character.
After the second weekend,
once again, I had to wait five days before returning for the next weekend. For
that entire week, I began to get worried over Covid. Cases were starting to
rise at the time, and it entered my personal orbit three times recently. Two
co-workers got it and the choreographer for my next show got it all in the course of two weeks. I spent all of
that week nervously checking my emails several times a day, hoping we would not
get an email saying there was a cancellation.
We had been told many times by the Curtain Theatre people that audiences would get bigger as time went on. During the third weekend I definitely noticed that was indeed the case, especially Sunday. It’s always good to play to a large audience; I just hoped they had no problem hearing me. The more people in an audience, the more the sound from your voice gets absorbed and doesn't bounce back off something.
After the second weekend, we received photos from Peter and two other photographers who came to the show. During all the time I was taking photos of rehearsals, I shrugged off the fact that there weren’t any of me because I thought I would get some during performances. But after three photographers, there was not a single good picture of me. What you've seen already are the best ones of me, and that's not saying much. Most of what there was of me was either blurry and out of focus, of just my profile shot or my back or from a distance. Some of them also looked weird; for instance, in one photo, it looked as if I didn't have a nose or a mouth (seriously). I think it must have been the result of moving while the photo was taken. I decided to take matters into my own hands and get a good photo of myself in costume on the set. On Sunday of the third weekend, using Ramon as a stand in so I could focus my camera, I got the desired result.
Shortly before the second weekend, I came up with an idea for something for Dale, Nick and me to do. It concerned the distracted boyfriend meme. I had seen a photo on Nelson's Facebook from Two Gentlemen of Verona the year before when he and two actresses in that play did their own take on it. In our case, it would be a distracted girlfriend type thing with one woman and two men, but Dale and Nick were both on board with it. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.
I wanted the three of us to do the photo in costume, which gave us three options: before the show, at intermission or after the show. But accomplishing that proved to be incredibly difficult. Dale did not have her first scene in the play for a little while and her first costume was not the most comfortable, not even to sit in. Therefore, what rush was she in to get into it? As for Nick, I mentioned earlier that he had to go through his process to get into character before his first scenes, so even at intermission, as soon as he got off stage, he went right to that. I tried on Sunday of the second weekend (the very humid ugly day) to do it after the show, but Dale was taking time up front talking to people, Nick decided it was not a good day to take it. I was too hot and decided I really just wanted to get out of my costume, so I decided he was right. Taking the photo after the show was never really an option because the two of them could spend a good deal of time talking to people in the audience who really loved the show; in Dale's case, she had a few little girls come up to her like she was a Disney princess. On Saturday of the third weekend, I really had to nudge the two of them to get it over with at intermission (I would have begged on my knees if that's what it took), but we did it in the end.
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| The distracted boyfriend meme and our recreation of it |
The weather on that
Saturday was very cold and even windy at times. But I would that over a humid day. On
Sunday, it started out pleasantly enough, but by the second act, it got much
warmer. On both days of this particular weekend, in spite of whatever the weather was, I actually somehow managed to get rather comfortable while lying on the stage “dead” and I thought I’d fall asleep.
If I had had a pillow underneath my head, I would have.
Performing outside came
with its drawbacks. Since we were performing in a public park, there were things we had no control over. There were times where people in the park would be talking or yelling
not too far away from us. There were times where children were screaming just a short distance from us.
And then there were times when a helicopter or airplane would fly overhead, or
cars would make noise. At one performance, immediately after Romeo kills Tybalt
and flees, police sirens started blaring. That was actually kind of perfect.
The following day, a car alarm started blaring during Romeo’s death scene, one
of the worst possible times. Nick told me later he acted as though that was the
alarm that Romeo was spotted in
Performing outside also meant dealing with nature. If it was a windy day, it could drown out our voices and it could cause leaves and other bits of the trees to fall. There were also quite a few crows in the trees around us. Glenn remembered the previous year when a large group of crows (a murder it's called), just went off squawking and squawking, and made it difficult for the actors. One day during the final weekend, when I was sweeping debris off the stage, I noticed quite a few spots of bird poop on the stage. It was then that I realized by some miracle, nothing had ever fallen on me while I was laying there. I had considered myself lucky with the leaves or twigs falling on my face, but I had never even thought about bird poop. Luckily, even that never fell on me even once.
In the days leading up the
final weekend, I had new worries in addition to Covid. Smoke from several
wildfires that were raging near the California-Oregon border had made its way
down to
The run flew by so
quickly. I blinked and suddenly we were at the final weekend. I kept hoping the
five days that I had to wait in between performances would go by quickly so I
could go back to the park. It would seem that I got my wish every time. The final weekend of performances was Labor Day weekend, and we would have performances on Saturday,
Sunday, and Monday.
Very sadly, I was not able
to go to the cast party. I knew it from the very beginning after Steve
announced the date that I wasn’t going to be there. It was scheduled for
Saturday of closing weekend and that happened to be tech weekend for my next
show, Fiddler on the Roof which would
be in
That Saturday was also the
day when we filmed the show. Nick and his contacts came in with three cameras
which they set up in the audience. This particular performance ran a little
longer. I believe it was because Nick was fully hamming it up for the cameras.
My death scene for this particular performance was the weirdest. When my
character was stabbed, Nick lowered me to the stage, I said my lines and he
cradled my inert form while he said his next lines before laying me down. But
for this performance, he ended up just holding me up by my arm. I kept
thinking, “Put me down, put me down, this looks weird, put me down. Or drop
me.” Again, the crap I gave him for that afterwards.
The weather for this
weekend was the best of all four weekends. It was nice and cool on all three
days. The last day was the coldest and also windiest day of that weekend. The audiences, which on the last two days were very large, probably
the largest ones we had, would probably be very chilly, but at least we in the
show weren’t going to suffer.
I really misjudged how I
was going to react on the last day. I honestly thought this would be the show
where I would cry at the end of the run, but it didn’t happen. A few people
were teary; Dale cried quite a few times that day, but while I tried, I
couldn’t. I didn’t understand; on Thursday I felt sad, on Friday I felt teary,
but on Monday nothing happened. Maybe it was the excitement of (finally) having
a few friends in the audience who specifically came to see me. Maybe it was the
fact that my next show was opening in a few days, and it was weighing heavily on my mind because there were still problems with it. Or maybe I was just not as sentimental as I thought.
Regardless of why I was
not more emotional, this was the first show ever where I gave cards to my
fellow cast members. There have been one or two other shows where I would have
done it, but I’ve never been good with words; I’ve never been sure of what to
say. This time around, I finally decided to give it a go, though I wasn’t sure
if closing day was more appropriate than opening day. On opening day, Dale and Grace gave
out little cards and Nick gave each person a rose and while I did think about
handing out cards then, I didn’t have time to get all my thoughts in order. It was hard trying to make sure the messages didn't all sound the same. I
had to take more than a week writing and, in some cases, re-writing what the messages would say on a piece of paper first. Some
people did get longer messages than others. I only hope I said enough.
After the end of the
Monday performance and before we got out of costume, we had to assemble onstage
for a group photo. I brought my camera to help with that and set the timer on
it, but people kept rushing me and two others who were taking photos had their
chairs and belongings in the way and I had to take it at an angle in an effort
to cut out the chairs as much as possible. Unfortunately, and I didn’t realize
until too late, two people on the end got cut out. They were two of the
musicians, but even so, I said later that Curtain Theatre might not want to use
my photo for anything since two people involved with the show as much as anyone
else got cut out. We also took a few more photos; I for one, wanted a group
photo of the six characters that die in this play.
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| The six characters who die in this play, L to R: Mercutio (Nelson Brown), Tybalt (Ramon Villa), Juliet (Dale Leonheart), Romeo (Nick Moore), Lady Montague (Marianne Shine) and Paris (Me) |
After the photos came time
to strike the set, which was a shame because it was so beautiful. The cast had
to first take their costumes to the church and make sure they weren’t missing
anything. Four men who worked with the company before came with drills and
three trucks. When the set pieces were loaded, we had to take them to the
Throckmorton Theatre which was a short distance away. The set designer of our
show had his shop there and all his materials. It was a very complex and tall set and
the whole process took four hours.
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| The Set. Isn't it beautiful? |
Halfway through the set
coming down, we had pizza and hung out for a short while. When everything was
done and it was time to go, we all said our goodbyes and dropped off one by
one. Finally, it was just me, Dale and Nick. The people who played the love
triangle in the show. At the risk of gushing over Nick and Dale more,
especially since I’ve spoken a good deal about them already, they truly were my
favorite people in this cast. And not just because they gave me so much
inspiration with all the photos I took during rehearsals. They were both very
good to me throughout the whole run, never once letting me feel less about
myself. I felt so lucky to meet them and to have had one scene with them each. I
don’t mean to lessen how I felt about anyone else in the cast, I love them very
dearly.
After the show was over, a
few of us made an end of show post on social media saying how wonderful the
experience was and all that. Ramon would end up having quite the story to tell
about his, which would be a good example on why representation on film and stage is so
important. When Ramon was in high school, he saw the film Romeo + Juliet by Baz Luhrmann where the role of Tybalt was played
by John Leguizamo. It was the first time he ever saw a Latino actor do
Shakespeare and it inspired him to want to play the role himself. He said all
that and more on his social media...and then on Instagram, Leguizamo himself
commented on the post congratulating him! I (and I’m sure everyone else) was
incredibly happy for him. Ramon was a great guy, he deserved that.
I will always count this
show as one of personal favorite experiences. I was hesitant to accept the role of
There’s never a guarantee
that you’re going to be cast in any show, but I will say this: Auditions for the show next summer
would not come soon enough.
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