Why I Love Shakespeare's Work

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In high school, I remember everyone in my English classes groaning whenever we started our Shakespeare unit. I was one of the very few people in my class who actually enjoyed reading his amazing works of art, even if I couldn't understand most of it.

Though I was not the stereotypical theatre kid who knew how to translate Shakespeare's work into modern English, I still was able to appreciate his work and enjoy reading it in class.

I had many friends who would complain about it to me and would ask me why I enjoyed this unit. I can't remember what I said to them at the time, but I have come up with a few reasons as to why I love Shakespeare's Work.

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• The stories are interesting: Now, I know only a few of his plays, but the ones that I do know, I absolutely love. I think the storylines are very compelling and he also knows how to make a very funny and interesting comedy.

• His unique ways of using the English language: Though many of us will admit that we can not understand the majority of what he says, it is interesting to know that he is the creator of many words and phrases we still use centuries later, such as swag (I learned this from a friend earlier this year)

• Performances of the plays give context to what is being said: I have seen only two performances of his work, one of Romeo and Juliet and one of Twelfth Night. With both of them, even though I could not understand most of what is going on in the show, I was able to figure it out just by watching. What helped me enjoy the performances was being able to see the characters interactions with each other. It helped me to understand what was going on without understanding the words. 

Being able to learn about Shakespeare in school made my interest peak even more. I was introduced to my favorite Shakespearian play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar and was able to learn more about what this man brought to the world. I hope to learn more about Shakespeare and his work in the future.

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Story: The Worst Show I Have Ever Been In

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Being in theatre, you have many interesting experiences. Believe me, I have seen quite a bit. And there are some of us who will say that this show or that show is the worst show we have ever been in. Well, I think I have a story that is quite literally the worst and here it goes.

I do want to make a disclaimer first because I want to make one thing very clear. I am in no way, shape, or form, discrediting the company I did the production with, the script, or the director. This is just what happened when everything went wrong. I have done many productions with this company before this and none of them were this bad. I hold my director in the highest regard because she is the reason I am even apart of the theatre community. I also wholeheartedly support this community theatre and everything they do.

So this all started in November of 2014, where I was a mere 16 years old and a sophomore in high
school. At this point, I had been working with this director for about 3 years. I was a part of the tech crew for this show. There were a total of five techies building the set and managing backstage.

Techs on a day where we had
nothing to do

The name of the show was Christmas on the Gangplank. It was about a group of pirates (or buccaneers as they liked to be called) who kidnapped Santa. Our director's husband wrote the show and I have to admit, the script was quite funny.

The rehearsal schedule was twice a week for about 6 weeks with some Saturday rehearsals. Now you may be wondering how that would all work out. Trust me when I say that I have done shows with her that were twice a week for 4 weeks before and they have turned out much better than this.

The first thing that went wrong with this show, which we didn't really realize until afterward, was that we were performing during finals week. This means that not everyone is learning their lines because of studying. We were even studying during tech week any chance we got. The only good part about this is that we performed the day finals ended, but we probably should have stopped rehearsals once our second problem arose.

We had about three weeks to go before opening night. I came into rehearsal ready to build, but also having the recent sadness of not receiving a callback for Wizard of Oz at my high school. I walked into the back where the stage manager, director, and the rest of the techs were. They are in the middle of a conversation, and I had no clue what it was about. I was kind of able to pick up that we had lost our actor for Grimm (a pirate with a long beard that can store practically anything). Then all of a sudden, our director looked up at me and said, "Unless you want to be a bearded pirate." I, having a need to perform after not doing well at my previous audition, said sure. She was half joking when she asked me, but when I said yes, she immediately took me up on it. And so, I became Grimm, the bearded pirate.

When I was practicing my
pirate makeup

This leads me on to the week of the show. It was still rough and we were still working out all of the kinks, but a cast and directors worst nightmare happened. Someone quit the week of the show and another techie (who is also an actor, thank god) had to fill in. She had even less time than I did to learn everything. Also, our director almost had to play a role because one of the girls was sick that week and didn't come to rehearsals without telling anyone. I completely get it if you are sick, but during tech week or anytime during the show, you should either come anyways (I've had to do that before) or at the very least, text or call your director if you are unable to make it. We didn't see her until the night of the show. And when I saw her, I jokingly said, "Yay, you're not dead!" That was when she told me that she had been sick.

So now we come to the day of the show. Everyone is freaking out because we have never had a successful run, and the girl who was sick didn't know any of the final touches we had made. I was getting my wig and vest finished up and we were probably all thinking, "Thank god we only have to perform this once." 

Then the show started. Let the fun (or disaster depending on where you stand) begin.

Just before the show started

The first thing that happened (which happened a lot with her productions so I wasn't surprised) was that not everyone had their lines memorized and my director was prompting said people. Quite a few did have their lines memorized, but the ones who didn't have their lines memorized knew practically nothing. I have never been in a production where some people had to have every other line prompted to them.

But this is where everything went to crap. The first big disaster that happened caused us to stop the show for a couple minutes. One of the girls fell off the platform onto the stage floor. Our director, who was in the front row, runs over to her as the house lights flew on to make sure she's okay. Also, I almost fell a few seconds later, but I caught myself.

Once we knew she was alright, we continued from where we left off, when I quickly realized I forgot the fake sandwich that I was supposed to "pull out of my beard". So last minute, I had to improvise. Now, I actually suck at improv, but this was one of the rare occasions where I was able to pull something out of my hat, or beard in this case. I pretended to pick crumbs out of my beard instead of having the sandwich. That was probably one of the very few times we were able to save the show from being an absolute disaster.

Well, we finished Act One, and when we were backstage, we were saying how the show wasn't as horrible as we thought it would be. Now, if you believe in jinxing as much as I do, you might be able to imagine why Act Two was probably the worst act EVER.

I remember that there was a scene in Act Two that none of us (including myself) knew extremely well, apart from lines. This scene was so bad that we ended up repeating it twice due to so many lines being skipped. I was late for a quick dance number and the whole thing was just disorganized and a mess. Plus, I had to jump "overboard" at one point and the jump they had me do was the most unrealistic thing ever. But, it wasn't the worst thing since they wanted me to land safely and not injure myself

On stage, after I jumped off
stage

This next part, I was not on stage for because my character had jumped overboard, but I was watching the silhouette on the wall behind us (we didn't perform on a real stage I need to add quickly) with the other girl who jumped overboard and the techs. This scene was a sad montage after we decided to jump. One of the characters had to swing a fake sword and then get really mad. As he was bringing it up to his left shoulder to swing it, he accidentally hit one of the girls in our cast, who was probably around 10 at the time, right in the nose. The audience gasps, as did I, and then he went over to hug her. Next thing I know, the lights go on. Our second stop of the show. I tell her sister (who was working as a tech) what had happened and she was about ready to kill the guy. I had to help her calm down by letting her vent to me about her frustrations with this show. Pretty soon. The entire cast is coming backstage and they are telling us that the girl who got hit started crying and her nose was bleeding so they had to stop to take care of the situation. Once that happened, they started the scene over again, but this time, when the boy was swinging his sword, the little girl took three steps to the left and everyone started chuckling. To be fair, so did I.

Now we are on to the final fight scene. That whole thing was a mess. Now I can't talk for everyone in that scene, but I can tell you how my fight with the guy who was swinging the sword (yes, funny isn't it) went terribly wrong. So I go on stage with my twin cutlasses and he has two swordfish. Now we have this whole fighting routine we are supposed to do. In fact, we were practicing that fight just before we started the show. Well, all of that choreography went out the window. he just started swinging his swordfish towards me and I had to keep blocking him as best as I could. That whole thing resulted in my knuckles getting grazed a couple of times and us being way past where we were supposed to be. Then he "stabs" me, actually grazing my side, which he didn't realize. I end up having to stumble all the way over to the platforms we had so I could fall on it, and say my line.

And then we had the end song that Santa had to sing. You know when I said that quite a lot of the cast didn't have their lines memorized. Well, Santa had barely any of them memorize and you could tell. Our director was in the front of the audience feeding him his lines as he was doing the song and he didn't even finish the song before the music was at its end and the lights were supposed to go out.

And then to end the show-off. We had technical difficulties with the ending slideshow that was apart of it so the guy doing the monologue had to ad lib a bit (like he doesn't do that already).

Then we took our bows, which we surprisingly didn't screw up, and the horror that was Christmas on the Gangplank was officially over.

After the show, our director told me that she had done this show three times and each time it went horribly wrong. And so she said that even though her husband wrote it and she loved the script, she was never performing this show ever again, which she hasn't. And I don't blame her

Now you see what I mean by worst show ever. I was in only one other production with her after that show but left that company due to the need to branch out and go learn from other directors.

Now that you know my story, I would be curious to know a stage experience that is classified as the worst show you guys have been in. I always find it fascinating hearing other people experienced, especially when it comes to what went wrong. So if you have any of those, please share them with me via Twitter, Instagram, or just the comments on this post. I think this is something that we can all bond over in one way or another



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Rehearsal Diaries for Blues (10/19-10/21)

If you follow me on twitter, you may have seen that I have been retweeting about a show called Blues by Jerome McDonough. I wanted to document our rehearsals and talk you guys through the process of being in the show. You may almost feel like you are in it with me. Also, for the privacy reasons, I have given all of my cast mates an alias in case they don't want me to say their names.

October 19, 2016

Today was the first day back to school after our break. This means that it was time for rehearsals. We got our roles before the break and we were suppose to memorize our lines, but I will admit, I didn't end up memorizing them.

Our teacher, Mrs. Tana, told us that Derik was going to be the student director and Marleen was the stage manager. Just before we started class, Jayden asked about the attitudes the actors should have with their characters. I don't remember the response, but that was a very insightful question for her to ask as an actor.

We had a read through, and let's just say not everyone had their lines memorized. The majority of the class did, but there were still a few who didn't. Also, we couldn't look at our script for lines. If we didn't know it, we would have to call for line. Frido was the only one allowed to have his script out because he didn't get the script till that day.

We were unable to get through the whole script before the bell rang, but this gave me extra incentive to get my lines memorized. So when I got home, I worked really hard on my lines.

October 20, 2016

I woke up that morning with my lines memorized. I was still a bit iffy with my cues, but at least I knew them.

At the start of class, we set up our set for the first time. And began rehearsing with that. We have these roll out platform blocks in our classroom that are quite cool. they can even be turned into stairs. Tana was telling us about how since the wheel have been used so much that they have gone quite flat. I forget who called them square wheels, but John ended up calling them squeels, which we all thought was very funny.

Since Derik was absent, Tana started blocking the scenes without him. She split us up into different places. Frido, Jayden, Evelyn, and Josh went into the hall, Juan and John went into the back of the shop and Lila, Ellie and me in the front of it.

We ran through our scene quite a few times. Lila is playing Ynez, Ellie is playing Elena, and I am playing Juanita. We were pretty rough, but by the third run through of our scene, I was able to get my lines down pretty well,

Tana took the rest of the cast and blocked some of the other scenes.

October 21, 2016

Before we started rehearsal, Tana had to show us her new hair which is long in the front and short in the back.

Derik had us join the Remind 101 for the show so we can be reminded of deadlines and costume ideas. We also learned that on November 1st we have a tech rehearsal and call is at 5 pm on November 3rd.

Lila, Ellie and I went back into the shop again and went over our lines again. Our scene was going to be rehearsed on Monday.

I started trying some method acting at this point. I later realized that I shouldn't do that.

Now that we are at the end of week two, things have started getting exciting and nerve racking. It's almost show time and all I am going to say is that it will be one heck of a ride.

Sincerely,

Carlee

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