I'm Back

Okay, it has been more than a year since I've written, but the spirit is moving me back to the blogshere and I must obey. I just finished this year's adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream and tomorrow is auditions. I am excited. This is our fifteenth year of bringing Shakespeare alive through the hearts and minds of young people ages 5 to 18 years old. That makes me reflect on two things: 1. getting old and 2. looking back through the years at all the kids who have learned about Shakespeare and life while doing stage work.

Some of our alumni are now married, have children of their own, and tell me they can't wait for their kids to get involved. I smile, a bit weakly, when I think of this possibility. My own kids are no longer kids but young women living their own interesting lives.

I do not write to reminisce, but rather, I want to blog about A Midsummer Night's Dream, the story of four young lovers who run into the woods to try to escape their fate and find themselves at the hands of the magical creatures of the enchanted forest on a midsummer night's eve.
I think sometimes we all want to run into the enchanted woods to get away from our troubles and there, in the thicket of our mind's fantasies, we discover just how foolish we are. Shakespeare certainly has a lot to say in this script. He wrote it around 1594 (we think) and it is a lyrical piece of writing that has survived as one of his best in part, I think, because we recognize ourselves and our friends in many of the characters. I have been adapting Will's scripts for a long time and I have directed this show twice before and this is one of Will's most finely crafted plays.

Tomorrow I get to see the kids stand onstage and read from the script. I know their hearts are set on certain parts and I know it takes a lot of courage to stand up in front of 50 or 60 people and audition. I am in awe of their intelligence and honored to witness their growth. Being a young actor is not easy and fully investing themselves into the process of learning-by-doing changes them in remarkable ways. Theater work makes them insightful, helps them to speak clearly, and offers them the opportunity to walk in the shoes of a 400-year-old-character who has graced theater stages all over the world since 1600.

And so, we begin another production with another 40 young people and together we learn about life and each other and the importance of looking below the surface for the true meaning in all that we do. I'm off!