When a show that was really special to you closes you go into what seasoned professionals call “post show depression”. This was definitely a reality when my dream show, In The Heights, had its final performance on June 9th and suddenly I was practically familia-less and purposeless.
Knowing that this was the only possible antidote for my feelings of incompleteness, and also knowing I was going to be out of town for the Romeo and Juliet auditions, I essentially begged Adam Adolfo, ADLR's Artistic Director, to let me come in and audition early.
I was completely completely terrified. Every audition I had ever done before has been a musical theatre audition, so where normally I would just prepare 16 bars of my usual stuff and be set, I instead had to prepare an entire Shakespearean monologue.
Even though I’ve done Shakespeare monologue competitions at my school and even a vignette style one act, I have never been in a real full length play (let alone in iambic pentameter). But after some frantic searching online for an age appropriate monologue I settled on the Jailer’s Daughter from Two Noble Kinsmen and just hoped for the best.
I know some actors shy away from Shakespeare, but for someone who is used to expressing herself musically, I love it and it makes sense to me. So to be cast in Romeo & Juliet was a dream come true, but to be cast as Juliet is still unfathomable.
Within the realm of musical theatre I usually fall into what I call the “the brat, the rat, and the weirdo” type where I usually play the brat or rat, most recently - the witch (in Into The Woods), or the weirdo (roles admittedly very Kristin-Wiig-esque). Thus the classic romantic ingénue (because really, what’s more classic and romantic than Romeo and Juliet?) is very much uncharted territory for me- a challenge I am not going to take lightly or passively.
But I identify with Juliet, as most teenage girls do, in a sense that she is in that critical time of her life where she is no longer a child but not yet has the freedoms of an adult. Juliet is not frail and passive, but resilient and passionate and true to her convictions. The courage she has to risk and leave behind everything for what she believes in (love) is why I’m beyond excited about this opportunity to try my hand at playing her.
And that's the beauty of being a performing artist: apart from having the ability to share a story or character with an audience, you are capable of unlocking an element of your identity. You get to use your imagination to find yourself in someone you maybe thought wasn't like you. Even offstage, that is an experience that broadens your mind and opens up your perspective of other people as human beings.
And on top of all that, I’m exceedingly lucky that in my first play I get to share the stage with this immensely talented cast and my first stage kiss ever with the amazing Kevin Acosta, all under the direction of the brilliant Adam Adolfo at Artes de la Rosa - which is a theatre that will always hold a very special place in my heart.
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