Our ensembles are back from spring break and ready to dive into their scenes for Romeo & Juliet Remix!
If you’ve ever seen one of our plays onstage before you know that we believe there are no stars in an ABLE show. Rather than casting just one actor as Romeo or one actor as Juliet, we want to give everyone equal opportunity to tackle these classic characters. In week 4, actors shared their preferences for favorite characters and favorite moments in the story. Over the break, our teaching team took used that feedback to cast our Zoom-movie. Each actor will play one key character in Romeo & Juliet Remix, and is responsible for one moment of the story. Through the course of the movie, we’ll see 9 different Romeos, 11 different Juliets, 3 Tybalts, and many other citizens of Verona. Romeo & Juliet Remix will feature 22 different scenes. Some of these will be Shakespeare’s words, and others will be original monologues, scenes, songs, and dances developed by the cast. Some of the original pieces include an monologue from the perspective of Juliet’s suitor, Paris, devised and performed by actor Martin Conway, and a dance piece by actors Sandia Coleman and Marissa Bloodgood inspired by the imagery of the lovers’ final goodbye.
This week, actors met with their scene partners and a facilitator or teaching artist who will coach their scene. We focused this week on breaking down the GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES of each scene:
WHO is in the scene?
WHERE does the scene take place?
WHY is your character there? What do they want?
WHAT happens?
HOW do you feel?
Here’s are two examples of Jamboards the Tuesday ensemble made with their coaches during rehearsals (click on a photo to enlarge it):
Of course, we still had plenty of time for games and activities throughout class as well! We practiced our ASL Prologue, and learned some new choreography for The Capulet Ball. We even learned a new game this week called Bite Your Thumb which our ensembles will use to act out the brawls at the beginning of the play. Here’s the Friday and Sunday ensembles showing some of our most intimidating thumb biting!
Over the next 3 rehearsals, we will take more time with our coaches to dive deeper into our final pieces. We’ll make our own costumes from materials we can find at home. We’ll think about music and movement that can help the story. And we’ll continue to refine our parts so we are ready for filming in week 9. Stay tuned for more from our rehearsals every week!
PS: If you enjoy learning about the work we do, and want to help us create more innovative projects like Romeo & Juliet Remix, please consider making a donation to our #ABLEhigh5 campaign. This year, we’re celebrating our 5th birthday and are asking audiences to support A.B.L.E.’s future by donating $5 or any multiple of 5 to help us continue connecting and creating.
