When I was
ten years old, I fell in love with an older man. Shakespeare may be hundreds of
years older than me, but he taught me how to laugh, love, and learn. My
relationship with Will opened up many different doors for me, in speech
competitions, in auditions, in major life decisions.
During the summers, we live in
Wimberley, TX, a small hill country town an hour south of Austin. Wimberley
defines my summers. Even though it’s a small town, my sister and I are very
good at keeping each other entertained. We don’t need much except for the calm,
crystalline, spring-fed river that runs below our house and the fort we made in
the short cypress trees where we read all day. Toward the end of our first
summer there, my mom suggested we go see Romeo and Juliet, which was being
performed by local high school students in an outdoor theater called The
EmilyAnn.
I remember seeing Juliet in her
tower, and Romeo, listening to her, standing below by the vines. The concrete
stage of the outdoor theatre didn’t look out of place in the middle of a
forest. Every once and a while my mom leaned over and whispered explanations of
what the actors were saying so I could understand what was going on. I still
didn’t entirely understand, but I didn’t care. I just knew it sounded good. Will’s
words seduced me.
It wasn’t long until it
dawned on me that perhaps I, too, could be on that stage, performing those
beautiful lines spoken by those amazing characters created by my thoughtful
bard. I auditioned at the EmilyAnn the next summer and won my first role as an
officer in Twelfth Night. All of the other actors were in high school and I was only
twelve. They were so intimidating and nothing like their characters on stage.
But they took me under their wing. I looked up to them, because they became a
part of my family throughout the month of rehearsals all day outside in the
blazing sun. At the beginning of the show, they go to the top of top of the
hill to raise the flag which shows the whole town that the play has started,
something that Shakespeare did in his time. After two straight weeks of nightly
performances, they lower the flag on closing night and seniors make their
speeches because they can’t come back after they go to college. After one of
the plays, the guy who played King Lear stopped to hug me. He scared me the
most, but on top of that hill in the dark with the millions of stars looking
down on us, I could hear him crying right along with me. He hugged me tight and
said, “I love you. I can’t wait to come back and see you all grown up, playing
Juliet.” My heart stopped. That’s all I ever wanted, but I had never told him
that. He could see that it could happen. Will was giving me a hint. I knew I
had to work hard for him now.
My hard work paid off. In June
of 2010, I was cast as Juliet as a fifteen year old. I was living my dream of
playing the role that inspired my obsession. After one performance, I was shaking hands
with all of the audience members. Suddenly I looked down and a little girl was
looking up at me with huge adoring eyes. She said that after this she wanted to
act, too, and she wanted to be just like me. The cycle had come full circle. It
was my turn to change someone else’s life. I hope that girl gets to play Juliet
once in her life. This year, I will be the senior making my tearful speech in
front of Will’s younger admirers. He may be wooing other people, but I’m still
grateful for the part he played in my life.
When I needed Shakespeare’s help
the most, he gave me Juliet. I leaned on Juliet to get into a high school for
the performing arts, where both sides of my brain are constantly challenged. My
theatre classes worked my right side of my brain by showing me how to analyze
and develop characters. My academic classes worked my left side of my
brain by introducing me to biology classes which made me question how people
learn which led to an interest in neuroscience. I use my science to inform me
on how a character thinks, and I use my theatre as a stage to apply my
sciences. Thank you, Will, for showing me things I could never put together on
my own.
I had never considered acting before, but because I fell in love
with Shakespeare that summer, I fell in love with the whole art. Without Will,
I would have never met many important friends, never entered speech competitions,
never had the opportunity to go to an eye-opening arts school to foster my love
for theatre and be exposed to science like I never had before. Every summer
when I perform Shakespeare on that hot concrete stage, I can feel what
Shakespeare has helped me become.
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