That's Not My Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame

 

We Did It, Reddit

Imagine this:

Look at this seccy beast
(it's me, okay, I'm allow to say it)

    It's 9 years ago. 2012. You're year 3 me. It's the first year you've ever done acting for- anything really. It's performance night, after 3 and half terms of rehearsal, and you've just performed your silent Christmas piece and you're getting ready to go on stage with your best friend within the group to say, and I quote,

        "And now, for a Shakespearean interlude."

    Now, fast forward a few years, you're a year 7 now. It's 2016, 5 years ago. A new school, new people, new opportunities. The Shakespeare Festival has been in the notices for a while and you decide, screw it, let's try it out. You end up doing the Tempest, and it's so much fun. You're ecstatic after sectionals because you found out you were going to regionals. It's the biggest achievement you could think of.

    The next year, in year 8, you end up performing as "Prologue" from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Only now do you realise that all those years ago, in year 3, you did one of the scenes that stars these same characters. You've come full circle. You don't do as well competition-wise, but it's still fun, regardless of how salty you are in your narration role.

    Now fast forward to this year. You're year 12 now, in your second year of NCEA, and your sixth year of high school. You've done the same Sheliah Winn Shakespeare Festival for the five years before now and you've only done one student-directed piece, the year prior with Taming Of The Shrew. The student directing that piece, one of your friends, steps down from participating. Directing isn't her thing. You still want to do a student-directed piece but you have no director. So you ask yourself the question-

        "What if I did it?"

    You studied A Midsummer Night's Dream basically all year in L
evel One, you can recite the plot inside out, let's do that one. Your friends are incredible actresses, they can handle anything. Plus, in Level Two, there's a directing standard. And thus, you began to plan.

    

    A month and half later, on the 27th of March, 2021, you perform.
You're only in it for 40 seconds but that only means you're able to watch from the wings and see just how amazing your friends have become in the last 5 years. Though you've convinced yourself that nationals wasn't in sight, they were still bloody incredible.

   

    This lack of confidence only leads to surprise. It turns out you end up being the only 15 minute piece going through from your regionals. You're going to Wellington with some of your best friends. You're amazed and confused and scared. Is this really happening?

    This actually happened last saturday. This isn't some hypothetical with some moral outcome you'll forget about in a few hours. This is our reality. Nadia, Meagan, Jess, and I are going to Wellington in June for the Globe Theatre, University Of Otago, Sheliah Winn Shakespeare Festival. We get to participate in tours, workshops, and more! It's crazy and unbelievable!

    Somebody pinch me!

(P.s - In reference to the title)

Sam Purposefully Putting Herself In A Narrator Role? In My Shakespeare Festival?

 It's more likely than you'd think.

Because this year, I'm directing! Last year, we self-directed but that was a little different. And a part of directing is having a directors process. I will be blogging this process because level 2 ncea exists :)

The first part of putting on a play is getting a script. We will be putting on a play within a play or, more formally, Act 5 Scene 1 from A Midsummer Night's Dream. I got my script from MIT's Shakespeare website and basically just edited down the parts I didn't think were needed, just to make it that little bit more digestible, for both the audience and my actors. 

Speaking of my actors, casting is perhaps the next important thing. All my friends are icons and were willing to put up with my horrendous bossiness for the next six weeks.  I already had ideas for who I wanted where, which was perfect as all of them agreed with my choices.
    The director in the piece presents the prologue, and as I still wanted to be apart of the piece myself, I thought it fitting that I would play the prologue myself. I also played the prologue when we did AMND in year 8, so I already had that little extra knowledge. For the actual characters, I cast Nadia as Pyramus. I originally wanted to put her in as Thisbe as we really need to start putting her in some more female roles but she was down for playing a guy again. As her scene partner, we have Jess as Thisbe. I just want to turn her into a drag queen. In all her short glory, I wanted Meagan as Wall. Purely for the short jokes and the 'hole in between the legs' jokes. In her Shakespearan debut as Lion is Kiera. I wanted someone sassy for this role and Kiera was totally up for it.
    Last of all our acting actors, but certainly not least, all the way from Riccarton high school, is Neve as Moonshine! As if she didn't have enough going on at any point in time, she was keen on helping us in our performance. I think she could really get the depressing vibes of Moonshine down easily. Also dogs.

I will see you soon for a quick run of concepts!

God, I Hate Shakespeare.

**Disclaimer: that title is a song title from the musical 'Something Rotten.' If I actually hated Shakespeare, I wouldn't have done the Shakespeare festival for 5 years in a row.

    So. William Shakespeare. What a man. The name is infamous within highschool students because it's shoved down their throats every other year. Despite that, what do we actually know about the bard? 

    Well, born in 1564, he spent most of his life in the Elizabethan era, before dying in 1616. Over the course of his life, he wrote *at least* 37 plays and 154 sonnets. 37 is the most common number I could find but it's not a solid number as many could have not been published, under his name, or he merely collaborated on. 

    Fun fact: He has no known middle name. I don't think most people did but you know. Interesting.

    It's actually an ongoing theory that Shakespeare didn't write all of his published pieces himself, and had his own ghostwriter. I'm not sure what proof there is of this but I would not be surprised. He seems like a prick.

    Looking over these plays, there are some very particular things you notice within each of them. For example, costuming and speech are two of the most obvious things to me. The costuming, due to being in the Elizabethan Era, is all quite structured. With rolls of fabric to create bum bumps, complete modesty, and frills galore.

    Shakespeare's plays are written to mostly be spoken in iambic pentameter, which means in 5 sets of 2 words, the second words have the stress. A 'di dum, di dum, di dum, di dum, di dum,' kind of this. On the other hand, Shakespeare almost made an entire language for himself. I don't typically hear people say 'talketh.' So.

    Another fun fact, my personality mostly coaligns with Ophelia, according to Magiquiz.com :)