Students Audition for Romeo and Juliet

Central’s students are auditioning for Romeo and Juliet and applying in overwhelming numbers to build the set.

Central’s hallways are echoing with the questions: Who will be the next Romeo? Who will be the next Juliet? The answer comes Thursday morning when the results of auditions for Romeo and Juliet, Central’s fall play, are posted on the theatre call board.

Shakespeare’s plays are unlike any other play Central puts on and the auditions have their own feel. Why? Shakespeare is hard to memorize and understand, and for that fact, many students are intimidated by the work and are reluctant to audition.

Yet while Shakespeare seems to be scary for some students, plenty are willing to try. Senior Alec Faimana, for example, made this his first audition of high school. “I take Shakespeare with Lore,” he said, “and I prepared the monologue by reading the play and performing it over and over.” Faimana’s experience reveals how students have put in extra hours even before auditioning for Romeo and Juliet so they can get their monologue polished and ready to go for the audition. Once they got to that audition, what did it look like if they aced it? Technical director Joey Lore says, “Really what we look for is clear speaking, memorization of the monologue, and an understanding of what you’re reading.” The play features a ton of non-speaking parts as well, from masquerade ball attendees to extras in random scenes. The play will preview the Capulet ball and the setting of Verona, to name a few.

No matter how students feel about playing Shakespeare, they’re clearly eager to build his world, as students have demanded more applications for the technical crew than ever. Usually Mr. Lore prints 75 copies of the application (and has some left over), but this time he ran out of 115 copies.

As for the play itself, it will follow the original Shakespearean setting (time, place, names, etc.) but Mr. Lore also hinted that there will be a few twists. As for the set, “It’s definitely among the most complex we have created.There will be pieces that are standing, moving, flying in and out. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Photo credit: Balcony Echoes by Riccardo Cuppini on Flickr