Look Back: Romeo and Juliet

We opened our show last night!

And what a wild night it was.

It’s been a month of hard work leading up to that one moment, that hour and a half where you somehow forget to breathe and you’re primed and ready for catastrophe to strike. But it doesn’t. And the actors are absolute professionals and how could you ask for ANYTHING more?

This has been such an unusual rehearsal process. I’m used to having everyone in the room, showing and sharing as we go along. But, as is the case with summer, people come and go: to the cottage, to Europe, camping—sometimes for weeks on end. It was like doing a puzzle where a new piece goes missing everyday. Our latest cast member arrived home to learn the show exactly a week before opening! How scary, but also how EXCITING!!!

Photo by Stefi Kopp, costume design by Amelia Blaine

Trust was definitely at the centre of this show. I trusted all the pieces to fall into place. The actors trusted each other to catch one another both literally and metaphorically. We trusted our audience to sit through those 10 minutes of rain at the very end of the show and they trusted us to make it worth their WHILE.

This was my first time directing a Shakespearean play. I couldn’t have had a better play, cast and creative team, who each made every step of this process a pleasure. A pleasure both in the successes and absolute failures we experienced together.

I LOVE this show and I LOVE these people. Now let’s go do it two more times.

Margot xo