Chicago Youth Shakespeare is telling truth through Romeo and Juliet

So I’m currently involved in a production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet with the Chicago Youth Shakespeare Company, and for a Shakespeare-loving theater nerd like me, it’s basically perfect. The thing about our production is that it’s very different from any show I’ve ever been in, and it’s very different from most versions of Romeo and Juliet. For one thing, CYS is all about teens telling their own true stories through doing what they love, and so for R&J we got together with this really awesome playwright named Danielle (I forget her last name, whoops). We made lists of answers to things like “Love is…”, “Love is not…” and “Things Adults Don’t Understand About Teenagers”. Then we worked with Danielle to write our answers into short, personal additions to the script. We’re also doing a lot of work with movement and gestures to bring another level of visual coolness to the show.

Possibly the most unconventional aspect of CYS’s Romeo and Juliet is that both title characters are played by girls. It’s interesting to see what this changes, but it’s almost more interesting to see what it doesn’t change. In one of our discussions we talked about the concept of forbidden love, and all the different versions of it - loving someone outside of your religious group or ethnicity, loving someone your parents or friends don’t like, or loving someone of your own gender, which is still - inexplicably - looked down upon by many people. We want to make our version of Romeo and Juliet one that’s accessible and true to people who maybe couldn’t really identify with it before.

It’s also been an interesting acting exercise for me, playing Juliet, because I don’t identify as gay, and neither does my costar Nina (who plays a kickass Romeo, by the way). But we are focusing more on the love itself rather than the logistics of it. We have not changed any pronouns or anything in the script, so in that way it’s not a “lesbian Romeo and Juliet”. Nina’s still technically playing a male, but we are not going to try and disguise her or make her act like a boy. She’s just acting the character without worrying about the gender.

We’re only a few weeks into rehearsal, but already I’m really pumped about this production. (I’d really like for some OPRF people to come see it. Sophia Carlin, who some of you may know, plays possibly the best Mercutio I've ever seen. Ask me for dates and ticket info if you’re interested. Oh, and fun fact, the director is a friend of Mr. Bell, Ms. Young's husband!)