Go, Girl, Seek Happy Nights to Happy Days.

I'm so grateful to have grown up with Shakespeare. I've been reading, performing and seeing Shakespeare plays since I was a little girl, and have loved his work for as long as I can remember. Even when I have no idea what a line means, it's so beautiful that I don't even care that I don't understand it. They're words that you go swimming in, wrap around you like a warm blanket, drink down ravenously while simultaneously savoring each drop. Frank McCourt wrote the most perfect simile in Angela's Ashes, saying that "[he] loved the Shakespeare," and that reading it aloud was like having jewels in his mouth. I completely agree. I remember when we read it out loud in my freshman english class in high school, and I got to read the balcony scene with one of my friends for the whole class. So much fun! Definitely one of my favorite high school memories.

There is something so timeless and versatile about his work. You can keep putting on productions year after year and it never gets old, because there is so much you can do with it. I loved the Shakespeare shows at the U of A--the dystopian industrial Victorian Romeo & Juliet, the stripped down Titus Andronicus with RIVERS of blood and stage directions projected on a screen. Infinite possibilities!

I would so love to be a part of a Shakespeare play again. Even just preparing for Southwest Shakespeare auditions has been great. I doubt I'll get cast in anything, but at least the preparation process felt wonderful. They have a great season coming up, too, and I can't wait to see them all. Also, I'm taking a Shakespeare english class this fall. I'm nervous and excited! Those classes are tough, but I love it. HOLY HELL I JUST LOVE SHAKESPEARE! I can understand how people are intimidated by it, but I honestly don't understand how people have such hate and disdain for it. Impossible!

"Away from light steals home my heavy son
And private in his chamber pens himself,
Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out,
and makes himself an artificial night."
--Romeo & Juliet (Act I, Scene 1)