The production of “Romeo & Juliet” runs October 6-8 (7:30 p.m.) and October 9 (3 p.m.) at Potter Hall Theater at Missouri Western State University. For ticket information, click here.

For many actors, including this one, memorizing Shakespeare’s lines is a daunting task.  But that’s actually just the first ingredient in the recipe for that thing called “acting.”  You simply can’t do any acting until you know what it is your character is saying, and how that character says it, or what the character is doing at the time.

My character, Friar Laurence, like Shakespeare himself, sometimes uses a dozen words when one will do.

Our cast has officially been “off book” for several days now, but there aren’t too many of us who are comfortable with the lines just yet.

I’m close, but there’s a lot of work ahead.

Here are but two examples of Friar Laurence’s bombast:

(In my first scene, I could just say “it’s dawn.”  Instead:)

The grey-ey’d morn smiles on the frowning night,
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light,
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels,
From forth day’s path and Titan’s fiery wheels:
Now, ere the sun advance his burning eye
The day to cheer and night’s dank dew to dry,

(I could ask “what are you doing up so early?”  Instead:)

Benedicite!
What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?
Young son, it argues a distemper’d head
So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:
Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye,
And where care lodges, sleep will never lie;
But where unbruised youth with unstuff’d brain
Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:
Therefore they earliness doth me assure
Thou are up-rous’d by some distemperature;
Or if not so, then here I hit it right,
Our Romeo hath not been in bed to-night.

Wish me luck, or rather “break a leg.”

For previous entries in this blog, click here.