Monday, May 16, 2011

Cole's Romeo & Juliet performance

Cole loved being in the Much Ado About Shakespeare performance of the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet this year.


His part was just big enough to be in some good scenes, but not so big to overwhelm him with too many lines. He had a blast playing Abraham, one of Romeo's friends and a Montague servant.

Cole loved being in the beginning of the play where he got to say his favorite line, "You Lie!" really loudly in response to the Capulet servants biting their thumbs at the Montague servants and saying their masters were better. And a fight resulted...

If you bite your thumb at a Montague servant, be prepared for a fight.
Apparently, Cole even fights with Friars.
Cole (as Abraham) also enjoyed hanging out with his buddies Romeo, Mercutio, Balthasar, and Benvolio. Here he said another of his favorite lines: "On, lusty gentlemen." Leave it to the little guy to get things going.

Hanging with his Montague buddies
Cole had a blast getting to sing at and tease the Nurse of Juliet: "Farewell, ancient lady. Farewell. Lady, lady, lady" with raspberry sounds at the end. She should have known better than to interrupt their male-bonding time.

Here's comes the nurse...hope she's ready for some teasing.
Unfortunately, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. The hurt begins with the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt. After Mercutio is stabbed, Cole's character is quite sensitive and says,"Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much" to Mercutio. If only that were true. But Mercutio dies, and Romeo ends up killing Tybalt. And it's all downhill after that.

Mercutio has been stabbed
After Romeo is banished, it appears that Juliet and the Friar have come up with a plan to get them out of town, but Romeo doesn't get the message of the plan. Cole has to be one of the guys to break the news to Romeo that Juliet has died (too bad she hadn't), "Her body sleeps in Capel's monument."

Romeo, we've got some bad news for you...
Of course, Juliet was not dead, but he and his friends did not know that. Unable to live without her, Romeo kills himself. And as you know, she then has to really kill herself because she cannot live without him. Oh the tragedy!

Poor dead Romeo
At least after all this tragedy, the Capulets and Montagues learn their lesson, albeit too late for poor Romeo and Juliet.

Bravo! Huzzah!
Bravo! The kids did great. Cole was terrific, if I do say so myself. He spoke clearly, loudly, and knew all his lines and cues. Plus, he's so stinking cute! It was definitely a treat seeing my little man on stage, being the Rockstar that he is.

2 comments:

  1. I desparately need to get Chase involved in theatre. I saw him at his dance rehearsal tonight. He has a solo opening spot and he wasn't the slightest bit nervous. He LOVES being on stage. Gotta figure it out for my guy. I don't know how you do all you do Jenny.

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  2. Mel, have you looked into summer programs? Our parks and rec dept has shorted summer theatre classes where the kids perform at the end of the session. We haven't tried it, but have friends who have. I know you are busy during the school year, so perhaps that would be an option.

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