Two Gentlemen of Verona

This year we hadThis summer I was part of the teen repertory production of Two Gentlemen of Verona at Theatricum Botanicum. In fact, I actually got one of the lead female roles and Ventana got the other. It was a really good experience even though there were some things I wasn't happy about at all (my love interest for example). The group had a bunch of people from other years as well as new people. two directors, Aaron (who we had last year) and Willow who I've also had before. It was interesting because they never directed on the same days which was rather confusing since they might give us two different notes. Two Gentlemen of Verona was Shakespeare's first play and thus has some story issues as well as themes that you see throughout the rest of his plays. It tells of the story of two best friends; Proteus and Valentine. Valentine go off to Millan to serve the Duke, while Proteus stays behind with his love, Julia. When Proteus goes to visit Valentine he finds himself under the spell of the beautiful Silvia who Valentine is engaged to. Trickery ensuing, Valentines is banished, Julia disguises herself as a boy serving Proteus as a sevant, and everything ends in the forest. I played Julia. I had a really amazing time doing the beginning scenes of the play with Rachel, who played my sevant. We got along well and it was very much fun to do. I feel like this part was very good for me to play because it was challenging and diverse and different from the parts I normally play. I learned a lot did new things. It was fun to see everyone else who had more comedic parts. For example, my friend Mallin played Sir Eglamour, a flamboiant suiter of Julia and friend to Silvia. She seemed to be having lots of fun and was really quite funny to watch on stage. We also had an amazing dog who was part of the play. She was so cute and all of us were always petting her. She was super sweet and would always do things on stage that were perfect and hysterical. I had some really good friends in this group. Mallin, Katie and Lily were both in it last year and it was so nice to be with them again. I'm really sad that Mallin is to old for the camp now. Thankfully we'll still have a year with Lily, she has really nice energy and is great to talk to. I also loved being with Danny again. He was in two of our plays several years ago and it was great to have him back. In all it was very different from years before, and challenging, but still quite fun.







(last picture is Miranda, me, Ventana, Mary and Danny. Mary and Miranda were not i the play)

Pictures thank to Scott Garen and Ben Neuhart.