Romeo & Juliet: Love is a Battlefield

When Jack needed to choose a new class to replace the Cross Country practice period he had during the first term, we tried hard to get him into an art class.  He's really into drawing these days and hoped to be able to develop that skill more at school.  Unfortunately - or fortunately - he couldn't get into any of the art classes and ended up in drama instead.  I thought this would be a good back-up option for Jack, since he's had fun with a couple of theater things in the past.

He seemed to enjoy it from the beginning, with fun improv exercises and cool assignments such as sketching out and then filming a 10-second clip from Star Wars at home in a creative way.  I'm sure that being in the class also helped motivate Jack to audition for the school musical this Spring - and might have helped the director decide to cast him.

The play was Romeo and Juliet: Love is a Battlefield.  They used the original Shakespeare text, but the play was set in the 1980's with the Capulets dressed as preps and the Montagues dressed as punks, and there were 80's musical numbers peppered throughout.  Jack was in the ensemble with the Capulets and didn't have a huge time commitment for rehearsals.  Starting in early February, he rehearsed for a few hours every Friday afternoon, helped with set-building a few Saturdays, and only had a few midweek rehearsals until tech week.

We were excited when performances began and we could finally see what Jack and the cast had been working on - and they did great!  It looked like they were all having a lot of fun and really got into it.  The costumes turned out really well, and the outdoor performing space they built because of Covid was fantastic.

I saw the play twice: I attended the opening performance, which Cat also watched with the entire boys' soccer team.  Then, the whole family attended the Saturday matinee.  Jack was in a few of the big numbers, but this is the only video I have where you can actually see him:

I took this picture because the soccer team got really into the play, which is
what the director was hoping for.  Here I think the Friar is singing "True Colors."
The team cheered, they swayed, they made jokes, and Cat loved being in the middle of it.

Jack's first curtain call, opening night.

"Jack, strike a pose!"

The lighting was much better at the day-performance on Saturday with the family.  Just look for the boy in the pink pants!

From the finale, courtesy of the cast slideshow.

I thought Romeo's punk look was pretty cool.

Suz and Whit attended with us and even brought Jack a candy bouquet!

Jack really had a lot of fun being a part of this production, and made some new friends.  He was excited to hang out with them and get froyo after the Saturday night show, and had a really fun time at the cast party.  The director awarded Jack the Cluckspeare Award, after he brought Felix to one of the painting/building days at the school (and she pooped on the gym floor).