I am a master procrastinator

Right now, I am supposed to be writing a paper on Chekhov's "Three Sisters," but instead, I'm writing a blog. I used to have a livejournal, which now stands unused, so I thought I'd give blogging another shot. I've got a lot on my mind grapes and I need somewhere to put everything that's rolling around in my brain.

So why the title, you might wonder? Well, for those who know me, there's no question. I'm currently in the midst of a seven year love affair with the works of William Shakespeare. And I don't see it ending any time soon. People make fun of my passion for this 445 year old playwright, and I've tried to explain, but I find its best just to keep on loving the Bard, be damned with the rest. Shakespeare gives me peace, and that's all that really matters frankly.

Shakespeare came into my life when I was thirteen years old. I played Puck in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." It was love at first performance. I wasn't mature enough then to fully understand everything I was saying. I liked the physical comedy and the mischief. So I thought to myself, "This is cool, maybe I should do some more of this Shakespeare." That summer I enrolled in a Shakespeare class at my old performing arts summer camp. Taught by the incredible Sarah Bacharach, I learned the mechanics of Shakespeare: iambic pentameter, similie, metaphor, and Elizabethan staging traditions. I was introduced to "Hamlet." I was falling in love. As fate would have it, that same summer was the summer my mother, brother, and I traveled to London for my cousin's Bar Mitzvah. My mother, following my interests, planned a trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon where we visited Shakespeare's birthplace and saw a terrific production of "The Taming of the Shrew" at the Royal Shakespeare Company. When we returned to London, we visited the Globe Theatre on the South Bank. And that's where I fell in love.

And thank G-d I fell in love with Shakespeare then. Growing up is not easy. We all need something to get us through those years of struggle. Some kids turn to music, others to painting or drawing, some turn to sports. I turned to Shakespeare. Whenever I was struggling to understand something like the loss of my beloved grandfather or the pain of first love lost, I could always open my complete works and find some comfort or guidance. I know I'm not the first person to feel that way, but it feels unique to me. That's why Shakespeare's survived really.

Since that fateful summer, I've done three summers at the Young Company Theatre Camp at the American Shakespeare Center and participated in five Baltimore Shakespeare Festival Teen Performance programs. I've been in nearly twenty separate productions of Shakespeare plays. I was Lady Macbeth, both Dromio and Antipholus of Ephesus, Rosaline of Love's Labour's Lost, and most recently, King Lear. I get more satisfaction and joy through performing Shakespeare than almost anything else. Performing has always been my thing. Until recently. In recent years, I've begun to discover my voice as a director. A voice stronger than I ever imagined it would be. I've never had the opportunity to direct a Shakespeare play. This summer, I'll have my chance as I take the helm of a production of "Love's Labour's Lost." I'm currently in the middle of my dramaturgical research. Thus far the process has been simultaneously terrifying, exciting, and immensely re-assuring.

Full speed ahead.

"From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire,
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain, and nourish all the world,
Then fools you were these women to forswear,
Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.
Let's once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves, to keep our oaths."
Berowne; Act IV, Scene iii. "Love's Labour's Lost"