Playing Juliet
Page 13
Pages 138 and 147
Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,
To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in
Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, scene 3.
Pages 139 and 148
Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!
Romeo and Juliet, Act III, scene 5.
Page 139
Hast comforted me marvelous much.
Romeo and Juliet, Act III, scene 5.
Pages 140 and 148
Romeo, I come! this do I drink to thee.
Romeo and Juliet, Act IV, scene 3.
Page 154
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Tis but thy name that is my enemy
Romeo and Juliet, Act II, scene 2.
Pages 137, 160, and 175
If all else fail, myself have power to die
Romeo and Juliet, Act III, scene 5.
Pages 163 and 176
THE EPIGRAPHS
An epigraph is a quote that appears at the beginning of a chapter or a book. It usually echoes or foretells an idea or event in the writing that follows.
All but one of the epigraphs that appear in this book are taken from Shakespeare’s plays. One epigraph is from a poem he wrote. You can tell which one is a poem because the title is written within quotation marks instead of being italicized.
Prologue
Page 3:
The actors are at hand and by their show
You shall know all that you are like to know.
Quince, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, scene 1
Chapter One
Page 7:
Pins and poking-sticks of steel,
What maids lack from head to heel:
Autolycus, The Winter’s Tale, Act IV, scene 4
Chapter Two
Page 15:
. . . here is that
which will give language to you, cat: open
your mouth; this will shake your shaking,
Stephano, The Tempest, Act II, scene 2
Chapter Three
Page 29:
now must we to her window,
And give some evening music to her ear.
Proteus, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act IV, scene 2
Chapter Four
Page 41:
Wilt thou spit all thyself?
Pericles, Pericles, Act II, scene 1
Chapter Five
Page 53:
What think you of a duchess? have you limbs
To bear that load of title?
Old Lady, Henry VIII, Act II, scene 3
Chapter Six
Page 69:
And all the secrets of our camp I’ll show,
Their force, their purposes; nay, I’ll speak that
Which you will wonder at.
Parolles, All’s Well that Ends Well, Act IV, scene 1
Chapter Seven
Page 83:
We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage.
Lear, King Lear, Act V, scene 3
Chapter Eight
Page 93:
Search for a jewel that too casually
Hath left mine arm:
Imogen, Cymbeline, Act II, scene 3
Chapter Nine
Page 107:
Then how or which way should they first break in?
Question, my lords, no further of the case,
How or which way: ‘tis sure they found some place
But weakly guarded, where the breach was made.
King Charles and La Pucelle, Henry VI, Part 1, Act II, scene 1
Chapter Ten
Page 119:
When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions!
Claudius, Hamlet, Act IV, scene 5
Chapter Eleven
Page 135:
Read on this book,
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness.
Polonius, Hamlet, Act III, scene 1
Chapter Twelve
Page 151:
Like a dull actor now, I have forgot my part,
Coriolanus, Coriolanus, Act V, scene 3
Chapter Thirteen
Page 163:
But when her lips were ready for his pay,
He winks, and turns his lips another way.
“Venus and Adonis,” line 105
Chapter Fourteen
Page 173:
I pray you mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.
Orlando, As You Like It, Act III, scene 2
Epilogue
Page 187:
it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain
Some obscure precedence that hath tofore been sain.
I will example it:
Don Adriano de Armado, Love’s Labours Lost, Act III, scene 1
THE SCOTTISH PLAY
For hundreds of years, actors have been superstitious about saying the name of the Scottish play. No one knows why this play got a reputation for being cursed. Some blame Shakespeare for including three witches in the play. They think he quoted the spells of real witches when he wrote their lines.
The only exception to this rule is when the Scottish play is being produced onstage. But even appearing in it is considered unlucky. There are countless stories about falling scenery, lopped off thumbs, riots, heart attacks, car accidents, and even deaths that have occurred during the run of this play.
Those who don’t believe in the curse argue that because much of the play is set at night, the darkness of the set—combined with all the knives, sword fights, and battles called for in the script—increases the possibility of injuries. Most actors don’t buy it, and I’m not going to jinx this book by writing the name of the play here. If you haven’t figured it out yet, Zandy has. You can read her solution on page 52.
Beth’s quote from the Scottish play:
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes
Second Witch, Shakespeare’s Scottish play, Act IV, scene 1, pages 3, 13, 18, 24, 42, and 74
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book started when my aunts, Dorothy Smith and Eileen Boitel, took me to my first Broadway play and introduced me to the wonder of theater. I have never forgotten that production of Peter Pan.
I learned much of what I know about the work involved in putting on a play from the production of Just So Stories that Patricia Briggs adapted and staged at the Palo Alto Children’s Theatre. Caryn Huberman Yacowitz and I photographed the show and wrote the photo essay Onstage/Backstage about it. Pat and the children in the cast and crew were so generous and cooperative as we worked around them. They made us feel welcome in their theater.
There are many similarities between my fictional Oakfield Children’s Theater and the Palo Alto Children’s Theatre, though I have changed its practices, the layout of the building, and the history of its founding to suit the purposes of this book. The Palo Alto Children’s Theatre, which opened in 1937, was built on a city park and given to the city of Palo Alto, California, by a generous local philanthropist, Lucie Stern. She has the gratitude of the thousands of children who have taken part in the theatre over the years, as well as of the thousands of adults like me who have enjoyed its productions. Three directors have led the theater over most of the last eighty years: Hazel Glaister Robertson, Patricia Briggs, and, most recently, Judge Luckey. None of them is a model for Mrs. Mac, but they all share a love of theater and an understanding of how to nurture and support the children who act or who are members of the crew. I owe a special debt to Alison Williams, the Palo Alto Children’s Theatre’s costume supervisor for the last thirty years, for sharing her knowledge of designing and building costumes and for helping me research the question of wearing blue onstage.
Jane Yolen, the award-winning author of more than three hundred books, read the earliest draft of this manuscript at a writer’s worksho
p she taught, and her advice shaped every rewrite I did. Caryn Huberman Yacowitz is a member of both of my critique groups. She and Karen Beaumont, Dayle Ann Dodds, Betsy Franco, Emily Jiang, Ann Manheimer, Marjorie Sayer, and the late Angela Haight contributed so much to improving Playing Juliet. An invaluable help was my daughter, Jillian Wetzel Stirling, who shared her experience as an actor both at the Palo Alto Children’s Theatre and also with professional theater groups. I am embarrassed to remember how many early drafts I asked her to read and how many errors she caught.
I am grateful for the encouragement of all the people who volunteered to read an early copy of this manuscript, including Lisa Hodges, Molly Riley, and Scott Stirling, who were then in middle school, and to children’s librarians Jan Pedden and Claudia Davis.
My agent, Sara Sciuto, believed in this book and found the perfect editor for my manuscript, Julie Matysik, who is as big a Shakespeare fan as I am. Her assistant, Adrienne Szpyrka, made some important contributions to the plot. Thanks to you all.
And, as always, a very special thank-you to my husband, Gary, for his constant support and continued applause.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JoAnne Stewart Wetzel saw her first play, Peter Pan, on Broadway when she was seven years old. There were pirates and Indians, a fairy, and the actors flew! Ever since, she’s known something magical might happen at any moment in a theater. That’s one reason she’s seen a production of every play written by William Shakespeare. Her first book, Onstage/Backstage, which she wrote and illustrated with Caryn Huberman Yacowitz, was a photo essay about putting on a play at the Palo Alto Children’s Theatre. She and her husband live in the San Francisco Bay area. They have one daughter, who started acting at their local children’s theater when she was nine. To find out more about JoAnne and the book, please visit her website at www.joannewetzel.com.