Romeo and Juliet, June 2011

This was my most ambitious project so far. I had two main casts; Juliet was played by a Russian-speaking girl playing a Latina, and a Somali boy playing a Somali boy; the other Romeo was a Latino, playing a Muslim, and Juliet was played by an Ethiopian girl playing a Latina... Our main accent was not so much as family feud, but racial and religous predjudice. It was a powerful tool to make my students see their own narrowness of mind and by thinking about it, discussing and bringing it to the stage, overcome them - and hopefully, help others do the same. Oh, the hush in the audience when the sheikh says the morning prayer in Arabic!

Many months after students still talk about this play... it touched them, and I am happy...