An Artistic Learning Valentine: R & J in Suburbia

Last week we heard from Eli Wirtschafter, a former Cal Shakes Conservatory student—that's him on the right, playing Berowne in Love's Labour's Lost in 2009, the summer after his senior year of high school. Eli is now studying at UC Berkeley, and he wrote us to tell us about the production of Romeo and Juliet that he's directing.

We'll let Eli take it from here.

It's a Cal Shakes' Artistic Learning success story!

Everything I know about Shakespeare I learned from my six summers at Cal Shakes, and the program inspired me to direct my own show. It's with BareStage, a student-run theater group at UC Berkeley and it opens March 4. Susannah Martin, who I was lucky to have as my director four times, would always set Shakespeare's plays in a specific period; as we engaged with the text we were also engaging with recent history and how we saw ourselves. It was a continuation of Cal Shakes' mission of "reimagining the classics." I'm directing my own production Cal Shakes-style, transposing Verona to an American suburb in 1953. I could go on endlessly, but it's about disempowered youth, strict ideas about family, and distrust of people who aren't so different after all.

Here's some information about the show (and here's the link to its Facebook event)

Location: Caesar Chavez Student Center

Friday March 4 at 8pm

Saturday March 5 at 8pm

Sunday March 6 at 7pm

Friday March 11 at 8pm

Saturday March 12 at 8pm

Sunday March 13 at 2pm

Students $8, General $10

Tickets available at the door and at tickets.berkeley.edu.

I am constantly grateful to Cal Shakes, and I wanted to tell you what I was up to!