The Play's the Thing

I can feel the rumble of anarchy bubbling in my students' breasts. They are ready to be out of school.

Oh Summer. For most school children, summer is synonymous with freedom, summer camps, and family vacations. My summer was synonymous with Shakespeare.



Unlike most professor's kids, our lives did not revolve around semesters. We didn't have a fall semester. That time was called fall dinner theatre then homecoming musical. Even my childhood summers were fettered to the stage. Summertime was Shakespearean festival time, and unlike the plays during the school year, I was allowed to participate.When I was too young to do anything useful, I'd visit rehearsal to watch my dad preform As I grew older, I was given responsibilities like director's assistant, light board operator, special effects coordinator, or stage manager. My favorite summers where our first in Abilene when the Shakespearean festival was still preformed in the open air of ACU's amphitheater. Those summers Cari and I, the consummate spotlight operators, learned the Bard by rote. I can recite Macbeth's "Tomorrow" soliloquy now because my spot was trained on him every night. Thanks to my childhood summers I've seen some plays once, and others over a hundred.

I don't know that I will ever be so brave as my parents were, taking a 10 year old to see Julius Caesar, but somehow I know I'd like my children's summers to involve a bit of the Bard too.