By Kate Vandermeulen – Director of Marketing and Communications

As the curtains close on the Drama Department’s latest production, Anne-Marie McDonald’s Good Night Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet, the cast and crew are reflecting back on the process of putting on the show. 

Third year Musical Theatre student Mia Williams had the honour of playing one of Shakespeare’s most notable characters: Juliet Capulet herself. She reminisced about her time spent playing the not-quite-ill-fated teen: “Getting to be a part of Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet was truly an amazing experience. I was honoured to get to play Juliet and portray a different side of her than what you would expect.”

Director Mary Harvey spoke to the effort and energy that was required in order to get the show stage-ready in time for opening night: “This was a complex show that we needed to put on in a short time as all the actors were involved in the New Plays festival until the end of September.” 

Despite the short time frame, “everyone brought their maximum focus, and [Harvey] put practical stage movement first and foremost since [she] knew the multi-level design was ultimately going to be great fun to play with!” Williams shared the same sentiment, saying that “This process was difficult and demanding, but in the end, was extremely rewarding.”

Stage manager, Romina Recalde, had her own particular set of challenges when it came to making sure the production ran smoothly: “As stage manager, figuring out how to keep fluent communication between all tech teams was essential. The tech team worked incredibly hard to give the best of their capabilities and create an amazing product.” On top of that, she was in charge of coordinating everyone’s schedules to ensure the cast had “a decent amount of rehearsal time”, a difficult task with a group of busy Gaiters.

Shakespeare on its own is a tough beast to tackle, but Anne-Marie MacDonald’s re-imagining of the Bard’s prose made for a particularly fun challenge. “The language in the play is HARD,” Harvey expressed. “But the actors all put in the time needed to really understand and embody the meaning clearly for the audience,” she added. Recalde also mentioned the importance of “fight training and choreography as part of the preparation.”

At the end of the day, the cast and crew of Goodnight Desdemona, Goodnight Juliet had a common goal in mind: uplift audiences’ spirits and make the community smile. “We brought colour, laughter, fun and music to a challenging month, and made audience members forget about the hard stuff for a couple of hours in a shared experience of joy. Good medicine!” said Harvey. Recalde agreed, saying that “it was the best gift to see that the audience loved the play and deeply enjoyed each moment of it.”