Love, loss, and a last minute comeback for ‘Romeo and Juliet’

When actors jokingly say ‘break a leg,’ they truly do not mean it.

An absolute nightmare befell the cast of Romeo and Juliet, a co-production between The Calgary Young People’s Theatre and the Shakespeare Company in tech.

An injury days before opening night, for the leading, lady no less.

“Our Juliet, during tech, her knee dislocated,” says director and Calgary Young People’s Theatre artistic producer Jamie Dunsdon. “So we had to re-rehearse a new Juliet in a week… the entire cast really came together and just was like, ‘No, we’ll do this. We’ll make this happen.’ And I was kind of blown away by the professionalism of everybody.” 

When Juliet went down, the company delayed opening night, giving understudy Amelia Hughes just days to step in.

The mixed professional adult actor and aspiring teenaged team managed to pull it together and only opened one day behind schedule.  It is playing at Dancers’ Studio West through Nov. 1.

For Parker Painchaud, who plays Romeo, that meant adjusting the most delicate moments of his performance,

“Yeah, it was definitely a bit overwhelming at first,” he says. “I mean a lot of the show and all of those scenes with Juliet are going to — I mean, it’s a new actor, they’re obviously going to change in some way. But I mean… the person who came in, Amelia… she learned all of the stuff and blocking… it was so impressive.” 

Miles Chan plays Romeo’s BFF Mercutio, and even though he shares no direct scenes with Juliet, he says it was a heart stopping turn.

“Well, it’s also been an emotional rollercoaster for me. This is a huge change…. I’m very impressed by it,” he said.

Neither young men are strangers to the theatre world.

Painchaud has previously acted in Theatre Calgary’s A Christmas Carol and Chan has been acting in school shows since first grade.

On the adult side, director Dunsdon has wanted to tackle Romeo and Juliet for years — but only if she could do it her way.

“One of the things that was challenging for me about the script is that I felt that in order to understand the play properly, you really need to see teenagers in the roles,” she says. “So often we see adults playing all the roles, or kids playing all the roles in a high school play or whatever.”

She points out how the script changes based on the age of the reader or watcher.

“I really felt the play was a generational play,” Dunsdon adds. “We need to see kids as kids, and the only way to do that is to have adults as adults.” 

CYPT’s youth performers share the stage with four professional adult actors, blending mentorship with artistry.

Chen says he has learned from the adults the difference between playing a role and breathing it.

“As kids, in productions that we’ve been in… there is an expected norm that whatever you do in rehearsal, you bring it to performance,” he says. “But with professional actors, you’re really… you’re seeing how they’re really there to embody this character. They’re ready to play. “

Chen is also working on stage along an adult actor, Brent Gill, who previously played Mercutio with the Shakespeare Company.

“Watching Brent and Miles talk about this role together has been really, really wonderful,” Dunsdon says. “They’ll go off into the corner and just talk about it, and Brent will offer his perspective. And that, for me, that’s what theatre training is all about. It’s about apprenticeship. It’s about sharing knowledge between generations.” 

For Painchaud, taking on one of the most famous names in theatre history has been a challenge and a gift.

“I mean, he’s definitely one of the hardest characters I’ve ever had to play because he’s very emotionally complex,” he says. “I think obviously he starts as a pretty good guy.”

But is Romeo a good guy at the end? “…That line kind of starts to blur, especially by the end. We’ve been kind of playing with the numbness of Romeo by the end and how his emotion has kind of left him,” Painchaud adds.

Romeo and Juliet runs through Nov.1 at West Village Theatre.

Tickets and details are available at cypt.ca.