It’s hard to communicate how significant Shakespeare has been in my life since before I met Mary and through to our life without her.
Mary and I saw Patrick Stewart as Macbeth in London during our honeymoon nearly 12 years ago. It was Mary’s first exposure to the Bard on stage and it was pure luck when we stumbled upon the chance to see one of my favorite actors in an amazing role.
A couple years later we would take our new baby to see Twelfth Night under the stars as performed by Delaware Shakespeare at Rockwood Park in Wilmington, Delaware.
Passing on my passion for reading and writing has been one of the few things I’ve really desired for my children. I read 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea to my first born in his first months and never stopped introducing some of our oldest stories at ridiculously early stages.
Neither of us came from theater backgrounds and would not have predicted how our boys would take to the stage.
They’re in two productions of Shakespeare’s plays this summer. Their partnering up to play the comedy team of Dogberry and Verges in a homeschool production of Much Ado About Nothing is very special and the result of a lot of dedicated work.
However, their involvement in Delaware Shakespeare’s production of The Merry Wives of Windsor touches me in a way that stretches back to the chance to reintroduce Mary to the Bard and share my love. To imagine them on the same stage where Mary and I had one of our last date nights…it helps the world make a little more sense.
They won’t have any lines, but today they had their first rehearsal and my heart swelled as they took on the choreography like pros. I see them building their own lives and it is an immense blessing to watch their journeys.
God bless and thank you for reading,
Jason