Centerstage with: Husband and wife as ACT's 'Romeo and Juliet'

"Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?"

"In the living room, memorizing my lines."

The second line obviously is not from the Shakespeare classic. But, well, it speaks to Abilene Community Theatre's latest production

Romeo is Mitchell Bradford.

Juliet is Rebecca Bradford

They are husband and wife in real life, and now star-crossed lovers in ACT's "Romeo and Juliet," which opens Friday.

Director Ginger Vinson messaged Mitchell Bradford, an Abilene Christian University graduate, asking if he was interested in auditioning for the role. He had been in ACT's "Othello," with Vinson directing.

He asked Vinson if his wife, who studied theater at California Baptist, could, too.

They were in Oregon at the time, and sent an audition video back to Texas to Vinson.

"We didn't hear anything for three days and then she said, 'Do you guys want to be Romeo and Juliet?'" he said, laughing. "That worked out. Amazing."

Said Rebecca, "I wanted to audition, too, but Ginger only knew of Mitchell."

While this drama is set in Verona, Italy, this couple met in, not in Abilene, but in Slovenia. Italy and Slovenia are adjoining countries. Through ACU, he was doing an internship with a mission organization in Slovenia and met her parents, who are missionaries there.

"I loved it so much, I went back a second summer," he said. That's when he met her. Rebecca had grown up in that Eastern European country.

They spent only one day together but vowed to stay in touch. They shared passions for theater and mission work.

And talk about a long-distance relationship. He was in Abilene, she was in Riverside, Calif. And then came the pandemic.

That ironically brought them together. She came to Abilene during the summer of 2020 to meet his parents. When California Baptist turned to online study, she stayed here.

"We were long distance most of our relationship," she said. "But while I was visiting Mitchell and his family, I had no place to go back to. I realized that I had just moved to Texas.

Was their romance to be, or not to be?

"That expedited our relationship," Mitchell said. Now, these "strangers" were "seeing each other for hours at a time every single day," he said.

Unlike the fateful ending of "Romeo and Juliet," they wed. When they visited her parents in Slovenia that winter, he proposed.

"Six months later, we got married," he said.

Vinson has set her take on R&J in an asylum This is totally her idea, she said, not borrowed from elsewhere.

To be in love as a teenager is crazy, she said.

"So what better place to be crazy in love?" she asked.

To those who love or hate Shakespeare, Vinson believes her less than two-hour version of "Romeo and Juliet" will play well.

You are:

∎ Mitchell: On Monday, he started a new job. He's back at ACU as a dorm director. He is a 2020 graduate with a degree in theater. Last summer, he earned a master's degree in global service. On the ACU stage, he was in such shows as "Bright Star," "Beauty and the Beast" and "Cats."

∎ Rebecca: Well, for one thing, she's living in a dorm again. As she did in California and when Mitchell was getting his master's degree. "I work from home," she said. "I handle the administrative process of selling promotional products." Like pens with a company's name on the side. She also got her undergraduate degree in theater, doing such shows as "Babette's Feast" and "Pride and Prejudice."

Roles in "Romeo and Juliet":

∎ Mitchell: He is Romeo, the son of one Italian family feuding with another. He has fallen for their daughter, Juliet.

"I never pictured myself as a Romeo," he said, his curly locks shaking as he laughed. "I think every lad's dream when they are in high school and read for Romeo in freshman English goes, 'Oh, I totally can be Romeo. Then you grow up and it's 'There's no way I'm a Romeo." But in taking this role, he returned to this "young, shy, hopeless romantic in every young dude. It has been fun to find that 14-year-old, 15-year-old Mitchell ... granted, we are playing this around our age ... but when I read it in context, it's this 15-year-old guy who falls in love with this girl. And doesn't really know what love is but kind of gets a feeling of what it's like." It's about "feeling feelings deeply," he said. "It has been fun to play with emotions I haven't really felt since high school. Other than falling deeply in love with Rebecca."

∎ Rebecca: She is Juliet, who, like Romeo, is confined to a mental institution. "She checked herself in and is now on suicide watch," Rebecca said. "Which lends itself to how the story ends." Romeo is bi-polar and manic depressive. That, both actors agreed, provide a tension in their lives and relationship. She spends a lot of the play in tears, she said.

What you've learned about yourself playing this character:

∎ Rebecca: "I feel like my acting has sort of been this artist who writes a song or poem to their lover. and I'm doing that with Mitchell. I sort of am luxuriating in the love we have, and using that to tell a completely other story. We've invited friends from our church to come watch it and it's like inviting them to our wedding. Come and watch us be in love for two hours. There is a lot more work that is going into our characters, but it is just a lot of love. The Shakespeare classes that I've taken and what I've learned about Shakespeare, all of things they tell theater kids to tone it down, Shakespeare is like, 'No!' He's as dramatic as possible in the way he luxuriates in the language and emotions. It's just really decadent to do Shakespeare."

∎ Mitchell: "Rebecca is so good in luxuriating in those things and I'm not. Rebecca has pulled the luxuriating out of me through this process. It's something I'm learning about myself. That's really challenging for me to do as an actor. Not only as an actor but as a person sometimes. Luxuriate in the things that are vulnerable, such as love. And not just love, but pain. I consider myself to be an optimistic person." He said that each night in reviewing his part, he finds things he is missing. "There is something more that Romeo is feeling that I'm not quite expressing," he said. "I am excited that with each performance, I keep digging into that."

What the audience will get out of this production:

∎ Rebecca: "Something that I hope they get from this is that there is beauty in things we don't consider beautiful, simply because they are part of the human experience." Can suffering be something that is beautiful? "This story of star-crossed lovers with great misfortune ... are they going to do this as a comedy? No, still very sad. Sad things and very grotesque things can be very beautiful." And even in an asylum, "there still is space for a story to be told."

∎ Mitchell: He said he and friends drove into the area of last year's Mesquite Heat wildfire and while they observed the damage, they found beauty in the gnarled, burned trees. "Not in the traditional way we think of beauty," he said. "I couldn't help but feeling this is so cool, but also very sad."

What's next for you:

∎ Rebecca: "This is ultimately the dream," she said of returning to theater. "It's something that has been dormant for a while" because of the pandemic, getting married, etc. "We fell in love together while talking about theater, so this is exciting."

∎ Mitchell: "It's our first show together," he said. He was in ACT's comedy "It's Only a Play" in the fall, but she was not. "It has been really fun to discover each other in this world." He admitted they often work on their parts at home.

Greg Jaklewicz is editor of the Abilene Reporter-News and general columnist. If you appreciate locally driven news, you can support local journalists with a digital subscription to ReporterNews.com. 

If You Go

What: "Romeo and Juliet," directed by Ginger Vinson

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Again March 3-5

Where: ACT mainstage, 809 Barrow St.

Tickets: $18 general admission and $15 for students, military and seniors (55+) online. Tickets at the door will be $20 and $17.. Go to abilenecommunitytheatre.org or call 325-673-6271 for information.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Centerstage with: Husband and wife as ACT's 'Romeo and Juliet'