High School Caeser

It’s difficult as it is to imagine the final years of the life of Julius Caeser. It’s difficult to imagine that, at any point in his last few years of life that he would’ve thought about some British guy writing a staged biography of those yearslet alone imagining that it would end up being the best remembered account of the end of his life. Somewhere around early March of 44 BC, is he thinking about how his last few months are going to play out on stage as written by some hack playwright from an island north of Europe? Probably not. And 2000 years after his death, is he thinking about the possibility of kids a fraction of his age playing out that same script near a large lake across the Atlantic Ocean? Probably not. In any case, that’s exactly what’s going to happen at the beginning of December as First Stage Children’s Theatre presents William Shakespeare’s Julius Caeser the first weekend in December at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center.

I remember a lifeless class reading of the script somewhere in high school nearly killing my interest in Shakespeare altogether. First Stage’s Young Company will be considerably different. The group is an advanced, pre-professional training program for students 15 and older. With the right kind of youthful passion, this high school student production could have substantially more energy than even a professional production complete with a fully-stocked cast of union actors . . . the fiery ambition of one of the first political dramas just might have a bit more bite with high school students . . .

First Stage Children’s Theatre’s production of Julius Caeser runs December 3 – 4 at the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center.