I wrote this on FB for The Globe's birthday
I had a picture to accompany of me looking up into the big O for the first time, a gaze of happiness and wonder.
My 1st "visit" to the theater was actually through Susan Cooper's book titled King of Shadows and the way that that novel inspired me to want to study Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream specifically) and visit The Globe Theater one day was unexpected but very welcome.
Cut to well over a decade later I've moved to London from Canada for a 2 year visa and I see The Globe outside for the first time with complete elation. Then some time later I see they're playing AMND there and I knew it was fate: I had to go. I had to see the play I'd read about being played within the O in the book. I had to experience the theatre for the first time watching this production.
Through some crazy long day filled with twists and turns of fate I got a ticket for a midnight performance.
I entered inside, and it was a moment like a storybook where I felt my dreams had come true and a cinemaric moment where time slowed and sped up all at the same time. Here I was in a place I'd only ever imagined in my mind, where I'd had numerous times experienced a very special emotional adventure with the characters of the novel I loved so much. And where I was about to see "the play that started it all" —the Dream that began my dreams of learning more about Shakespeare, more about Elizabethan England and to one day see another piece of London which I already had such a fascination with.
That Rice production that night was great and I will always remember standing as a groundling touching my hand to the stage and knowing I wasn't dreaming anymore. 💜
Happy Birthday, O!
