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A 16-year-old girl takes on Shakespeare and that first big
step toward her dream
By Jonathan Foerster contact
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Standing on a squat bench in the middle of the otherwise-empty
band-shell at Cambier Park, Alexandrea Tocco seems a little
out of place.
Alexandrea Tocco, playing Juliet, in the Gulfshore Playhouse's
version of Romeo and Juliet, rehearses with Chris Peluso,
playing Romeo, during a rehearsal at the band shell at Cambier
Park in Naples on Thursday April 12, 2007.
Photo by Tracy Boulian / Daily News
Alexandrea Tocco, playing Juliet, in the Gulfshore Playhouse's
version of Romeo and Juliet, rehearses with Chris Peluso,
playing Romeo, during a rehearsal at the band shell at Cambier
Park in Naples on Thursday April 12, 2007.
After all, a teenager spouting Shakespearean
dialogue isn’t
really a common sight during a weekday afternoon at Naples’ downtown
park.
It’s usually populated with passers-by,
workers on break from the nearby Fifth Avenue South shops
and families enjoying the cool breeze and the adjacent
playground.
The smell of fresh-cut grass and damp
dirt from the previous night’s rain wafts through the park’s
open space, more reminiscent of a picnic ground than theater.
Next to the bandshell a group of city employees tries to
erect a two-story inflatable movie screen.
But there Alex is, in the middle of rehearsing
the balcony scene for the Gulfshore Playhouse’s "Romeo and
Juliet Redefined," an update of the Bard’s classic
that simplifies the story, folding in modern flourishes from
such diverse sources as Prokofiev’s ballet and Leonard
Bernstein’s "West Side Story."
Although her perch on the bench doesn’t
have the vertical drama of a balcony, Alex is going at
it full-bore.
"What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
by any other word would smell as sweet. So Romeo would, were
he not Romeo called," she says.
She stamps her foot down and tosses back her hair.
Her arms shoot out from her sides as
she pleads with her star-crossed lover, "O, swear
not by the moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes
in her circle orb lest that thy love prove likewise variable."
Alex’s performance is all sass and spirit. But it’s
not overblown. Each gesture is carefully calculated and performed
for maximum effect.
Up on that bench she is Juliet, a pretty remarkable feat
for a 16-year-old who, until a few days ago, had never been
to a professional rehearsal.
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