This is the final project I created for this unit about studying Romeo and Juliet. If you want to know more about my process to make that, and why we made parodies of this play, keep reading!
When I was in Grade 8, I performed in an adapted version of Romeo and Juliet that was called Romeo You Idiot. I played Mercutio, and my costume was, well, interesting. However, when we put the show on, I had no idea what the story of Romeo and Juliet really was. I knew the basics- (two people meet, one pretends to kill herself, the other kills himself, the first one wakes up and kills herself), but there was a lot that I didn’t know, like the fact that they were both teenagers. This unit was one of the most fun units I’ve done in Humanities, and much of that comes from my love for the play itself.

The first thing we did in this unit was learn about the history of Shakespeare. We read The Tempest in Grade 8, and I’ve always thought of Shakespeare’s works as complicated, sophisticated writings. I was surprised to find out that his plays were made for the general public to enjoy, and they are full of vulgar jokes and references to things that people in the 16th century would understand!

It was exciting for me once we actually began reading the script. We watched two different film versions of Romeo and Juliet. The first was from 1968, and it was directed by Franco Zeffirelli. To us, that version felt very traditional. It had long scenes with lots of talking, and dramatic period-accurate costumes. The other version of Romeo and Juliet that we watched was from 1996, and it was directed by Baz Luhrmann. It was captivating. The way it was filmed was not traditional, with tons of editing quirks and beautiful cinematography, which made this version my favourite. I really enjoyed seeing how the words of the script were translated onto the big screen at two very different times of the 20th century.

Something cool that we did this project was write a blog post every week, and create something for each one. For the first week, I learned how to write a sonnet! You can read my sonnet here. The second week, I created an image contrasting the characters of Benvolio and Tybalt, which you can check out here. But on the third week, I did the one I’m proudest of. I made a fake news report, using semi-Shakespearean language, about Act 3 Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet, where both Mercutio and Tybalt are killed. I loved writing the script for this newscast, as I got the opportunity to be very creative. You can see the blog post here, or just watch this video!

We weren’t just writing a blog post every week for this unit, though! The main project of this unit was to create a parody of one scene from Romeo and Juliet! The point of this is that I chose the very end of the last scene, where Friar Lawrence, the only character who knew what happened the whole time, explains to both families what happened to their children. I am a firm believer that everything in the play could have been avoided if Friar Lawrence wasn’t so terrible at helping these children, so I created a parody where he’s extremely defensive, while also admitting his culpability. This script took longer to write, and I had to tweak it quite a bit, as I wanted it to be funnier. I also had to create a backdrop that would ‘react’ to my presentation (or I would react to it), so I took pictures of my classmates Gabby, Amelia R, and Kiyaan, and pointed at them when I said Romeo, Juliet, and Tybalt, respectively. It took some coordination to time the video, but I think I figured it out!

The day of the presentations, we did a dress rehearsal (more of a tech rehearsal) in the drama room. I was pretty stressed, but I had my costume all set up, so I was feeling a bit more confident. The actual presentation went great— a bunch of people showed up to watch, and they actually laughed at my parody (which I hope means they enjoyed it.) I did have some technical difficulties, but I improvised a few lines to make up for it. There was not, in fact, supposed to be an announcement during my performance, but I think it added to the parody. Without further ado, here it is!

I really enjoyed this project, and I’m really proud of the work I’ve done. From the newscast to the parody, this project has inspired me to do some of my best writing, and I’m so glad to share it with you!

Thanks for reading my blog post!