January 25

    After reading Hamlet aloud in class, I didn't think it could get any worse. Odin was really into us taking parts and reading the play out loud as if we were actors. Sometimes he'd even ask us to add more emotion to our voices. The whole experience reminded me why I wasn't a theater kid: my life was dramatic enough without purposely adding more of it.

     Odin looked even more excited than usual at the beginning of class. His one eye was brimming with happiness and when he got up to speak, he bounced in his heels. "This month we've read a few plays," Odin said. "We will continue to read two more: Fences by August Wilson and The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Plays are a different medium than most of the literature we read in class. Since they are made to be performed, your project for this unit will be to recreate a scene of a Shakespeare play. The scene must be at least five minutes long. Any questions?"

    There were a flurry of questions about everything from costuming to how big our groups had to be. "There is no set number for group size," Odin said, "but no one is working alone. Costuming is encouraged, as is makeup, and you can get extra credit for that."

"Why does it have to be Shakespeare?" Magni asked.

"I chose Shakespeare because you can find his plays online for free," Odin said. "It wouldn't exactly be fair for me to expect you guys to have to hunt down super rare plays or anything. Now, if that's it for questions, then you guys can form groups. Once you've done that, you can come up to my desk and I will give you a paper to fill out about your project."

I ended up in a group with Jack, TJ, Mallory, Halfborn, and Sam. Sam got the paper and wrote our names on the top. "Alright guys," she said. "What play do we want to stage?"

"We should do something romantic like Antony and Cleopatra," Halfborn suggested.

"No, we should do something morbid like King Leer," Mallory said.

Halfborn looked a little disappointed. "I thought you'd make a good Cleopatra."

Mallory raised an eyebrow. "You thought I'd be good at what — drinking pearls dissolved in wine?"

"You're a strong, clever, and independent woman like she was," Halfborn said.

"That's a nice compliment," Jack said. "I'm going to have to jot that down for later."

We all looked at him. "What?" he asked defensively. "It's better than most of the compliments I hear these days. Half of them are like, 'nice eyes' or just really crude."

       "He's not wrong," Sam said.

        "So are we doing Antony and Cleopatra?" Halfborn asked.

"Let's vote on it," Sam suggested. "All in favor of performing Antony and Cleopatra raise your hands."

Halfborn and Jack raised their hands. "All in favor of King Leer?" Sam asked.

Mallory and TJ raised their hands. "We have a tie," Sam said.

"You and Magnus didn't vote!" Mallory pointed out.

"I am being the arbitrator," Sam said, "so I had to stay neutral."

Everyone's attention focused to me. "I — uhh — didn't want to take sides in a fight between my friends."

Mallory rolled her eyes and grumbled something to Halfborn that made him laugh. I had to hide my smile when she glared at me later because my inaction had worked exactly as I'd hoped. "Why don't we choose another play?" Ssm suggested.

"How about A Midsummer Night's Dream?" Jack suggested. "It's a comedy and there's this really funny scene where some guy gets turned into a donkey."

"Sounds interesting," Halfborn said.

"Let's look at the play," Mallory said.

We all pulled up PDFs of the play on our Chromebooks and skimmed through different parts of the play. There was a lot of drama in the way — romantic and otherwise — and I wondered how we'd choose a scene. In the end, we chose to perform Act V Scene I. It was Jack who suggested it. "We'd be performing a scene about putting on a play," he said. "How wonderful is that?"

"A play within a play," TJ said. "I like that. Let's call the scene 'Playception.'"

We all agreed on the title. "Okay, but what role are we each playing?" I asked.

"I think Halfborn should be Pyramus and Mallory should be Thisbe," Jack said.

"What does that role entail?" Mallory asked.

"Holding a sword," Jack said, "among other things."

"Sign me up," Mallory replied.

Sam ended up being the Lion, Jack was Moonlight, TJ was the Wall, and I was the Prologue. We finished filling out our sheets a few minutes before class and we're just starting to discuss the logistics when the bell rang. "Let's meet up on Sunday," Mallory suggested.

"I can't," Jack sighed. "I have work."

"How about Thursday at my place?" Halfborn said.

We all agreed. At lunch we told Hearthstone, Blitzen, and Alex about our project. "I pity you and your AP English class," my boyfriend said.

He turned to me. "What is your role?"

"I am the esteemed prologue," I said.

Alex blinked. "Of course you are. Did you guys have to audition or anything?"

"I did the casting," Jack said. "As an actor I can detect natural talent."

"Who is doing the costuming?" Blitzen asked.

We looked at each other. "I think we're all just doing it ourselves," TJ offered, "but I already have a costume idea in mind. I've been sketching it out."

He showed us his sketchbook where he'd sketched out a grey tunic with patterned ivy over it and the small crack where Pyramus and Thisbe spoke to each other.

"Nice," Blitzen said. "You sew?"

TJ nodded. "Mostly for reenactment purposes. My mother is a seamstress."

"What about the rest of you?" Blitzen asked.

"I think I'll get a lion mask from the costume store," Sam said.

"I'm the esteemed prologue," I said, "and I'll dress simply so my clothes won't detract from my words."

"I think I can find an outfit, but Halfborn is hopeless with fashion," Mallory said.

"I can help," Blitzen said.

Halfborn was frowning. "What's wrong with my sense of style?"

"You wear the same hoody and sweat outfit five days a week," Mallory said.

"Seven most weeks," Halfborn said with a hint of pride, "and I just have a lot of sweatpants and hoodies. They're comfortable."

Mallory facepalmed. "Alright, but Pyramus cannot just be wearing sweats and a hoody, so you'll have to dress up that day."

"Are you telling me what to wear woman?" Halfborn asked. "I thought that went against feminism."

Mallory turned red. "You are impossible."

"How about we discuss the costumes later?" I proposed.

"Omg, did you guys hear what Magni told Loki yesterday?" Jack asked.

"Nope," I said, smiling.

Jack launched into an elaborate story that involved TikTok, the square root of Pi, and beard-shaming. The story was so engrossing that we didn't discuss costumes again for the rest of lunch.