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Congrats to some members of our summer 7-Player Cy

Congrats to some members of our summer 7-Player Cymbeline touring company @sindymck @theresa.secor.5 and @stanmcc3 ... now cast in ANDRONICUS at @elitetheatreco ...
break a leg and kill it! (Pun TOTALLY intended)

. Sonnet 121 'Tis better to be vile than vile este

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Sonnet 121
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad and in their badness reign.

performed by actor, director, and theatre sound designer Allan Noel

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full video at
https://youtu.be/ficpau2CkrY

[Well, this is different...] . Sonnet 120 That you

[Well, this is different...]
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Sonnet 120
That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow, which I then did feel,
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken,
As I by yours, you've passed a hell of time;
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O! that our night of woe might have remembered
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tendered
The humble salve, which wounded bosoms fits!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

Video courtesy of TalkObamaTo.me

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full video at
https://youtu.be/xw12PpQZ-HY

. Sonnet 119 What potions have I drunk of Siren te

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Sonnet 119
What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,
Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within,
Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears,
Still losing when I saw myself to win!
What wretched errors hath my heart committed,
Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!
How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted,
In the distraction of this madding fever!
O benefit of ill! now I find true
That better is by evil still made better;
And ruined love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
So I return rebuked to my content,
And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.

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full video at
https://youtu.be/rrDWE_nhkH4

Don't forget this weekend's auditions for ANDRONIC

Don't forget this weekend's auditions for ANDRONICUS at @elitetheatreco !
Now with more roles!
Now with possible MALE roles!
Check https://www.theelite.org/uncategorized/etcetera-stage-andronicus/ for details, and contact producer Laura Comstock at burkcom82 [at] gmail.com to schedule your audition (this way we can schedule you and lessen your wait time!)...

. Sonnet 118 Like as, to make our appetites more k

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Sonnet 118
Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge;
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;
Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
To be diseased, ere that there was true needing.
Thus policy in love, to anticipate
The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured;
But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.

performed by actress Kelsey Risher

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follow Kelsey at kelseyrisher.com & @kelseyrisher on Instagram

. Sonnet 117 Accuse me thus: that I have scanted a

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Sonnet 117
Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all,
Wherein I should your great deserts repay,
Forgot upon your dearest love to call,
Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;
That I have frequent been with unknown minds,
And given to time your own dear-purchased right;
That I have hoisted sail to all the winds
Which should transport me farthest from your sight.
Book both my wilfulness and errors down,
And on just proof surmise accumulate;
Bring me within the level of your frown,
But shoot not at me in your wakened hate;
Since my appeal says I did strive to prove
The constancy and virtue of your love.

performed by actor, director, and educator Bill Walthall

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full video at
https://youtu.be/7j_LjMGVGAs

need a volunteer to do Sonnet 120 (either video or

need a volunteer to do Sonnet 120 (either video or audio-only)... first person to respond gets the poem!

. Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true mi

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Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

performed by actor Stan McConnell

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follow Stan at @stanmcc3 on Instagram and stanthemanIII on Facebook

full video at
https://youtu.be/gOn0CDiuk04

. Sonnet 115 Those lines that I before have writ d

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Sonnet 115
Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer:
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;
Alas! why, fearing of Time's tyranny,
Might I not then say, 'Now I love you best,'
When I was certain o'er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
Love is a babe, then might I not say so,
To give full growth to that which still doth grow?

performed by actor, director and writer Julie Fergus

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full video at
https://youtu.be/kdrVKm64rUM

. Sonnet 114 Or whether doth my mind, being crowne

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Sonnet 114
Or whether doth my mind, being crowned with you,
Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?
Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,
And that your love taught it this alchemy,
To make of monsters and things indigest
Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,
Creating every bad a perfect best,
As fast as objects to his beams assemble?
O! 'tis the first, 'tis flattery in my seeing,
And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:
Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,
And to his palate doth prepare the cup:
If it be poisoned, 'tis the lesser sin
That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.

performed by director and actress Christine Adams

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full video at
https://youtu.be/wDVe7aiJdqo

. Sonnet 113 Since I left you, mine eye is in my m

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Sonnet 113
Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;
And that which governs me to go about
Doth part his function and is partly blind,
Seems seeing, but effectually is out;
For it no form delivers to the heart
Of bird, of flower, or shape which it doth latch:
Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,
Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch;
For if it see the rud'st or gentlest sight,
The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,
The mountain or the sea, the day or night,
The crow, or dove, it shapes them to your feature.
Incapable of more, replete with you,
My most true mind thus maketh mine eye untrue.

performed by actor Caleb Heulitt

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follow Caleb Heulitt at @camarillocay on Instagram

full video at
https://youtu.be/OZdsgvFoU3o

. Sonnet 112 Your love and pity doth the impressio

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Sonnet 112
Your love and pity doth the impression fill,
Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;
For what care I who calls me well or ill,
So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
You are my all-the-world, and I must strive
To know my shames and praises from your tongue;
None else to me, nor I to none alive,
That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.
In so profound abysm I throw all care
Of others' voices, that my adder's sense
To critic and to flatterer stopped are.
Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:
You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
That all the world besides methinks y'are dead.

performed by actress Sarah Ely

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full video at
https://youtu.be/uSad02_Fc8g

. Sonnet 111 O! for my sake do you with Fortune ch

. Sonnet 110 Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and

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Sonnet 110
Alas! 'tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made my self a motley to the view,
Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new;
Most true it is, that I have looked on truth
Askance and strangely; but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays proved thee my best of love.
Now all is done, have what shall have no end:
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am confined.
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.

performed by queer burlesque performer, hostess, storyteller, and actress Mercury Troy

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follow Mercury at @mercurytroy on Instagram and Twitter, as well as #showgirlinexile

full video at
https://youtu.be/Z5eISBOw1yU

. Sonnet 109 O! never say that I was false of hear

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Sonnet 109
O! never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,
As easy might I from my self depart
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels, I return again;
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe though in my nature reigned,
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
For nothing this wide universe I call,
Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

performed by actress Dawn Michelle

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follow Dawn Michelle at @dawnie14 on Instagram and Dawn Cosgrove on Facebook

full video at
https://youtu.be/3yhRNatw8dU

. Sonnet 108 What's in the brain that ink may char

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Sonnet 108
What's in the brain that ink may character
Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?
What's new to speak, what now to register,
That may express my love, or thy dear merit?
Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,
I must each day say o'er the very same;
Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,
Even as when first I hallowed thy fair name.
So that eternal love in love's fresh case,
Weighs not the dust and injury of age,
Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,
But makes antiquity for aye his page;
Finding the first conceit of love there bred,
Where time and outward form would show it dead.

performed by actor, director and producer Jolyn Johnson

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follow Jolyn Johnson at @wiccabuffy on Instagram

full video at
https://youtu.be/bzw-jasn_WM

. Sonnet 107 Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic

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Sonnet 107
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assured,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time,
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.

performed by actor and poet Genesis Perez

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follow Genesis at @panicversuseuphoria on Instagram and @panicversus euphoria on YouTube

full video at
https://youtu.be/FK-v3FzbhD4

. Sonnet 106 When in the chronicle of wasted time

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Sonnet 106
When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have expressed
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

performed by Tas Al-Ghul, a multi-faceted performance artist based out of Los Angeles, CA

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follow Tas Al-Ghul at @tasalghul on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok

full video at
https://youtu.be/H2PfmKrA1ks

. Sonnet 105 Let not my love be called idolatry, N

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Sonnet 105
Let not my love be called idolatry,
Nor my beloved as an idol show,
Since all alike my songs and praises be
To one, of one, still such, and ever so.
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence;
Therefore my verse to constancy confined,
One thing expressing, leaves out difference.
Fair, kind, and true, is all my argument,
Fair, kind, and true, varying to other words;
And in this change is my invention spent,
Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.
Fair, kind, and true, have often lived alone,
Which three till now, never kept seat in one.

performed by actor, director, and educator Bill Walthall

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full video at
https://youtu.be/lE896fJDgBs

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