Play goes to new heights, bounds

To the editor:

As a student at Southeast Missouri State University, I commend the Theatre and Dance Department for crafting such an experience of life, love, passion and adolescent lifestyle in this week's production of William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." Dr. Kenn Stilson, who directed the show, in my opinion has done nothing short of encouraging his actors to take their characters to new heights and bounds and make them come to life in a way that no one has seen before.

Theater is one of the most unique expressions of art in that company after company can do the same classic show and put their own spin on it. This alone is what keeps theater alive and thriving.

This is why I am overly disappointed in the expressed concerns from local high schools who feel it better to shield their students from seeing a PG-13-rated show rather than letting them experience literature that they read out of their own textbooks in a new light. Why is it that we can learn in school the classic Shakespeare plays but cannot get a better view of it unless Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes modernize it in film?

Any person who teaches literature at any level should be all but jumping on the experience to see "Romeo and Juliet" on a beautiful stage with stunning sets, professional-level costumes and some of the best up-and-coming talented actors and actresses this area has ever seen.

WHITNEY LaMORA, Cape Girardeau