Love, loss, and a last minute comeback for ‘Romeo and Juliet’

When actors jokingly say ‘break a leg,’ they truly do not mean it.

An absolute nightmare befell the cast of Romeo and Juliet, a co-production between The Calgary Young People’s Theatre and the Shakespeare Company in tech.

An injury days before opening night, for the leading, lady no less.

“Our Juliet, during tech, her knee dislocated,” says director and Calgary Young People’s Theatre artistic producer Jamie Dunsdon. “So we had to re-rehearse a new Juliet in a week… the entire cast really came together and just was like, ‘No, we’ll do this. We’ll make this happen.’ And I was kind of blown away by the professionalism of everybody.”

When Juliet went down, the company delayed opening night, giving understudy Amelia Hughes just days to step in.

The mixed professional adult actor and aspiri