Ra’Mya Latiah Aikens can’t help but play the “this time last year” game, but you would, too, if your swing was as jarring as hers.
“This time last year I was sitting in the middle of the Delacorte for the first time ever,” Aikens says from a picnic table behind the legendary theater in Central Park. “I saw Lupita [Nyong’o] and Sandra Oh and Peter [Dinklage] and all these people and the curtain call happened and I just jumped out of my seat. It solidified in that moment — because I already knew that I of course wanted to do Shakespeare in the Park. But in that moment I was like, ‘oh, I’m here and it feels tangible and maybe one day it’ll happen.’”
The actor now is leading this summer’s Shakespeare in the Park production of “Romeo & Juliet” as Juliet, just one year after she completed her MFA from New York University.
The audition for Juliet was one of the first ones Aikens received after her mom’s unexpected passing in December.
“When you’re met with those real-life things, it’s so hard to get yourself to care about things. It feels very frivolous,” she says. “This is one of the first auditions that I got where I was like, ‘oh, I care. I feel that spark again.’”
Ra’Mya Latiah Aikens
Lexie Moreland/WWD
The Public’s production of “Romeo & Juliet,” directed by Saheem Ali, features Spanish dialogue, which initially gave Aikens pause.
“I saw that half of my lines were in Spanish and I was like, ‘I’m not Latina,’” she says. And they were like, ‘No, no, no. Juliet is a non-native speaker and she’s learning the language through her love for Romeo.’ I was like, ‘OK, I can get into that.’”
Juliet’s grief, for her cousin Tybalt and for Romeo’s banishment, was one of Aikens’ ways into the character.
“That was relatable to me at the time, and still is,” she says.
Ra’Mya Latiah Aikens
Lexie Moreland/WWD
With just a few weeks until work began on the production, Aikens started reading books like “Hamnet” and also about the history of the Public Theater, which puts on Shakespeare in the Park.
“That really helped me to contextualize just how legendary this all is and the people that have come before, and how much it means to have free theater for people to come watch,” she says.
Aikens grew up on the Florida-Georgia Line, a shy kid who loved to sing in the school choir. The choir director approached her one day and suggested she audition for the school musical, a production of “Phantom of the Opera.” She ended up in the ensemble and fell in love with theater not from the stage but from the wings, watching people react to the scenes before them.
“Watching the people, peeking out at whatever moment I could, that’s where the love began,” she says.
Ra’Mya Latiah Aikens
Lexie Moreland/WWD
A first-generation high school, college and now graduate school graduate, Aikens knew that bringing her dream of theater to life would have to come from getting good grades and landing a scholarship. She did her undergrad at Kennesaw State University before coming to New York for her MFA.
“I knew that I wanted to come to New York, but I did not have the gall to just do it,” she says. “I was like, ‘If I get into school, I’m going to go.’”
Her first time ever in New York was when she arrived to begin at NYU. “I thought New York City was Times Square,” she says.
Ra’Mya Latiah Aikens
Lexie Moreland/WWD