Shakespeare in the Park<\/a> production of \u201cRomeo & Juliet\u201d as Juliet, just one year after she completed her MFA from New York University.<\/p>\nThe audition for Juliet was one of the first ones Aikens received after her mom\u2019s unexpected passing in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re met with those real-life things, it\u2019s so hard to get yourself to care about things. It feels very frivolous,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is one of the first auditions that I got where I was like, \u2018oh, I care. I feel that spark again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t![\"Ra'Mya](\"https:\/\/wwd.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-wwd-2021\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\")
<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tRa\u2019Mya Latiah Aikens<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLexie Moreland\/WWD<\/p>\n
The Public\u2019s production of \u201cRomeo & Juliet,\u201d directed by Saheem Ali, features Spanish dialogue, which initially gave Aikens pause.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw that half of my lines were in Spanish and I was like, \u2018I\u2019m not Latina,\u2019\u201d she says. And they were like, \u2018No, no, no. Juliet is a non-native speaker and she\u2019s learning the language through her love for Romeo.\u2019 I was like, \u2018OK, I can get into that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Juliet\u2019s grief, for her cousin Tybalt and for Romeo\u2019s banishment, was one of Aikens\u2019 ways into the character.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was relatable to me at the time, and still is,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tRa\u2019Mya Latiah Aikens<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLexie Moreland\/WWD<\/p>\n
With just a few weeks until work began on the production, Aikens started reading books like \u201cHamnet\u201d and also about the history of the Public Theater, which puts on Shakespeare in the Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat 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,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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 \u201cPhantom of the Opera.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWatching the people, peeking out at whatever moment I could, that\u2019s where the love began,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tRa\u2019Mya Latiah Aikens <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLexie Moreland\/WWD<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI knew that I wanted to come to New York, but I did not have the gall to just do it,\u201d she says. \u201cI was like, \u2018If I get into school, I\u2019m going to go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Her first time ever in New York was when she arrived to begin at NYU. \u201cI thought New York City was Times Square,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tRa\u2019Mya Latiah Aikens <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLexie Moreland\/WWD<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ra\u2019Mya Latiah Aikens can\u2019t help but play the \u201cthis time last year\u201d game, but you would, too, if…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":509373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,79812,85,46],"class_list":["post-509372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-eye-interview","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}