![\"August](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/sut-l-stage-greatness2.jpg\")
August Nickoli, left, Jaysten Marced Ares, top right, and Phoenix Velona in Loud Fridge Theatre Group\u2019s \u201cBoy My Greatness.\u201d (Ben Handley)<\/p>\nThere\u2019s a line in William Shakespeare\u2019s 1606-era play \u201cAntony and Cleopatra\u201d where the Egyptian queen worries that someday a squeaky-voiced boy actor might degrade her memory by portraying her \u201cgreatness\u201d in whorelike fashion.<\/p>\n
But in Zoe Senese-Grossberg\u2019s play \u201cBoy My Greatness,\u201d the teen and young adult men who played Shakespeare\u2019s Cleopatra, Lady Macbeth and Juliet in early 1600s London embodied their roles with the greatest of love, respect and responsibility.<\/p>\n
The comedy-drama made its West Coast premiere Sunday in a production directed by Lee Engelman for Loud Fridge Theatre Group at San Diego\u2019s Moxie Theatre. Although the characters in \u201cBoy My Greatness\u201d are fictional, they\u2019re based on real boys and young men who were delicate, gentle of voice and slight enough to realistically portray girls and women onstage.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s a dark side to this theatrical life. Some of these boy stage stars were sexually abused by their male patrons. Others aged out when their bodies and voices changed and they lost their livelihoods. Some masked their sexual identities to marry and fathered children. And the protection these often gay and trans men had in the theater didn\u2019t exist outside those walls.<\/p>\n
August Nickoli, left, Jaysten Marced Ares, top right, and Phoenix Velona in Loud Fridge Theatre Group\u2019s \u201cBoy My Greatness.\u201d (Ben Handley)<\/p>\n
Senese-Grossberg\u2019s play takes place around 1603, where the never-seen William Shakespeare is set to premiere \u201cAntony and Cleopatra\u201d just as the bubonic plague is making a comeback. All of the action takes place backstage, where the boy actors are in rehearsal under the supervision of John Sharpe, a onetime boy actor who recruits and trains boys as young as 12 to play female roles, since women of that era weren\u2019t allowed onstage.<\/p>\n
The plot of the 2-1\/2-hour play is far-fetched, but the well-drawn characters represent many facets of these unique actors\u2019 lives and careers.<\/p>\n
As the long-married husband and father Sharpe, Michael Rodriguez has a kind, paternal sweetness, but an aching wistfulness for his now-long-retired art of the feminine airs.<\/p>\n
Jacob Lopez gives an emotionally devastating performance as Tom Reade, the company\u2019s oldest boy player. At 22, he\u2019s too old, too tall and too deep-voiced to continue, so Cleopatra will be his swan song, whether he likes it or not. Another exceptional performance is delivered by Maybelle Shimizu as Samuel, a boy actor who left the company to become a Puritan who preaches against the immorality of theater, particularly the evil of boys masquerading as women.<\/p>\n
Actors Jaysten Merced Ares as Harry and Phoenix Velona as Hal bring humor and lightness to their characters, who portray young women onstage and are playful and affectionate lovers offstage. Ares\u2019 Harry is growing into manhood and ready to move into male roles, but Velona\u2019s Hal lacks the masculinity to tackle those mature characters, and both his career and romantic relationship are waning.<\/p>\n
And August Nickoli stars as newcomer Robin, the driven and comically self-absorbed 12-year-old boy wonder in the company who will do anything, literally, to become a star.<\/p>\n
The production features costumes by Heather K. Nunn, lighting by Mashun Tucker, sound by Hayden St. Claire and music coordination by William BJ Robinson.<\/p>\n
Senese-Grossberg\u2019s play mixes comedy, drama and history in a script that weaves between contemporary dialogue and snippets of Shakespeare\u2019s theatrical monologues and poems about how men and society see women, women see themselves and the magical mystery of womenkind.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a nice scene of choreography by Jackson Taitano at the end that resembles the finales of all of Shakespeare\u2019s comedies, though the Bard\u2019s usual happy-ever-after doesn\u2019t happen here. The careers of these actors, fascinatingly illuminated onstage in this play, didn\u2019t always end well.<\/p>\n
\u2018Boy My Greatness\u2019<\/p>\n
When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. Through July 19<\/p>\n
Where:\u00a0Loud Fridge Theatre Group at Moxie Theatre, 6663 El Cajon Blvd., Rolando<\/p>\n
Admission:\u00a0Free; donations of any amount encouraged<\/p>\n