The man playing Orsino had a deep rich baritone. It was lucky he was into Shakespeare because he had a Shakespearean voice – one that could boom out and bounce around even outdoors. One night, next to a fire in the grill on our company porch, he told me he had, as a child, been a part of a choir. He sang – this babyfaced, sweet-voiced kid – and was much lauded for his singing. When his voice changed, so did everything. A life ordered around a sweet voiced boy got turned upside down by the fluctuations of man-making hormones.
He quit singing. He couldn’t anymore, couldn’t depend on his voice and somehow or other, he found his way to theatre, where his voice became important once again, but in a new way.
And then we asked him to sing.
The Hamlet Project 