Amanda always gives the best advice. Last year when I was freed from my high paying job I told Amanda about my predicament. Now that I had put in my time getting on my feet financially I wanted the next thing I did to be based in passion. My biggest passions are acting and travel. However, it’s much harder to move from a lower cost of living city to a higher cost of living city than the other way around. She suggested I move to Baltimore. Baltimore?! Baltimore was no where on my radar. She said Baltimore is a city that embraces the arts- where I might have a better chance of actually getting cast in something as an outsider than I would jumping into a bigger city. Plus Baltimore is 3 hours from New York, 2 hours from Philadelphia and half an hour from DC. I could get back into acting and branch out into the bigger cities as the opportunities arose. Plus Amanda has loads of friends in Baltimore whom she would introduce me to. So last March Amanda and I went to Baltimore and I met lots of her friends. I decided that when I settled back down again, it would be in Baltimore.
That being said, as I was roughing it in hostels and living out of a suitcase in Europe, my spirit was shouting for more. I decided to pursue a more nomadic lifestyle. At the moment I am concentrating my efforts on securing a job on cruise ships. There is, however, a reason I tell you this story about my relationship with Baltimore. Back in the states, I started reaching out to those who had offered me a guest room to sleep in. When I asked Amanda she said that I could come stay, but if I came in the first week of August she would be going to Baltimore for the weekend to see a Shakespeare themed synchronized swimming show. And I could join her.
The deal was done.
We took the train from Philly to Baltimore and Amanda was very impressed with how it got us there in half the time the bus would have.
Amanda’s best friend Alex’s husband Brendan (did you get that?) picked us up from the train station and took us to their house. Let me take a moment to introduce the cast of characters.
I’d learned of my layoff on a Tuesday in October. By Friday I was in New York with Amanda for a previously planned theatre weekend and my head was still spinning. It was there that I met Alex (who grew up in Colorado where she and I had both met Amanda while working in Admissions at two different schools), Alex’s friend since childhood, Anne, and Anne’s husband Brian. Anne and Brian live in New York. They came down for the Shakespeare themed synchronized swimming show. And Brendan I met when I came to Baltimore in March where he ran a fundraiser, Ryes Up Against Cystic Fibrosis, where we tasted many whiskey cocktails and custom made snacks.
Freakishly incredible weather led us to lounge on the front porch sipping mimosas. Seeing Anne and Brian made me realize how many shifts I had made since I had last seen them. And my mindset in March was so different than it was now. This reflection came and went in a moment and then I was able to settle in and laugh and chat on the porch with these wonderful people on a beautiful day. I love when my friends have good taste in people!
The weather was so nice, we didn’t even need to dip in the kiddie pool set up in the backyard!
In the car on the way to Sharkespeare we recited as many monologues and sonnets as we could remember. And then we arrived at the public pool.
Amanda did her best to lower my expectations. “It’s community theatre.” She said. “It’s not going to be good.”
It was amazing.
This guy came out dressed as a shark– SHARKespeare– and talked to a growling bear– ShakesBEAR. What was more Shakespeare appropriate than a play within a play? He was clearly reading his lines from his clipboard, but he had lots of enthusiasm.
There were four ‘plays’. The costumes were incredible. The players would come out and act out a scene,
Then they would jump in the water and water ballet to a contemporary song that supported the theme that had just happened in the scene. 
You didn’t really need to know the plays to enjoy the show. 
Hundreds of people were a part of this show. They were all shapes and sizes. 
The costumes were so well done.
This is from the Scottish play that shall not be named. 
I enjoyed watching their elaborate makeup smear in the water. I know that synchronized swimming is actually really hard, and I thought it was interesting that the hardest things they did (like floating around in this star shape) wasn’t that impressive from the audience. But, man! when they all slapped the water at the same time! That was cool. 
This is the fairy queen coming out on “Bottom” in a midsummer night’s dream.
I loved watching their faces. Some of them were beaming and some of them were frowning in concentration, thinking hard about the choreography.
They used every Shark pun that existed. The finale was “Love Shark” (to the tune of the “Love Shack”)
I was completely delighted with the interpretations of the classic plays, and with the inclusiveness and celebration of diversity. Everyone there was having such a great time.
My favorite part was that they had these teenage life guards that looked so bored and uninterested. I mean, they were really making a display of how uninterested they were (while I, on the other had, was ecstatic). Then, halfway through the show, one of the lifeguards pops out as a king who gets killed and then thrown in the water and he was under there for such a long time that I got distracted and never saw him get out! And I was looking for it! I just loved that they were almost commenting on how nerdy this show was, and then the kid was a part of it! The whole experience was everything I wanted it to be and more.