Making her mainstage debut ...

Sarah English plays Juliet while her Dal professor, Susan Stackhouse, plays the nurse in Neptune's production of Romeo and Juliet. (Liam Hennessey Photo)

Sarah English has grown up around Neptune Theatre. She was just six years old when she first started taking classes at the Neptune Theatre School, and then ended up teaching there. Then, while studying acting at Dalhousie, she worked as an usher at the venerable theatre, often seeing plays 20 times over.

And now, finally, she’s making her debut on the Neptune stage -- just as she imagined all those nights as she showed patrons to their seats.

She plays Juliet in Neptune’s production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, nabbing the plum role just weeks after making the big move to Toronto.

“Neptune’s been a home away from home for me and it’s so great to be back,” says Ms. English, from Tantallon. She gives a shout-out to Miss Alford and Mr. Wholey, teachers at Sir John A. MacDonald High School, who introduced her to the joys of Shakespeare.

Sarah English as Juliet in the famed balcony scene. (Liam Hennessey Photo)

Getting the role sent her back to the play to rediscover the girl she thought she already knew -- “you know,” she says, “a little whiny and bossy, a real girly-girl who hangs over balconies and fawns over boys.” But Shakespeare’s heroine turned out to be someone else entirely, someone not unlike herself.

“She’s not those things at all. I see her as very brave. You can look at it as desperate, but I’d say she’s driven,” says Ms. English, who at 25 years of age can pass for someone much younger. She plays opposite Derek Moran as Romeo.

“I’m playing her as playful, a little bit cheeky and teasing ... I’m finding myself in her.”

Working at Neptune re-unites the former Dalhousie student with one of her professors, Susan Stackhouse, who plays Juliet’s nurse. “There’s a lot of nurturing warmth between Juliet and her nurse and it didn’t take us much effort at all to get cuddly,” she says with a laugh. “She’s someone I look up to, for sure.”