Hamlet, Guest staring someone who looks like Rocco Statone

"Who's there?" I asked.
"Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself." The other Actor, I forget his name, he was playing Francisco, said.
"Long live the king!" I bellowed.
"Bernardo?" Asked Francisco.
"He." I replied.
"You come most carefully upon your hour." Francisco said. He wasn't that great of an actor, but then, neither was I.
"'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco." I said. I had just started to act, This was my second performance since high school.
"For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart." He said.
"Have you had quiet guard?" I asked. I was a freshmen at Trinity University in Texas, majoring in Theatre.
"Not a mouse stirring." he said
"Well, good night. If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste." I said. I was going to be the best actor the world had ever seen. The Royal Shakespeare company was going to want me for every production and I was going to act on the Globe.
"I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?" He said.
More actors entered.

After college I moved to Chicago. I couldn't get any paying parts, so I started reading Shakespeare with a few friends. We would go around reading and discussing Shakespeare's plays and acting theories. The locals called us a cult because we all walked around together with our big trench-coats to ward off the biting Chicago cold, and our copies of the First Folio.

I then moved to Salt Lake City. I managed to get a job. I was in a production by The Utah Shakespeare Festival. I was almost there, I knew that someone from England would see the performance. I new I was almost there.

"I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
and queen moult no feather. I have of late -- but
wherefore I know not -- lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so."

The crowd was silent. I was terrified. Was I bad? Why weren't they clapping? I had just poured my soul out in that speech and they just stood there.
I heard a solitary patron begin to clap. Slowly.
You know in the movies when on person starts to slowly clap and then everyone else joins in because they were too stunned to clap at first? Well that happened.
The crowd was wild. After the show there were at least three patrons who told me my performance had changed their life.

It was years later. I had moved to Wilshire Towers due to a steady acting job with the Rose theatre there.
I was still waiting to be discovered.

"He will come straight. Look you lay home to him: Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with, And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here. Pray you, be round with him." I said.
"Mother, mother, mother!" Said the actor playing Hamlet from offstage.
"I'll warrant you, Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming." Said Queen Gertrude, or the actress playing her at least.
I hid behind an arras as Hamlet entered the stage.
"Now, mother, what's the matter?" Said the Actor. It was odd, he looked like someone I had seen earlier, who was it. 'zounds itll bug me incessantly now.
"Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended." Gertrude said.
The Police man!What was his name? Rocco Statone! That was it! The actor playing Hamlet looks just like the police man I saw earlier. He had harassed me about something earlier the other day at some festival, its all very vague to me now. I think he said I was drunk in public. Maybe? I don't think I was drunk, all I remember is something about Falstaff...

That was twenty years ago.

I woke up...
The great actor Geoffrey Marlowe woke up, ready for yet another day of adoring fans and brilliant acting.