(relaxing music) - It's my pleasure to be sitting here with Evan Parrish one of the actors in the youth program.

Hi Evan.

- Hello.

- So what role are you playing in, "A Mid-Summer Night's Dream?"

- In Mid-Summer, I was playing the role of Lysander who in this adaptation was like a nerdy, geeky kid who had the heart of like, one of the other popular girls at school.

And in this role I got to explore a lot of like physicality.

I consider myself a very physical actor and I tend to find any opportunity I can to like use physical comedy.

And so with this role I got to take that just so very far.

There's so many scenes where I got to just look absolutely like almost cartoonish with like my mannerisms and the way I walked and talked and like posed and whatnot.

- What have you learned?

- I have learned mainly to investigate words more.

Like whenever reading in class like ELA or one of my first classes, Introduction to Theater, I always like, it's almost second nature to look for literary devices, metaphors, similes, things like that.

And it allows me to have a better understanding of English in general in like the nuances of different words and whatnot - So what would you say to youth like yourself who wanted to act or have an outlet for their creativity?

How would you tell them to be part of this?

- Don't be afraid to look a fool.

As crazy as that sounds, like the whole point of theater is making yourself look one way or another to give other people a show and some kind of joy or evoke some kind of emotion.

One of the biggest things I think holds people back from going into theater, is they're afraid of looking dumb on stage.

But that's kind of the whole reason why you're there, you're entertaining and eventually if you let go of that and you see the joy that your performance brings other people, you'll get that same joy like, wow, I did that.

I made someone smile today or laugh today or cry today or something like that.

- And in your view, what is the greatest contribution of Shakespeare in Detroit?

- Inspiration.

Without Shakespeare in Detroit, I don't think I would have fallen in love with acting the way that I have.

And I know a lot of people that I go to school with that can say the same.

Yeah, inspiration giving people something that they wanna pursue and whether it be like, performing onstage or trying tech, like lights and props backstage, inspiring people to do things that they may have never even thought of doing before.

- [Satori] Any last words?

- Tell someone that you love them today.

- It's been a pleasure sitting here with Evan Parrish from the Youth Conservatory of Shakespeare in Detroit.

And now we're going to the stage to see a performance from the professional company of Shakespeare in Detroit.