Sleeping Beauty the Pantomime

I'm starting to measure how long I've lived in Ankara by how many pantomimes I've been in. Instead of telling people, "I've lived here 2 1/2 years," I've started saying, "This is my third pantomime." I've gone from a dragon in Aladdin (pardon me, the end of a dragon, with no lines and no one ever actually seeing my face), to playing the Prince in Cinderella, to Kate in Sleeping Beauty. Everyone keeps asking, "Who is Kate?" Yes, she is a made-up pantomime character; she does not exist in the Disney version. But she's a fun character to play. Kate is one of the sweetest characters in the panto; she is a reprieve for the audience from all the other nutjobs. She is also in love with a courtier who doesn't know she's alive for most of the play, so I have fun playing awkward and shy whenever he is on stage. She solves one of the largest dilemmas of the play by writing a fake magic potion spell that doesn't work, and in the end, when her love interest realizes she's been fawning over him the whole time, he stomps across the stage and gives her a Hollywood kiss and the audience cheers. This year, some more of my Bilkent friends starred in the play with me: Katy, our new drama teacher, as the witch; Jeff, our Physics teacher as the Queen; and Paul, the art teacher, as the King. Enjoy the pics!