From Shakespeare to the Ramayana
November 2026
By Renée Tillotson
Do you ever wonder how you got to where you are today?
I’ve never had a grand vision for what I was going to be or do in my life. Yet following what brings me joy and love has called me to partake in many thrilling and meaningful events and roles. Now, at age 70, I’m about to give a performance with a cast of about 70 people at Hawai‘i Theatre of The Epic Tale of the Ramayana this evening, November 6th – something I’d never even dreamed of doing.
And, I am having a blast, relishing every moment I get to write the script, or plan the costumes and background slides, or work with our fantastic cast!
I wonder to myself, how did this happen?
My husband Cliff made an interesting observation the other day about the specific choices I’ve made that have led me to where we are today. In every case, I’ve been doing what I love. Just because I love it.
Our conversation started by learning of the passing last week of someone who made a big difference in my early life: Patrick Stewart, a brilliant Shakespearian actor whom I met and corresponded with during my University days. That was long before Hollywood discovered him and cast him as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek. Patrick Stewart did what he loved, too. Even when it was something no one expected of him: moving from the London stage to a TV setting.
I chose to attend UC Santa Barbara purely because they offered a women’s gymnastics program – a sport I’d come to love. I craved the music, the dance, and the flipping through the air. When it came time to enroll in classes, an English class focusing on Shakespeare and live theater caught my excitement, and I signed up!
Professor Homer Swander was a Shakespeare buff to the max. He even stood on his desk in his enthusiasm to adequately convey a scene to us! And he believed even young California fun-in-the-sun college kids needed an introduction to the Bard, as he often referred to the great playwright.
I can’t tell you which play we were studying at that time or what our conversation consisted of, but the day our professor brought three members of the Royal Shakespeare Company of England to our small classroom was a day that knocked my socks off. Patrick Stewart was there. So were Tony Church and Ben Kingsley – half British, half Indian, who went on to famously play Mahatma Gandhi in the stunning biographical film GANDHI.
Their dynamism, their presence, and their deep knowledge of and devotion to Shakespeare’s work all thrilled me to the core. I got so excited by what they were conveying, especially Patrick Stewart, that I left class to find a sunny place outside to pen a 3-4 page letter to Patrick. I think it was on the topic of creativity – to what extent are you creating the character and to what extent is it coming through you? Professor Homer delivered the letter for me.
And Patrick wrote back! He sent a fulsome, satisfying letter that let me know that I had been heard, and that he shared this same kind of seeking.
I was able to watch Patrick and his Royal Shakespeare Company members perform a number of different pieces at UCSB, and attend more classes in which he spoke. We shared a few more letters on the exciting ideas he inspired in me.
I extend my gratitude to this immensely talented yet approachable actor who portrayed each character with utmost integrity – he really stoked my love of theatre.
Patrick Stewart inspired even my shy boyfriend (Cliff) to join me in acting out a comical Shakespeare scene together in the Politics and Literature class we took together. From what play? Why A Midsummer Night’s Dream, of course! I played the hopelessly love-struck young Hermia, pursuing the handsome Demetrius through the forest as he was trying to escape her/me. Cliff and I dashed across the stage. I played the scene more as a gymnast than with any acting talent.
I just loved Shakespeare’s character development, his humor, and his plots, in which everyone got their just deserts. Hermia – who professed her sincere devotion to the man she truly loved – is the only one of the four young lovers who ends up with her original choice of a mate. Demetrius was begging for her hand in marriage by the end of the play! Very satisfying!
I graduated 5 years of college still not knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up, but with a Poli-Sci degree, a teaching credential and some college courses on drama for children tucked under my belt. That landed me a job at Crane Country Day School in Santa Barbara as a combination English/Drama teacher for kindergartners – 9th graders.
At least in the early 1980’s, the only play scripts available for children struck me as insipid drivel. Really! The characters had a one-dimensional quality that made it difficult to care about them. No heroes appeared to inspire us. The plots provided no moral challenges to wrestle with. Why on earth would I waste my students’ time producing such plays?
Instead I went with scripts for shows I had always adored: family friendly musicals with compelling storylines, snappy characters and clever use of the English language, such as The Music Man, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, etc. And, of course…. You guessed it: Shakespeare! With a lot of editing, we were able to tackle plays such as Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, and of course A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Now those scripts felt worthwhile, healthy for young minds and hearts, with true heroes or sheroes in the case of all of those mentioned. I loved them!
Later, when I started working in the construction business with Cliff, I’d get a brief respite each year to write and direct the Easter play for a Theosophy School that our children were in. My heart was drawn to wonderful, rich stories in children’s picture books that portray the nobility of human nature and great teachers hidden in the humblest of circumstances: Arrow to the Sun from the Pueblo tradition, Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks, and Fly Eagle Fly by Reverend Desmond Tutu. Without being religious in the typical sense, they were truly sacred stories. Everything about those plays – from crafting a script, to choreographing dances to the original music we created, to directing the kids – made my heart sing.
Meanwhile, I became acquainted with the mythology and epics of India. Every year at home with other families and friends, I brought a small group together to celebrate the Diwali festival of lights. I’d tell what came to be my favorite story of all time, the Ramayana. Its noble heroes and sheroes – on both sides of the battle lines – intrigued and inspired me.
The Ramayana even includes heroes making tragic moral choices, with Shakespearian King Lear-type falls. I saw how the characters’ ethical decisions led to consequences that perfectly aligned with their intention and foresight in making those decisions. That alignment balances my internal scales of justice, of what feels right in the universe. No matter what else was going on in the everyday world, I got to tell of things made right in the Ramayana once a year!
Once Cliff and I left friends and family in the early 2000s to work in Hawai‘i I sorely missed our Diwali celebrations.
Then I opened Still & Moving Center in 2011, and once again I had a community we could celebrate the Indian festival of light with! I started with fireside-type gatherings to tell the story of Prince Ram and the brave monkey warrior Hanuman rescuing Princess Sita from the demon king Ravana. My heart was humming again!
Within a couple years I realized that I was telling this exciting, swashbuckling tale to a talented and energetic set of movement teachers and students. Why wasn’t I giving them something dramatic to watch? Why did I have them just sitting there listening?!? And so was our Ramayana enactment born.
Almost none of our teachers or students had acting experience, and I didn’t want to scare them away by having to memorize lines. They were MOVERS – of dance, aerial arts, kung fu, yoga, all sorts. So I just gave them parts to play, described their characters to them, and we practiced a few times. Then I’d tell the story extempore for our Diwali event, calling each of them to the stage to pantomime the scenes as I was describing them. We added hula dancing for the falling-in-love scene, and yogis doing devotional sun salutations, and our martial artists conducting the battle scenes. Everyone loved it!
Eventually I wanted someone else to narrate the story so that I could have the fun of playing my beloved Hanuman role. For that to happen, I needed to write a script for our narrator. That year gave me no doubt one of my favorite life memories: gladly leaping through the sky between the prince and the princess!
Now that our characters had a predictable set of words to follow, the written narration stayed for future years. But I needed someone else to read it during our rehearsals so that I could direct the action, which was getting better and better. Doris Morisaki began doing those script readings for me. By her third year of reading the narration I realized she was developing great voices for each of our growing number of characters in the play. And I knew from my experience listening to Patrick Stewart playing a dozen different parts in one Shakespeare reading, the power of a well-cultivated set of vocal skills.
Then it struck me, about half an hour before we went on stage: Doris is narrating this play WAY better than I can! I LOVE THIS! So, with 30 minutes’ notice, Doris stepped onto the stage to narrate the whole Ramayana and thrilled us all with her fantastic array of voices for our many, many characters.
Still & Moving Center has continued to draw to itself talented people who love the performing arts as much as I do, and have talents way beyond my own in various fields. Our teachers’ and students’ acting skills kept evolving. We added live vocal music thanks to Dustin Hara, sound effects by Mark Morisaki, and authentic chanting of Hindu mantras in Sanskrit for our wedding and coronation ceremonies by Janani Lakshmanan. Our volunteers improved our costumes and props.
This year I initiated a process of creating a nonprofit, Still & Moving Meditation Fellowship, that will be able to carry this wonderful Diwali event – and all the other sacred moving and still practices that we already do at the Center – into the distant future. And THIS year, thanks to an introduction by Adele Tomita and all the fantastic artistry of our Still & Moving community, we were invited to perform The Epic Tale of the Ramayana on the storied stage of Hawai‘i Theatre!
So how did I and we get where we are today? By following our hearts’ calling, not knowing where it would lead us, yet trusting that if we do what we truly love, we will surely be doing some good in this world of ours.
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