Romeo and Juliet: the story on HearLore

Romeo and Juliet

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet begins with a street brawl between servants of the Montague and Capulet families, two households sworn to eternal enmity in the city of Verona. This opening violence sets the stage for a story that would become one of the most performed plays in history, yet its origins lie far beyond Shakespeare's own imagination. The play was written between 1591 and 1595, a period when Shakespeare was establishing himself as London's dominant playwright, and it was among his most popular works during his lifetime. The title characters, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, are thirteen-year-old and sixteen-year-old respectively, though modern audiences often perceive them as older due to the emotional maturity they display. Their romance is not merely a love story but a collision of fate and family duty, set against a backdrop of political intrigue and social upheaval. The play's enduring appeal lies in its ability to transform a simple tale of forbidden love into a complex meditation on time, death, and the human condition. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from earlier Italian tales, particularly the 1562 poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke, but he expanded the narrative by developing supporting characters like Mercutio and Paris, adding layers of psychological depth and dramatic tension that were absent in his sources. The play's structure, with its abrupt shifts from comedy to tragedy, has been praised as an early sign of Shakespeare's dramatic skill, and its use of poetic forms to reflect character development remains a masterclass in literary craftsmanship.

The Origins of A Tragic Love

The story of Romeo and Juliet did not begin with Shakespeare but with a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. One of the earliest known versions is the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe from Ovid's Metamorphoses, which contains striking parallels to Shakespeare's play: the lovers' parents despise each other, and Pyramus falsely believes his lover Thisbe is dead. This myth was inspired by Hellenistic love tales in which a woman dies and her lover dies or kills himself, often due to causing her death in the first place. The earliest known version of the Romeo and Juliet tale akin to Shakespeare's play is the story of Mariotto and Ganozza by Masuccio Salernitano, published in 1476 in his collection Il Novellino. Salernitano set the story in Siena and insisted its events took place in his own lifetime, including the secret marriage, the colluding friar, the fray where a prominent citizen is killed, Mariotto's exile, Ganozza's forced marriage, the potion plot, and the crucial message that goes astray. In this version, Mariotto is caught and beheaded and Ganozza dies of grief. Luigi da Porto adapted the story as Giulietta e Romeo in 1524, including it in his Historia novellamente ritrovata di due nobili amanti, published posthumously in 1531. Da Porto drew on Pyramus and Thisbe, Boccaccio's Decameron, and Salernitano's Mariotto e Ganozza, but it is likely that his story is also autobiographical: he was a soldier present at a ball on the 26th of February 1511, at a residence of the pro-Venice Savorgnan clan in Udine, following a peace ceremony attended by the opposing pro-Imperial Strumieri clan. There, Da Porto fell in love with Lucina, a Savorgnan daughter, but the family feud frustrated their courtship. The next morning, the Savorgnans led an attack on the city, and many members of the Strumieri were murdered. Years later, still half-paralyzed from a battle-wound, Luigi wrote Giulietta e Romeo in Montorso Vicentino, dedicating the novella to the bellisima e leggiadra Lucina Savorgnan. Da Porto presented his tale as historically factual and claimed it took place at least a century earlier than Salernitano had it, in the days Verona was ruled by Bartolomeo della Scala. Matteo Bandello published the second volume of his Novelle in 1554, which included his version of Giulietta e Romeo, probably written between 1531 and 1545. Bandello lengthened and weighed down the plot while leaving the storyline basically unchanged, though he did introduce Benvolio. Bandello's story was translated into French by Pierre Boaistuau in 1559 in the first volume of his Histoires Tragiques. Boaistuau adds much moralising and sentiment, and the characters indulge in rhetorical outbursts. In his 1562 narrative poem The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, Arthur Brooke translated Boaistuau faithfully but adjusted it to reflect parts of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. Shakespeare took advantage of this popularity, as Italian novelle were very popular among theatre-goers, and Romeo and Juliet is a dramatization of Brooke's translation, with Shakespeare following the poem closely but adding detail to several major and minor characters, particularly the Nurse and Mercutio.

When was Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare?

William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet between 1591 and 1595. This period coincided with his rise as London's dominant playwright and the work became one of his most popular plays during his lifetime.

What is the origin story of Romeo and Juliet before Shakespeare wrote it?

The earliest known version of the Romeo and Juliet tale is the story of Mariotto and Ganozza by Masuccio Salernitano, published in 1476 in his collection Il Novellino. Luigi da Porto later adapted the story as Giulietta e Romeo in 1524, and Arthur Brooke published a narrative poem titled The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet in 1562 which Shakespeare dramatized.

How many days does the plot of Romeo and Juliet span according to the script?

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet spans a period of four to six days. This short timeframe contrasts with Arthur Brooke's poem which spans nine months and highlights the theme of haste in the play.

Who was the first woman to professionally play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet?

Mary Saunderson was probably the first woman to play the role of Juliet professionally in 1662. She performed the role in Sir William Davenant's adaptation of the play at the Duke's Company.

When was the first professional performance of Romeo and Juliet in North America?

The first professional performances of Romeo and Juliet in North America were by the Hallam Company. An amateur production occurred earlier on the 23rd of March 1730 in New York, but professional performances followed later.

What are the main themes of light and dark in Romeo and Juliet?

Light and dark imagery in Romeo and Juliet symbolize the natural beauty of young love against the surrounding darkness of hate and family feud. The play uses these contrasts to represent the passage of time and the moral dilemma facing the lovers between loyalty to family and loyalty to love.

The Architecture of A Tragedy

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet employs several dramatic techniques that have garnered praise from critics, most notably the abrupt shifts from comedy to tragedy. Before Mercutio's death in Act III, the play is largely a comedy, filled with puns, wordplay, and the bawdy humor of the Nurse and Mercutio. After his accidental demise, the play suddenly becomes serious and takes on a tragic tone. When Romeo is banished, rather than executed, and Friar Laurence offers Juliet a plan to reunite her with Romeo, the audience can still hope that all will end well. They are in a breathless state of suspense by the opening of the last scene in the tomb: if Romeo is delayed long enough for the Friar to arrive, he and Juliet may yet be saved. These shifts from hope to despair, reprieve, and new hope serve to emphasize the tragedy when the final hope fails and both the lovers die at the end. Shakespeare also uses sub-plots to offer a clearer view of the actions of the main characters. For example, when the play begins, Romeo is in love with Rosaline, who has refused all of his advances. Romeo's infatuation with her stands in obvious contrast to his later love for Juliet. This provides a comparison through which the audience can see the seriousness of Romeo and Juliet's love and marriage. Paris' love for Juliet also sets up a contrast between Juliet's feelings for him and her feelings for Romeo. The formal language she uses around Paris, as well as the way she talks about him to her Nurse, show that her feelings clearly lie with Romeo. Beyond this, the sub-plot of the Montague, Capulet feud overarches the whole play, providing an atmosphere of hate that is the main contributor to the play's tragic end. The play's structure is further enhanced by its use of poetic forms. Shakespeare begins with a 14-line prologue in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet, spoken by a Chorus. Most of Romeo and Juliet is, however, written in blank verse, and much of it in strict iambic pentameter, with less rhythmic variation than in most of Shakespeare's later plays. In choosing forms, Shakespeare matches the poetry to the character who uses it. Friar Laurence, for example, uses sermon and sententiae forms and the Nurse uses a unique blank verse form that closely matches colloquial speech. Each of these forms is also moulded and matched to the emotion of the scene the character occupies. For example, when Romeo talks about Rosaline earlier in the play, he attempts to use the Petrarchan sonnet form. Petrarchan sonnets were often used by men to exaggerate the beauty of women who were impossible for them to attain, as in Romeo's situation with Rosaline. This sonnet form is used by Lady Capulet to describe Count Paris to Juliet as a handsome man. When Romeo and Juliet meet, the poetic form changes from the Petrarchan to a then more contemporary sonnet form, using pilgrims and saints as metaphors. Finally, when the two meet on the balcony, Romeo attempts to use the sonnet form to pledge his love, but Juliet breaks it by saying Dost thou love me? By doing this, she searches for true expression, rather than a poetic exaggeration of their love. Juliet uses monosyllabic words with Romeo but uses formal language with Paris. Other forms in the play include an epithalamium by Juliet, a rhapsody in Mercutio's Queen Mab speech, and an elegy by Paris. Shakespeare saves his prose style most often for the common people in the play, though at times he uses it for other characters, such as Mercutio. Humour, also, is important: scholar Molly Mahood identifies at least 175 puns and wordplays in the text. Many of these jokes are sexual in nature, especially those involving Mercutio and the Nurse.

The Light And Dark Of Love

Scholars have long noted Shakespeare's widespread use of light and dark imagery throughout the play. Caroline Spurgeon considers the theme of light as symbolic of the natural beauty of young love, and later critics have expanded on this interpretation. For example, both Romeo and Juliet see the other as light in a surrounding darkness. Romeo describes Juliet as being like the sun, brighter than a torch, a jewel sparkling in the night, and a bright angel among dark clouds. Even when she lies apparently dead in the tomb, he says her beauty makes This vault a feasting presence full of light. Juliet describes Romeo as day in night and Whiter than snow upon a raven's back. This contrast of light and dark can be expanded as symbols, contrasting love and hate, youth and age in a metaphoric way. Sometimes these intertwining metaphors create dramatic irony. For example, Romeo and Juliet's love is a light in the midst of the darkness of the hate around them, but all of their activity together is done in night and darkness while all of the feuding is done in broad daylight. This paradox of imagery adds atmosphere to the moral dilemma facing the two lovers: loyalty to family or loyalty to love. At the end of the story, when the morning is gloomy and the sun hiding its face for sorrow, light and dark have returned to their proper places, the outward darkness reflecting the true, inner darkness of the family feud out of sorrow for the lovers. All characters now recognize their folly in light of recent events, and things return to the natural order, thanks to the love and death of Romeo and Juliet. The light theme in the play is also heavily connected to the theme of time since light was a convenient way for Shakespeare to express the passage of time through descriptions of the sun, moon, and stars. Time plays an important role in the language and plot of the play. Both Romeo and Juliet struggle to maintain an imaginary world void of time in the face of the harsh realities that surround them. For instance, when Romeo swears his love to Juliet by the moon, she protests O swear not by the moon, th'inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. From the very beginning, the lovers are designated as star-cross'd, referring to an astrologic belief associated with time. Stars were thought to control the fates of humanity, and as time passed, stars would move along their course in the sky, also charting the course of human lives below. Romeo speaks of a foreboding he feels in the stars' movements early in the play, and when he learns of Juliet's death, he defies the stars' course for him. Another central theme is haste: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet spans a period of four to six days, in contrast to Brooke's poems spanning nine months. Scholars such as G. Thomas Tanselle believe that time was especially important to Shakespeare in this play, as he used references to short-time for the young lovers as opposed to references to long-time for the older generation to highlight a headlong rush towards doom. Romeo and Juliet fight time to make their love last forever. In the end, the only way they seem to defeat time is through a death that makes them immortal through art. Time is also connected to the theme of light and dark. In Shakespeare's day, plays were most often performed at noon or in the afternoon in broad daylight. This forced the playwright to use words to create the illusion of day and night in his plays. Shakespeare uses references to the night and day, the stars, the moon, and the sun to create this illusion. He also has characters frequently refer to days of the week and specific hours to help the audience understand that time has passed in the story. All in all, no fewer than 103 references to time are found in the play, adding to the illusion of its passage.

The Critic's Gaze

The earliest known critic of the play was diarist Samuel Pepys, who wrote in 1662: it is a play of itself the worst that I ever heard in my life. Poet John Dryden wrote 10 years later in praise of the play and its comic character Mercutio: Shakespear show'd the best of his skill in his Mercutio, and he said himself, that he was forc'd to kill him in the third Act, to prevent being killed by him. Criticism of the play in the 18th century was less sparse but no less divided. Publisher Nicholas Rowe was the first critic to ponder the theme of the play, which he saw as the just punishment of the two feuding families. In mid-century, writer Charles Gildon and philosopher Lord Kames argued that the play was a failure in that it did not follow the classical rules of drama: the tragedy must occur because of some character flaw, not an accident of fate. Writer and critic Samuel Johnson, however, considered it one of Shakespeare's most pleasing plays. In the later part of the 18th and through the 19th century, criticism centred on debates over the moral message of the play. Actor and playwright David Garrick's 1748 adaptation excluded Rosaline: Romeo abandoning her for Juliet was seen as fickle and reckless. Critics such as Charles Dibdin argued that Rosaline had been included in the play in order to show how reckless the hero was and that this was the reason for his tragic end. Others argued that Friar Laurence might be Shakespeare's spokesman in his warnings against undue haste. At the beginning of the 20th century, these moral arguments were disputed by critics such as Richard Green Moulton: he argued that accident, and not some character flaw, led to the lovers' deaths. Early psychoanalytic critics saw the problem of Romeo and Juliet in terms of Romeo's impulsiveness, deriving from ill-controlled, partially disguised aggression, which leads both to Mercutio's death and to the double suicide. Romeo and Juliet is not considered to be exceedingly psychologically complex, and sympathetic psychoanalytic readings of the play make the tragic male experience equivalent with sicknesses. Norman Holland, writing in 1966, considers Romeo's dream as a realistic wish fulfilling fantasy both in terms of Romeo's adult world and his hypothetical childhood at stages oral, phallic and oedipal, while acknowledging that a dramatic character is not a human being with mental processes separate from those of the author. Critics such as Julia Kristeva focus on the hatred between the families, arguing that this hatred is the cause of Romeo and Juliet's passion for each other. That hatred manifests itself directly in the lovers' language: Juliet, for example, speaks of my only love sprung from my only hate and often expresses her passion through an anticipation of Romeo's death. This leads on to speculation as to the playwright's psychology, in particular to a consideration of Shakespeare's grief for the death of his son, Hamnet. Feminist literary critics argue that the blame for the family feud lies in Verona's patriarchal society. For Coppélia Kahn, for example, the strict, masculine code of violence imposed on Romeo is the main force driving the tragedy to its end. When Tybalt kills Mercutio, Romeo shifts into a violent mode, regretting that Juliet has made him so effeminate. In this view, the younger males become men by engaging in violence on behalf of their fathers, or in the case of the servants, their masters. The feud is also linked to male virility, as the numerous jokes about maidenheads aptly demonstrate. Juliet also submits to a female code of docility by allowing others, such as the Friar, to solve her problems for her. Other critics, such as Dympna Callaghan, look at the play's feminism from a historicist angle, stressing that when the play was written the feudal order was being challenged by increasingly centralised government and the advent of capitalism. At the same time, emerging Puritan ideas about marriage were less concerned with the evils of female sexuality than those of earlier eras and more sympathetic towards love-matches: when Juliet dodges her father's attempt to force her to marry a man she has no feeling for, she is challenging the patriarchal order in a way that would not have been possible at an earlier time. A number of critics have found the character of Mercutio to have unacknowledged homoerotic desire for Romeo. Jonathan Goldberg examined the sexuality of Mercutio and Romeo utilising queer theory in Queering the Renaissance, comparing their friendship with sexual love. Mercutio, in friendly conversation, mentions Romeo's phallus, suggesting traces of homoeroticism. An example is his joking wish To raise a spirit in his mistress' circle ... letting it there stand Till she had laid it and conjured it down. Romeo's homoeroticism can also be found in his attitude to Rosaline, a woman who is distant and unavailable and brings no hope of offspring. As Benvolio argues, she is best replaced by someone who will reciprocate. Shakespeare's procreation sonnets describe another young man who, like Romeo, is having trouble creating offspring and who may be seen as being a homosexual. Goldberg believes that Shakespeare may have used Rosaline as a way to express homosexual problems of procreation in an acceptable way. In this view, when Juliet says that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet, she may be raising the question of whether there is any difference between the beauty of a man and the beauty of a woman.

The Stage And Screen Legacy

Romeo and Juliet ranks with Hamlet as one of Shakespeare's most performed plays. Its many adaptations have made it one of his most enduring and famous stories. Even in Shakespeare's lifetime, it was extremely popular. Scholar Gary Taylor measures it as the sixth most popular of Shakespeare's plays, in the period after the death of Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd but before the ascendancy of Ben Jonson during which Shakespeare was London's dominant playwright. The date of the first performance is unknown. The First Quarto, printed in 1597, reads it hath been often and with great applause plaid publiquely, setting the first performance before that date. The Lord Chamberlain's Men were certainly the first to perform it. Besides their strong connections with Shakespeare, the Second Quarto names one of its actors, Will Kemp, instead of Peter, in a line in Act V. Richard Burbage was probably the first Romeo, being the company's chief tragedian; and Master Robert Goffe, a boy, the first Juliet. The premiere is likely to have been at The Theatre, with other early productions at the Curtain. Romeo and Juliet is one of the first Shakespeare plays to have been performed outside England: a shortened and simplified version was performed in Nördlingen, Germany, in 1604. Upon the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, two patent companies were established, and the existing theatrical repertoire was divided between them. Sir William Davenant of the Duke's Company staged a 1662 adaptation in which Henry Harris played Romeo, Thomas Betterton Mercutio, and Betterton's wife Mary Saunderson Juliet: she was probably the first woman to play the role professionally. Another version closely followed Davenant's adaptation and was also regularly performed by the Duke's Company. This was a tragicomedy by James Howard, in which the two lovers survive. Thomas Otway's The History and Fall of Caius Marius, one of the more extreme of the Restoration adaptations of Shakespeare, debuted in 1679. The scene is shifted from Renaissance Verona to ancient Rome with a balcony featuring; Romeo is Marius, Juliet is Lavinia, the feud is between patricians and plebeians; Juliet/Lavinia wakes from her potion before Romeo/Marius dies. Otway's version was a hit, and was acted for the next seventy years. His innovation in the closing scene was even more enduring, and was used in adaptations throughout the next 200 years: Theophilus Cibber's adaptation of 1744, and David Garrick's of 1748 both used variations on it. These versions also eliminated elements deemed inappropriate at the time. For example, Garrick's version transferred all language describing Rosaline to Juliet, to heighten the idea of faithfulness and downplay the love-at-first-sight theme. In 1750, a Battle of the Romeos began, with Spranger Barry and Susannah Maria Arne at Covent Garden versus David Garrick and George Anne Bellamy at Drury Lane. The earliest known production in North America was an amateur one: on the 23rd of March 1730, a physician named Joachimus Bertrand placed an advertisement in the Gazette newspaper in New York, promoting a production in which he would play the apothecary. The first professional performances of the play in North America were those of the Hallam Company. Not until 1845 did Shakespeare's original return to the stage in the United States with the sisters Susan and Charlotte Cushman as Juliet and Romeo, respectively, and then in 1847 in Britain with Samuel Phelps at Sadler's Wells Theatre. Charlotte Cushman adhered to Shakespeare's version, beginning a string of eighty-four performances. Her portrayal of Romeo was considered genius by many. The Times wrote: For a long time Romeo has been a convention. Miss Cushman's Romeo is a creative, a living, breathing, animated, ardent human being. Queen Victoria wrote in her journal that no-one would ever have imagined she was a woman. Cushman's success broke the Garrick tradition and paved the way for later performances to return to the original storyline. Professional performances of Shakespeare in the mid-19th century had two particular features: firstly, they were generally star vehicles, with supporting roles cut or marginalised to give greater prominence to the central characters. Secondly, they were pictorial, placing the action on spectacular and elaborate sets requiring lengthy pauses for scene changes and with the frequent use of tableaux. Henry Irving's 1882 production at the Lyceum Theatre with himself as Romeo and Ellen Terry as Juliet is considered an archetype of the pictorial style. In 1895, Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson took over from Irving and laid the groundwork for a more natural portrayal of Shakespeare that remains popular today. Forbes-Robertson avoided the showiness of Irving and instead portrayed a down-to-earth Romeo, expressing the poetic dialogue as realistic prose and avoiding melodramatic flourish. American actors began to rival their British counterparts. Edwin Booth, brother to John Wilkes Booth, and Mary McVicker, soon to be Edwin's wife, opened as Romeo and Juliet at the sumptuous Booth's Theatre with its European-style stage machinery, and an air conditioning system unique in New York on the 3rd of February 1869. Some reports said it was one of the most elaborate productions of Romeo and Juliet ever seen in America; it was certainly the most popular, running for over six weeks and earning over $60,000. The programme noted that: The tragedy will be produced in strict accordance with historical propriety, in every respect, following closely the text of Shakespeare. The 19th century also marked the first time Romeo and Juliet was performed in Italy. The first four Italian translations of the play appeared in the early 19th century: in 1814 by Michele Leoni, in 1831 by Gaetano Barbieri, in 1838 by Carlo Rusconi, and in 1847 by Giulio Carcano. However, it was first staged in Italy only in 1869, when Ernesto Rossi produced a successful adaptation and performed as Romeo at the Teatro Re in Milan. Despite its late debut, the production marked a significant moment in the growing interest in the Bard's works, which had been present in Italy since the early decades of the 19th century. From as early as 1818, authors such as Luigi Scevola, Giuseppe Morosini, Angelica Palli, and especially Cesare della Valle, whose Giulietta e Romeo dominated the stage for decades until being replaced by Rossi's Shakespearean version, had created original works on the Veronese subject. Often compared by contemporary critics to Shakespeare's tragedy, these adaptations offered a different interpretation of the story, which also influenced Rossi's later staging. In these Italian dramas, the lovers do not engage in any reflection on their individuality nor do they struggle to assert their choices; rather, they are swept away by a whirlwind of sudden passion and inescapable events, to which they passively submit. The first professional performance of the play in Japan may have been George Crichton Miln's company's production, which toured to Yokohama in 1890. Throughout the 19th century, Romeo and Juliet had been Shakespeare's most popular play, measured by the number of professional performances. In the 20th century it would become the second most popular, behind Hamlet. In 1933, the play was revived by actress Katharine Cornell and her director husband Guthrie McClintic and was taken on a seven-month nationwide tour throughout the United States. It starred Orson Welles, Brian Aherne and Basil Rathbone. The production was a modest success, and so upon the return to New York, Cornell and McClintic revised it, and for the first time the play was presented with almost all the scenes intact, including the Prologue. The new production opened on Broadway in December 1934. Critics wrote that Cornell was the greatest Juliet of her time, endlessly haunting, and the most lovely and enchanting Juliet our present-day theatre has seen. John Gielgud's New Theatre production in 1935 featured Gielgud and Laurence Olivier as Romeo and Mercutio, exchanging roles six weeks into the run, with Peggy Ashcroft as Juliet. Gielgud used a scholarly combination of Q1 and Q2 texts and organised the set and costumes to match as closely as possible the Elizabethan period. His efforts were a huge success at the box office, and set the stage for increased historical realism in later productions. Olivier later compared his performance and Gielgud's: John, all spiritual, all spirituality, all beauty, all abstract things; and myself as all earth, blood, humanity ... I've always felt that John missed the lower half and that made me go for the other ... But whatever it was, when I was playing Romeo I was carrying a torch, I was trying to sell realism in Shakespeare. Peter Brook's 1947 version was the beginning of a different style of Romeo and Juliet performances. Brook was less concerned with realism, and more concerned with translating the play into a form that could communicate with the modern world. He argued, A production is only correct at the moment of its correctness, and only good at the moment of its success. Brook excluded the final reconciliation of the families from his performance text. Throughout the century, audiences, influenced by the cinema, became less willing to accept actors distinctly older than the teenage characters they were playing. A significant example of more youthful casting was in Franco Zeffirelli's Old Vic production in 1960, with John Stride and Judi Dench, which would serve as the basis for his 1968 film. Zeffirelli borrowed from Brook's ideas, altogether removing around a third of the play's text to make it more accessible. In an interview with The Times, he stated that the play's twin themes of love and the total breakdown of understanding between two generations had contemporary relevance. Recent performances often set the play in the contemporary world. For example, in 1986, the Royal Shakespeare Company set the play in modern Verona. Switches replaced swords, feasts and balls became drug-laden rock parties, and Romeo killed himself by hypodermic needle. Neil Bartlett's production of Romeo and Juliet themed the play very contemporary with a cinematic look which started its life at the Lyric Hammersmith, London then went to West Yorkshire Playhouse for an exclusive run in 1995. The cast included Emily Woof as Juliet, Stuart Bunce as Romeo, Sebastian Harcombe as Mercutio, Ashley Artus as Tybalt, Souad Faress as Lady Capulet and Silas Carson as Paris. In 1997, the Folger Shakespeare Theatre produced a version set in a typical suburban world. Romeo sneaks into the Capulet barbecue to meet Juliet, and Juliet discovers Tybalt's death while in class at school. The play is sometimes given a historical setting, enabling audiences to reflect on the underlying conflicts. For example, adaptations have been set in the midst of the Israeli, Palestinian conflict, in the apartheid era in South Africa, and in the aftermath of the Pueblo Revolt. Similarly, Peter Ustinov's 1956 comic adaptation, Romanoff and Juliet, is set in a fictional mid-European country in the depths of the Cold War. A mock-Victorian revisionist version of Romeo and Juliet final scene with a happy ending, Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, and Paris restored to life, and Benvolio revealing that he is Paris's love, Benvolia, in disguise forms part of the 1980 stage-play The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Shakespeare's R&J, by Joe Calarco, spins the classic in a modern tale of gay teenage awakening. A recent comedic musical adaptation was The Second City's Romeo and Juliet Musical: The People vs. Friar Laurence, the Man Who Killed Romeo and Juliet, set in modern times. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Romeo and Juliet has often been the choice of Shakespeare plays to open a classical theatre company, beginning with Edwin Booth's inaugural production of that play in his theatre in 1869, the newly re-formed company of the Old Vic in 1929 with John Gielgud, Martita Hunt, and Margaret Webster, as well as the Riverside Shakespeare Company in its founding production in New York City in 1977, which used the 1968 film of Franco Zeffirelli's production as its inspiration. In 2009, Shakespeare's Globe ran a production of Romeo and Juliet which was directed by Dominic Dromgoole, and starred Adetomiwa Edun as Romeo and Ellie Kendrick as Juliet. In 2013, Romeo and Juliet ran on Broadway at Richard Rodgers Theatre from the 19th of September to the 8th of December for 93 regular performances after 27 previews starting on the 24th of August with Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad in the starring roles. A production of the play starring Tom Holland and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers ran at Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End from the 11th of May 2024 for a 12-week limited run. The production was directed by Jamie Lloyd. A production of the play starring Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler opened on Broadway in Fall 2024. The production featured music by Jack Antonoff, direction by Sam Gold, and movement by Sonya Tayeh. The production achieved the youngest ticket buying audience in Broadway history and received a Drama League Award nomination for Best Revival of a Play, along with Connor receiving a nomination for Distinguished Performance. It also received an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination for Best Revival of a Play, along with Connor receiving a nomination for Outstanding Lead Performer in a Broadway Play. The play received a Tony Awards nomination for Best Revival of a Play, the first Tony nomination for a revival of this play in history. A new production of the play directed by Robert Icke and starring Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe is scheduled to open at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London's West End in March 2026.