“West Side Story” star Rachel Zegler and “Heartstopper” breakout Kit Connor will make their Broadway debuts in “Romeo + Juliet,” a modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic that will open in the fall.
The two young actors, who will play star-crossed lovers, teased the news Monday on Instagram with matching posts of their character’s initials and the caption of a heart and dagger emoji. They also tagged the location as Verona, the Italian city where the feuding Montagues and Capulets reside.
Sam Gold is directing the show with music by Jack Antonoff, the Grammy-winning producer best known to Gen Z for working with Taylor Swift. Gold directed this season’s buzzy play “An Enemy of the People” with Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli and has previously tackled the Bard with “Macbeth” starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga and “King Lear” led by Glenda Jackson. Sonya Tayeh, the Tony-winning choreographer of “Moulin Rouge,” will conceive the movement in the show.
This version of “Romeo + Juliet” promises to cater to the TikTok generation, with the edgy tagline that declares “the youth are fucked” and a press release that pledges “Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy now belongs to a new generation on the edge.” More information, including a theater, dates and additional casting, will be announced at a later date.
Here’s the official logline, “The youth are fucked. Left to their own devices in their parents’ world of violent ends, an impulsive pair of star-crossed lovers hurtle towards their inescapable fate. The intoxicating high of passion quickly descends into a brutal chaos that can only end one way.”
“With the presidential election coming up in November, I felt like making a show this fall that celebrates youth and hope, and unleashes the anger young people feel about the world they are inheriting,” Gold said in a statement.
This adaptation is one of several new stage-bound takes on “Romeo + Juliet.” Tom Holland and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers will lead a separate production on London’s West End this summer, while the revisionist “& Juliet,” a jukebox musical featuring the songs of Max Martin, has been a draw since opening on Broadway in 2022.
Connor, 20, is best known for Netflix’s adaptation of “Heartstopper” (its third season is slated for the fall) and also portrayed a young Elton John in 2019’s “Rocketman.” Zegler, 22, rose to fame as Maria in Steven Spielberg’s take on “West Side Story,” which, of course, riffs on “Romeo & Juliet.” She recently starred in “The Hunger Games” prequel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” and will lead Disney’s upcoming “Snow White” remake.
Source Agencies
