It's official: Orlando will play Romeo in new Broadway adaptation of "Romeo and Juliet"
Orlando will make his Broadway debut alongside Tony Award nominee Condola Rashad, as Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers in a new Broadway production of the timeless love story ROMEO AND JULIET, directed by five-time Tony Award nominee David Leveaux. The show will open on Broadway on Thursday, September 19, 2013 at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, following preview performances from Saturday, August 24, 2013. The production will also star two-time Tony Award nominee Jayne Houdyshell as the Nurse and Tony Award nominee Joe Morton as Lord Capulet.
This production will mark the first time in 36 years that the play will be produced for Broadway. This version of the classic tale will retain Shakespeare's original language but have a modern setting in which members of the contentious Montague and Capulet families will be of differing ethnicities.
In this new production, the members of the Montague household will be white, and the blood relatives of the Capulet family will be black.
"Shakespeare did not only write of his world - he imagined ours," said Leveaux. "The very improbability that two young people might, through their imaginations and their courage, change the world by overcoming the cynical tyranny of division handed down to them by their elders, is the best and happily most improbable reason I can imagine to bring this story to the Broadway stage today."
“They could have been any number of different ethnicities,” Mr. Leveaux said in a telephone interview, referring to his casting choices. “The two actors I wanted to be together producing sparks just happened to be those two and I followed my nose in casting the families.” He decided to make the Capulets an all-black clan and the Montagues all-white to reflect real life rather than make a comment on race, he added.
“There was nothing simple about that choice but I’m not about to turn a contemporary version of Shakespeare into a sociological or political point,” he said. “We know there are families from one background or another who would reject their children getting together with someone from another group. Romeo and Juliet reject that notion. It is still the case that children try to oppose the cultural expectations thrust upon them, the rigidity of tribes, the rigidity of fundamentalism.”
Tickets are available exclusively to Audience Rewards (www.audiencerewards.com) members beginning today, Monday, April 1, 2013 at NOON and will go on sale to the general public on Monday, April 8, 2013 via Ticketmaster.com (1-800-745-3000) for performances through Sunday, November 24, 2013. In order to make this production accessible to all, 100 tickets per performance will be set aside at $20 for purchase by students and educators.
Further casting and additional creative team members will be announced at a later date. Orlando Bloom is appearing with the permission of Actors' Equity Association.
source broadwayworld.com and artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com
Official website:
http://romeoandjulietbroadway.com/
Official Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/RomeoJulietBway
Official Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/RomeoJulietBway
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According to http://www.couriermail.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/orlando-bloom-to-play-romeo-opposite-condola-rashad-as-juliet-on-broadway/story-fncak5zz-1226610560535:
"The last thing we wanted to do was to do a sort of pompous, classic version of Romeo and Juliet," said director David Leveaux, a five-time Tony Award nominee.
"I'm just taking away all the wallpaper and mantelpieces, all the kind of pompous stuff we associate with grand Shakespeare productions, and try to go as simple as possible."
Leveaux said Bloom came aboard first several years ago, thirsty to try his hand at the work despite the director saying there were easier ways to make his Broadway debut. Years ago, Bloom had wanted to join the Royal Shakespeare Company but was persuaded to film The Lord of the Rings instead.
"I was just so fascinated by his passion and his absolute boyish love of this language that I thought, 'Yep, that feels like our Romeo," Leveaux said.
Leveaux put the pair together for the first time in Los Angeles a few months ago to see if they could produce sparks and proposed they start performing the Act 2 balcony scene.
"The first line out of Condola's mouth made Orlando laugh," he said. "I looked at him and it was like watching a man shed every ounce of armour he had as a celebrity and just adore this girl. I thought, 'There you go.'"
Leveaux then decided not to be colourblind about the cast, concluding that Juliet's parents must be black and Bloom must come from a white household. The casting teases out how very conservative the two families have become.
He said Romeo and Juliet is a fast and urgent play and both families are barely able to conceal a deep well of barbarism. That has Leveaux wanting to go as simple as possible and he is tempted to just cover the stage with sand and then set fire to it.
"That's what this production should feel like - it should feel like fire on the sand," said Leveaux, who once did a production of Sophocles' Electra with Zoe Wanamaker and covered the stage with earth. "To make it modern, we're going primal."
This production will mark the first time in 36 years that the play will be produced for Broadway. This version of the classic tale will retain Shakespeare's original language but have a modern setting in which members of the contentious Montague and Capulet families will be of differing ethnicities.
In this new production, the members of the Montague household will be white, and the blood relatives of the Capulet family will be black.
"Shakespeare did not only write of his world - he imagined ours," said Leveaux. "The very improbability that two young people might, through their imaginations and their courage, change the world by overcoming the cynical tyranny of division handed down to them by their elders, is the best and happily most improbable reason I can imagine to bring this story to the Broadway stage today."
“They could have been any number of different ethnicities,” Mr. Leveaux said in a telephone interview, referring to his casting choices. “The two actors I wanted to be together producing sparks just happened to be those two and I followed my nose in casting the families.” He decided to make the Capulets an all-black clan and the Montagues all-white to reflect real life rather than make a comment on race, he added.
“There was nothing simple about that choice but I’m not about to turn a contemporary version of Shakespeare into a sociological or political point,” he said. “We know there are families from one background or another who would reject their children getting together with someone from another group. Romeo and Juliet reject that notion. It is still the case that children try to oppose the cultural expectations thrust upon them, the rigidity of tribes, the rigidity of fundamentalism.”
Tickets are available exclusively to Audience Rewards (www.audiencerewards.com) members beginning today, Monday, April 1, 2013 at NOON and will go on sale to the general public on Monday, April 8, 2013 via Ticketmaster.com (1-800-745-3000) for performances through Sunday, November 24, 2013. In order to make this production accessible to all, 100 tickets per performance will be set aside at $20 for purchase by students and educators.
Further casting and additional creative team members will be announced at a later date. Orlando Bloom is appearing with the permission of Actors' Equity Association.
source broadwayworld.com and artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com
Official website:
http://romeoandjulietbroadway.com/
Official Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/RomeoJulietBway
Official Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/RomeoJulietBway
More
According to http://www.couriermail.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/orlando-bloom-to-play-romeo-opposite-condola-rashad-as-juliet-on-broadway/story-fncak5zz-1226610560535:
"The last thing we wanted to do was to do a sort of pompous, classic version of Romeo and Juliet," said director David Leveaux, a five-time Tony Award nominee.
"I'm just taking away all the wallpaper and mantelpieces, all the kind of pompous stuff we associate with grand Shakespeare productions, and try to go as simple as possible."
Leveaux said Bloom came aboard first several years ago, thirsty to try his hand at the work despite the director saying there were easier ways to make his Broadway debut. Years ago, Bloom had wanted to join the Royal Shakespeare Company but was persuaded to film The Lord of the Rings instead.
"I was just so fascinated by his passion and his absolute boyish love of this language that I thought, 'Yep, that feels like our Romeo," Leveaux said.
Leveaux put the pair together for the first time in Los Angeles a few months ago to see if they could produce sparks and proposed they start performing the Act 2 balcony scene.
"The first line out of Condola's mouth made Orlando laugh," he said. "I looked at him and it was like watching a man shed every ounce of armour he had as a celebrity and just adore this girl. I thought, 'There you go.'"
Leveaux then decided not to be colourblind about the cast, concluding that Juliet's parents must be black and Bloom must come from a white household. The casting teases out how very conservative the two families have become.
He said Romeo and Juliet is a fast and urgent play and both families are barely able to conceal a deep well of barbarism. That has Leveaux wanting to go as simple as possible and he is tempted to just cover the stage with sand and then set fire to it.
"That's what this production should feel like - it should feel like fire on the sand," said Leveaux, who once did a production of Sophocles' Electra with Zoe Wanamaker and covered the stage with earth. "To make it modern, we're going primal."