“West Side Story” star Rachel Ziegler and “Heartstopper” Kate Connor will make their Broadway debut in “Romeo + Juliet,” a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic that will open in the fall.
The two young actors, who will play star-crossed lovers, teased the news on Monday on Instagram with posts matching their character's initials and a heart-and-dagger emoji caption. They also mark the location as Verona, the Italian city where the feuding Montagu and Capulets reside.
Sam Gold directs the show with music by Jack Antonoff, the Grammy Award-winning producer known to Gen Z for his work with Taylor Swift. Gould directed this season's buzzy play “An Enemy of the People” with Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli, and previously handled the Bard with “Macbeth” starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga and “King Lear” led by Glinda Jackson. Sonia Tayeh, the Tony Award-winning choreographer of “Moulin Rouge,” will conceptualize the action for the show.
This version of “Romeo + Juliet” promises to cater to the TikTok generation, with a sharp slogan declaring that “youth has been cursed” and a press release promising that “Shakespeare's timeless tragedy now belongs to a new generation on the edge.” More information, including theater, dates and additional cast, will be announced at a later date.
Here's the official tagline, “Youth has been cursed. Left to their own devices in their parents' world of violent ends, an impulsive pair of ambivalent lovers are thrust towards their inevitable fate. Intoxicating passion soon descends into brutal chaos that can only end In one way.
“With the presidential election approaching in November, I felt a desire to create a show this fall that celebrates youth and hope, and unleashes the anger that young people feel about the world they are inheriting,” Gould said in a statement.
This adaptation is one of several new theatrical adaptations of “Romeo + Juliet.” Tom Holland and Francesca Amioda-Rivers will lead a separate production in London's West End this summer, while an adaptation of '&Juliet', a musical featuring Max Martin songs, has been a hit since opening on Broadway in 2022.
Connor, 20, is best known for starring in the Netflix adaptation “Heartstopper” (scheduled to debut its third season in the fall) and also playing a young Elton John in the 2019 film “Rocketman.” Ziegler, 22, rose to fame when she played The role of Maria in Steven Spielberg's “West Side Story,” which is of course based on “Romeo & Juliet.” She recently starred in “The Hunger Games” prequel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” and will lead Disney's upcoming remake of “Snow White.”
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