Shakespeare’s R & J

Written By Joe Calarco
Directed By J.J. Marrs

June 3-19, 2010
Thursday-Saturday Nights at 8pm

Performed at the 5th Avenue Antiques

Four young prep school students, tired of going through the usual drill of conjugating Latin and other tedious school routines, decide to vary their very governed lives. After school, one breaks out a copy of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and they all take turns reading the play aloud. The Bard’s words and the story itself are thrilling to the boys, and they become swept away, enmeshed in the emotion so much so that they break school rules in order to continue their readings. The rigidity of their lives begins to parallel the lives of the characters in the play: roles in the family, roles in society, and the roles played by men and women soon seem to make all the sense in the world, and then, suddenly, they seem to make no sense at all.

Featuring: Michael Walters, Trevor Clay, Cody Royce Moore, and Brett Blaylock

Joe Calaro is a playwright whose works include: SHAKESPEARE’S R&J (Lucille Lortel Award); WALTER CRONKITE IS DEAD (included in “The Best Stage Monologues of 2013”); “in the absence of spring” (inaugural production of Second Stage’s Uptown Series and included in “The Best Stage Scenes of 2004”); his short plays JUST A LITTLE SNIFFLE and PARTING GIFTS; and two collections of his plays for teens, SIGNATURE IN THE SCHOOLS, Volumes 1 & 2, which include the plays MY VACATION IN PARIS, SALAT, CIVIL WARS, AFTERSHOCK, SHAKESPEARE, WILL, IMAGE IS EVERYTHING, REVOLUTION, HERO WORSHIP, and VENI, VIDI, VICI. Other plays for teens include 295N, SMILE LINES, 12 MILLION FOOTSTEPS, and THE SPOKEN WORD. Other adaptations include A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM (The Shakespeare Theatre Company) and ANTIGONE RENEWED, which had its first workshop at the National Theatre in London. Other produced work includes A MEASURE OF CRUELTY (Carbonell Award nomination for Best New Work and included in “The Best Stage Monologues of 2013”), ISOLATED INCIDENTS, WATERSHED, WAITING, and SEPARATE ROOMS at 4615 Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland (included in “The Best Stage Monologues of 2020”).