“West Side Story” star Rachel Zegler and “Heartstopper” breakout Kid Connor will make their Broadway debuts in “Romeo + Juliet,” a modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare's classic that opens in the fall.
The two young actors, who play the star-crossed lovers, teased the news on Instagram on Monday with appropriate posts of their character's initials and captioned with a heart and punch emoji. They tag the place as Verona, the Italian city home to the warring Montagues and Capulets.
Sam Gould directs the show with music by Jack Antonoff, a Grammy Award-winning producer best known to Gen Z for his work with Taylor Swift. Gould directed this season's sensational drama “An Enemy of the People” with Jeremy Strong and Michael Imperioli, and previously tackled the Bart with “Macbeth” starring Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga and “King Lear” led by Glenda Jackson. Sonia Thaye, the Tony-winning choreographer of “Moulin Rouge,” will direct the show.
This version of “Romeo + Juliet” promises to cater to the TikTok generation, with a press release declaring that “young people are enthralled” and promising that “Shakespeare's timeless tragedy now belongs to a new generation on the brink.” Additional information including theater, dates and additional cast will be announced at a later date.
Here is the official logline, “Young people are being cheated. Left to their own devices in their parents' violent world, a pair of star-crossed lovers head towards their inevitable destiny. The intoxicating high of passion soon descends into a brutal chaos that can only end one way.
“With the presidential election coming up in November, I felt the need to create a show this fall that celebrates youth and hope, and unleashes the anger that young people feel about the world they will inherit,” Gold said in a statement.
This adaptation is one of many new stage-sets in “Romeo + Juliet”. Tom Holland and Francesca Ameuda-Rivers will stage a solo production in London's West End this summer, while a jukebox musical adaptation of Max Martin's songs, “& Juliet,” has been in the draw since opening on Broadway in 2022.
Connor, 20, is best known for Netflix's adaptation of “Heartstopper” (which is slated for a third season in the fall), and portrayed a young Elton John in 2019's “Rocketman.” Zegler, 22, rose to fame as Maria in Steven Spielberg's “West Side Story,” which is definitely a flip on “Romeo & Juliet.” He recently starred in “The Hunger Games” prequel “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” and will direct Disney's upcoming “Snow White” remake.
