adapted and directed by Joe Calarco

winner of the 1998 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Special Achievement in Theatre

Shakespeare's R&J is recently received its
Japanese premiere in Tokyo

Recently played at the Arts Theatre on London's West End
www.shakespearesrandj.com

Named #1 of the "Five Best Plays" in London by the The Independent

Honorable mention in Best Director category from London's Evening Standard Awards

Shakespeare's R&J Tokyo premiere
read Joe's journal or see photos

WEST END PRODUCTION
ARTS THEATRE, LONDON

"Electrifying!  A beautiful, sexy, wildly inventive adaptation.  Overpoweringly moving.  Ingenious, urgent and wonderfully atmospheric.  Profound and haunting.  The four actors give marvelously open, generous, daringly vulnerable performances.  This brilliant production lets you see an over-familiar play with fresh eyes."
— Charles Spencer, The Telegraph

"A knockout!  Magical.  Sensational.  Surpasses the single-sex Shakespeare productions that proliferated in London this year."
— Nicholas de Jongh, The Evening Standard

"4 out of 5 stars.  I've seldom seen teenage isolation, insecurity, vulnerability and pain so touchingly evoked."
— Benedict Nightingale, The Times

"A superb version that will open your eyes and ears to the piece as if you were experiencing it, with unjaded wonder, for the first time.  The verse-speaking is a joy to hear for its intelligence, speed and naturalness.  It is one of the most thrilling events of the theatrical year."
— Paul Taylor, The Independent
 

ORIGINAL OFF-BROADWAY PRODUCTION
JOHN HOUSEMAN THEATRE, NYC

"A small miracle… Joe Calarco would appear to be a theater man of imagination and vision. This production is truly astonishing."
— Vincent Canby, The New York Times

"It pulsates with an adolescent abandon and electricity of which Romeo himself might approve."
— Peter Marks, The New York Times

"Electrifying… R&J is a gem, the most inventive re-imagining of a classic in years."
— Donald Lyons, The Wall Street Journal

"Brave and original."
— Fintan O’Toole, New York Daily News

"Extraordinarily imaginative. Dynamic. A must see."
— Clive Barnes, New York Post

"Passionately energetic, thoroughly absorbing."
— Aileen Jacobson, Newsday

"A smart wicked show that accomplishes what most Shakespeare productions attempt but few achieve: it allows you to hear the time-worn text anew. Romeo and Juliet is reinterpreted here as a neat little time bomb."
— James Oseland, Time Out

"A triumph. It astonishes!"
— John Heilpern, The New York Observer

"Inspired… an exploration of passion and repression in both Shakespeare’s time and our own."
— Greg Evans, Variety

"Four stars. A revelatory adaptation. The concept, actors, and direction cast such a spell that only an earthquake would cause distraction. One will never view the Shakespeare war horse without this production in the minds eye."
— David Patrick Stearns, USA Today

"Inventive. Electrifying."
— Entertainment Weekly

"The most concentrated, spirited, most touching version of this play I’ve yet seen."
— Robert Brustein, The New Republic

U.K. PREMIER --- THEATER ROYAL BATH

"This is one of the most electrifying adaptations of Shakespeare I have ever seen. When it comes to originality, sexiness, and daring, it is right up there with West Side Story…astonishing… rapt, intimate, and dreamlike…breathtakingly imaginative and beautifully acted..."
— Charles Spencer, The London Daily Telegraph

"Four out of five stars. Fascinating….leaves a fiercely interesting whirl of new impressions. I’d forgotten the play could be so good. Calarco’s direction sweeps the actors into groups of arresting beauty. The acting is outstanding."
— Jeremy Kingston, The London Times

"This is a thrilling piece of work…Brilliantly athletic."
— John Peter, The Sunday London Times

"…a bracing and brilliant shock to the system…gave me the biggest Shakespearean – and non Shakespearean – thrill I have had in the theatre in some time. "
— Paul Taylor, The Independent

"Extraordinary. I suddenly felt as if I were seeing and hearing Shakespeare’s play for the first time. "
— Lyn Gardner, The Guardian

APPLE TREE THEATER/CHICAGO
SHAKESPEARE THEATER
(Chicago Premiere)

Shakespeare's R&J     Sarah, Plain & Tall    Boy    My Fair Lady    Elegies     in the absence of spring     Of Mice and Men     Side Show
The Last Five Years     A Midsummer Night's Dream     Nijinsky's Last Dance   The Summer of the Swans   Urinetown   The Mistress Cycle
Twice Charmed    Assassins    The Burnt Part Boys

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