NewsPHOTO CALL: Virginia's Signature Theatre Presents Steamy Shakespeare's R&JJoe Calarco's all-male Shakespeare's R&J, a retelling of Romeo and Juliet from the perspective of four boys at a boarding school where the classic is banned, has been revised by writer-director Calarco for a run that begins Feb. 5 at Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA.
By
Krissie Fullerton
February 08, 2013
The cast includes Rex Daugherty, Jefferson Farber, Alex Mills and Joel David Santner.
According to Signature, where Calarco is an artistic associate, "[The] modern-day drama melds the timeless power of Romeo and Juliet with an imaginative new coming-of-age tale. When a repressive all-male Catholic boarding school bans Romeo and Juliet in favor of Latin conjugations and the Ten Commandments, four students unearth a secret copy of the script and steal into the night to recite the prohibited tale of adolescent passion. What begins as a lark gradually yields surprising discoveries about greed, love and adulthood."
The production will include Bernstein’s incidental music for Lillian Hellman’s adaptation of The Lark, and Menotti’s The Unicorn, The Gorgon, and The Manticore.
Based on the novel and film by Frank Cottrell Boyce, the new musical will reunite Guettel with Tony-winning Light in the Piazza director Bartlett Sher.