Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad to Star in `Romeo and Juliet

THE MORNING LINE
DATE:
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
FROM:
Michael Strassheim, Emily Meagher, Michelle Farabaugh
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Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad to Star in 'Romeo and Juliet' on Broadway - NYTimes.com
APRIL 1, 2013, 10:00 AM
Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad to Star in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ on Broadway
By FELICIA R. LEE
A Broadway version of “Romeo and Juliet,” from the director David Leveaux (“Arcadia”), will showcase
Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers as an interracial couple.
Orlando Bloom, who made his London stage debut in 2007 after a film breakthrough in the “Lord of the
Rings” movies, will play Romeo. Condola Rashad, a Tony nominee for “Stick Fly” and about to open in
“The Trip to Bountiful,” will be Juliet. The play is to begin previews Aug. 24 for a Sept. 19 opening at the
Richard Rodgers Theater. Jayne Houdyshell will play the Nurse and Joe Morton will be Lord Capulet,
with additional casting to be announced.
“They could have been any number of different ethnicities,” Mr. Leveaux said in a telephone interview,
referring to his casting choices. “The two actors I wanted to be together producing sparks just happened
to be those two and I followed my nose in casting the families.” He decided to make the Capulets an allblack clan and the Montagues all-white to reflect real life rather than make a comment on race, he
added.
“I’m not about to turn a contemporary version of Shakespeare into a sociological or political point,” he
said. “We know there are families from one background or another who would reject their children
getting together with someone from another group. Romeo and Juliet reject that notion. It is still the
case that children try to oppose the cultural expectations thrust upon them, the rigidity of tribes, the
rigidity of fundamentalism.”
“Romeo and Juliet” was last produced on Broadway in 1977 at Circle in the Square, while the most
attention-getting recent production was the Public Theater’s gala staged reading in 2012, with Kevin
Kline and Meryl Streep.
Classic Stage Company recently announced its own fall production Off Broadway, which will star the film
actress Elizabeth Olsen (“Martha Marcy May Marlene”) as Juliet.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/...ando-bloom-condola-rashad-to-star-in-romeo-and-juliet-on-broadway/?pagewanted=print[4/2/2013 10:07:27 AM]