New World Shakespeare Company: Romeo and Juliet

In Elizabethan theater, as our high school English classes taught us, both male and female roles would be played by male actors. So, the original presentation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet would indeed have had two performers of the same gender acting out that tragic love story. But two female actors playing the roles—and actually playing Romeo and Juliet as two women—is something entirely unprecedented, according to director Blayne Wiley.

The first production by New World Shakespeare Company casts Jill Stark (pictured left) and Melissa Cecala (pictured right) as the star-cross’d lovers, separated in this production not just by their families’ respective beliefs about a romance between two girls, but also by their very different political and socio-economic perspectives. “The Capulets and Montagues have traditionally been played as feuding families from the same class,” Wiley says. “In our depiction, we chose to create some disparity of class to better reflect current society”—including having Romeo be raised by a single mother.

The long-range goal of the company is to present Shakespeare and other classic works with a contemporary relevance—and to further connect the productions to the community by using proceeds from the performances to support charitable organizations connected to the play’s themes. Romeo & Juliet has been dedicated to local actor Bradford Garrison, who took his own life in March 2012. Proceeds from the production will go to the Bradford Garrison Memorial Account and local suicide-prevention efforts. (Scott Renshaw)