Shakespeare's R&J is Joe Calarco's fresh approach to a familiar story.
The free-wheeling adaptation is all about discovery.
At the plot level, the production centers around four school boys, who decide to vary their very governed lives.
They discover a copy of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and mostly for laughs, they start reading the parts aloud. After a short while they become the parts of the play. Although they have been taking turns playing all the parts, two eventually emerge playing Romeo and Juliet exclusively, bringing a whole new dimension to the proceedings.
In the process the four boys discover that the play's themes provide a means by which they can explore their own experiences as part of growing up.
At another level, Calarco's overall design has the intent of giving audiences an opportunity to discover aspects of the play that may never have occurred to them before.
