21.Jan.2010 The Designers
Notes from the designers of IRT’s 2010 production of Romeo and Juliet Gordon R. Strain Scenic Designer Romeo and Juliet was one of the first Shakespeare plays I read. We read it in high school English and then watched the Zeffirelli film. Several years later, I remember viewing and enjoying the Baz Luhrmann film. I have since re-read [...]
Crossing the Line
by Janet Allen, Artistic Director Romeo and Juliet is easily the best known of Shakespeare’s plays. Popularized by innumerable film adaptations, the story of the star-crossed lovers is known world-wide, and is equally accessible to both children who are seeing their first Shakespeare play and adults who have seen this particular play many times. In [...]
Loss
by Tim Ocel Director of IRT’s 2010 production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare makes us watch a horrible event: two teenagers commit suicide. The world in which they live will not allow them to seek happiness with each other. The double suicide is not a romantic act, nor a poetic one; they [...]
20.Jan.2010 IRT’s production of ROMEO and JULIET for 2010
Because of Romeo and Juliet’s widespread familiarity, companies who produce it seek to find a particular viewpoint for their version of the story. This was true when Shakespeare wrote the play. He took an Italian story, kept the original character and place names, but gave it his own unique twist with English poetry and values. [...]
Shakespeare’s Theatre
In Shakespeare’s day, playgoing was enormously popular for all classes of people, and new theatres were springing up across London. None was more popular than Shakespeare’s home theatre. The Globe functioned in many ways as a metaphor for contemporary concepts of society, civilization, and the universe at large. The name of the theatre itself—the Globe—suggested [...]
Why Shakespeare?
Why do we study the plays of William Shakespeare? He lived and died almost 400 years ago. He wrote about kings and queens and other people far from our own time. His use of poetry is strange to our ears, and his vocabulary is full of words we don’t understand and can’t pronounce. How could [...]
The Cast of ROMEO AND JULIET
Karen Aldridge Nurse Karen makes her IRT debut. At Chicago Shakespeare Theatre she has played Olivia in Twelfth Night, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Isabella in Edward II, and the Princess of France in Love’s Labor’s Lost; she also appeared in the international tour of Le Costume directed by Peter Brook, which included performances at Chicago [...]