More than 400 years after William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, the play about a pair of ill-fated, star-crossed lovers is still as popular as ever. The timeless tale has been a Broadway favorite since its first showing in New York City in the 18th century and was recently revived, with a modern twist, at Circle in the Square Theatre.
Directed by Sam Gold and starring Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler in the titular roles, ROMEO + JULIET opened on October 24, 2024 and had grossed more than $1.2 million with an average capacity exceeding 100 percent through the week ending December 29. Connor and Zegler made their Broadway debut and, at 20 and 23, respectively, are among the youngest performers to ever play Romeo and Juliet on a Broadway stage.
Here’s a look back at the history of one of Shakespeare’s most renowned plays on Broadway.
The Earliest Productions
The first production of Romeo and Juliet in the US was in 1754 at a venue then known as New Theatre in New York City. According to Broadway World, the leads were billed as Mr. Rigby and Mrs. Hallam, the latter of whom was married to the theater operator Lewis Hallam, known as the first professional theater manager in the US. This was the only major production of Romeo and Juliet until 1850, when Anne Sefton starred as Juliet in a show at the Bowery Theatre on the Lower East Side.
There were two other notable productions of the play in the second half of the 19th century, including an 1899 show that was the first held in the area that now comprises New York City’s theatre district. Shown at the Empire Theatre, it starred William Faversham and Maude Adams, two immensely popular stage performers around the turn of the century. Adams was among the best-paid actors of the time, earning more than $1 million per year.
Popular Early in the 20th Century
Audiences’ appetite for Romeo and Juliet grew early in the 20th century, as evidenced by the number of productions during that time. It was shown seven times on Broadway in the first decade, including three years in a row at the Knickerbocker Theatre. In 1904, Julia Marlowe and E.H. Sothern shared the stage for the first of many times in a Shakespeare play. They starred in four Broadway revivals of Romeo and Juliet and married each other in 1911.
A 1909 revival starring another married couple, Robert B. Mantell and Marie Booth Russell, was held at the New Amsterdam, making it the first to be shown at a Broadway venue still in operation today. There were another 11 Romeo and Juliet revivals in the 1910s, including one starring Mantell and his new wife Genevieve Hamper. Among the other notable productions in subsequent decades, Ethel Barrymore starred as Juliet in a 1920s revival and Laurence Olivier starred opposite his wife Vivien Leigh in 1940. Olivier also produced, directed, and designed the set for the play.
Circle in the Square, the venue of the 2024 revival, produced a Romeo and Juliet show in 1977, marking its first effort to showcase a Shakespeare play.
Estelle Parsons’ 1986 Revival
A five-time Tony nominee and Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress in Bonnie and Clyde, Estelle Parsons directed a New York Shakespeare Festival production of Romeo and Juliet in 1986. The play, shown at the Belasco Theatre, featured a multiracial cast and was produced with the goal of drawing young people to Shakespeare. It closed in May 1987.
Orlando Bloom as Romeo in 2013
A 2013 revival of Romeo and Juliet, directed by David Leveaux, took diversity efforts a step further, casting Condola Rashad as the first Black woman to play Juliet. Orlando Bloom played Romeo in his Broadway debut. The play opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre in September and closed in December after just 93 performances, earning $6.2 million with an average capacity of 55.66 percent.
While this was the first Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet to feature a mixed-race couple, it didn’t directly address race or the historical oppression of Black people in the US, despite being set in the present day. A New York Times review noted: “That one of them is white and the other black may underscore the division between their families, yet it registers as irrelevant when they’re together.”
& Juliet
The source material has also inspired several Broadway productions, including West Side Story, a 1950s reimagining of Romeo and Juliet set in Manhattan that has been shown on Broadway six times since 1957, and & Juliet. Written by David West Read with music from five-time Grammy Award winner Max Martin, & Juliet answers the question of what would happen to Juliet if she chose not to commit suicide and features modern pop songs like Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone” and The Backstreet Boys’ “I Want it That Way.”
& Juliet opened at the Stephen Sondheim Theater on November 17, 2022 and had eclipsed 875 performances by the end of 2024. It was nominated for nine Tony Awards in 2023.