Buy Tickets From the 2012-2013 Season: Romeo and Juliet 2013 Playing January 31, 2013 to March 03, 2013
Jake West, Margaret Flock
We invite you to join us for our 13th anniversary of performing this play about young lovers, feuding families and one Friar with good intentions. Featuring two Georgia High School students in the leading roles.
A part of The Shakespeare Evolution Series!
Sponsored by
Join the cast and crew members for a lively Question and Answer session on Sunday Feb 10 after the show!
About this production
Romeo and Juliet might just be the best-known teenagers in the history of English literature. Highlighting the famous pair’s youth, this production of Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet has cast two local teenagers in the title roles. Margaret Flock, a senior at the Lovett School in Atlanta, and Jake West, a senior at North Cobb Christian School in Kennesaw, GA, will portray the ‘star cross’d lovers’ in the professional company’s annual production.
Though young, Flock and West are no strangers to the Atlanta Shakespeare Company stage at the Shakespeare Tavern. Both have spent three summers in the company’s Shakespeare Intensive for Teens, a four-week day camp that brings young performers from across Metro Atlanta to the company’s home theater, where they receive training from professional actors and create their own Shakespeare production. Flock and West played leads in the 2011 Shakespeare Intensive for Teens production of Romeo and Juliet—and that’s when Jeff Watkins, Artistic Director of the company, first had the idea of asking them to reprise their roles in a month-long evening production.
“The emotional accessibility and freshness that these two young people brought to their roles was remarkable,” says Watkins. “Having watched them perform Romeo and Juliet on our stage through SIT, I thought that our wider audience deserved to see what I was seeing.”
2013 marks the 13th year that the company has performed a February production of Romeo and Juliet, an annual event that’s become a Valentine’s Day tradition in Atlanta. This particular Shakespeare play holds emotional resonance for Watkins, who watched the Franco Zeffirelli film version starring two teenagers while he was still a youngster himself. “This is the play that rocked my world when I was 13,” says Watkins, who credits the film with beginning his interest in Shakespeare.
The two young actors are scheduled to portray their title roles for all evening performances and all matinee performances of Romeo and Juliet except Thursday morning matinees.
Read the Plot Synopsis
Synopsis
-Adapted for this production from The Pocket Companion to Shakespeare’s Plays by J C Trewin
After a brawl between the rival families of Montague and Capulet, the Prince threatens with death anyone who “disturbs our streets again.” Romeo, Montague’s heir, masked at a Capulet dance, becomes infatuated with Capulet’s daughter, Juliet. From the garden he overhears her avowal as she stands on her balcony and their love scene follows. Next afternoon Friar Lawrence marries them in secret.
When Romeo refuses to fight with Tybalt, a passionate Capulet (who is now his cousin by marriage), the gallant Mercutio takes the challenge himself. He is killed by mischance, and Romeo, enraged, kills Tybalt. In his absence the Prince banishes him; the Friar tells him to stay the night with Juliet and then wait in Mantua until recall is possible. When Juliet’s father insists that she shall marry a young nobleman, Paris, and she gets no aid from either her mother or her nurse, the Friar gives her an opiate (to take on the following night) that will put her in a death-like trance for “two-and-forty hours.” She will be laid in the Capulet vault; when she wakes, Romeo will be there.
Juliet is duly placed in the vault as dead, but the Friar’s messenger to Mantua miscarries; hearing only of Juliet’s “death”, Romeo hastens to the tomb at night and is surprised by Paris whom he kills; in the vault he drinks poison he has bought from a Mantuan apothecary, and dies by Juliet’s side. She wakes as the desperate Friar enters, and on seeing Romeo dead, stabs herself. The Prince and the heads of the families are roused; over the bodies of their children Capulet and Montague are reconciled.
Show Information
Duration
Act One - 60 min / Act Two - 70 min
Show Roles
January 31-March 3, 2013
Juliet - Margaret Flock
Romeo - Jake West
Mercutio - Matt Felten
Benvolio - Daniel Parvis
Tybalt - Paul Hester*
Friar Lawrence - Drew Reeves*
Friar John - Daniel Parvis
Lord Capulet - Troy Willis*
Lady Capulet - Kelly Criss
Prince - Clarke Weigle
Lord Montague - J. Tony Brown*
Lady Montague - Janine DeMichele
Peter - J. Tony Brown*
Paris - Bryan Lee
Nurse - Tiffany Porter
Gregory - Matt Felten
Sampson - Eli Jolley
Abraham - Bryan Lee
Apothecary - Paul Hester*
Balthasar - Eli Jolley
Paris’ Page - Matt Felten
The Watch - Daniel Parvis, Paul Hester*, Janine DeMichele
Maskers -Drew Reeves*, Clarke Weigle (Musician), Janine DeMichele, Eli Jolley
Servants - Drew Reeves*, Eli Jolley
Tybalt’s man - Eli Jolley
Understudies - Kelly Criss (Juliet), Matt Felten (Romeo), Jonathan Horne (Mercutio, others), Laura Cole (Lady Capulet)
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
Show Times
Bardometer Rating
How difficult is this Shakespearean play to grasp? On a scale of 1 to 10.What does rating this mean?
You may already know the story and what happens at the end. But even if you don?t, the play is light and the plot is easy to follow. Limited violence, limited bawdiness (see below). There are very few things ? historical, religious, or political ? that you need to know ahead of time. Just enjoy!
A note about bawdiness in Shakespeare: It exists. Despite what your English teacher taught you, Shakespeare wrote some pretty saucy lines and they pop up from time to time. While there is never any nudity on stage, our actors are trained to make the text clear. If we feel a show contains a plethora of Graphic Elizabethan Poetry (or is very bloody/violent/triggering) we will put that disclaimer in the blurb about the show. It won?t happen often. If this Bardometer lists a play as a 1 or 2, you can rest assured that it is an appropriate show for kids under ten.
Additional Information
Now Playing
ASC performances
Guest companies and special events
- There are no events from this season. Check back soon!