Romeo and Juliet remains popular due to its tragic love story, relatable characters, and universal themes of love, fate, and the clash between youth and age. Its enduring popularity is also attributed to its poetic language and captivating storytelling, as well as its numerous adaptations and cultural references. The play has been adapted countless times in film, theatre, and literature and continues to be studied and performed worldwide, making it one of Shakespeare’s most beloved works.
The announcement comes from the office of casting director Cindy Tolan. Auditions will take place at Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet in Brooklyn, with the sign-in for men beginning at 9AM and the sign-in for women beginning at 1PM.
The call stipulates auditionees should be between 15 and 25 years old with a strong dance background and ability to sing, and also specifies: “the Sharks are Latinx, the Jets are Caucasian.”
The original is certainly dated (look at that dialogue!) so that’s screaming for a rewrite. Will all those dance numbers still hold an audience’s attention? All the “coming to America” songs and aspects of the story are still as strong as ever, but I hope they don’t go over the top and make it purely commentary on the current administration.
One of my favorite things is when people come up to me and say, “I saw something the other day and thought of you,” and it turns out to be a Shakespeare reference of some sort. I especially love it when it’s friends I rarely hear from or coworkers with whom I wouldn’t otherwise interact during the day. I always relay the story here and I always say “My plan is working.” Because every time that happens, that means that there’s a little more Shakespeare awareness in the world. Whatever it is that I’m doing, that the people around me are picking up and taking with them in the back of their brains, made them recognize a Shakespeare thing they saw, and pay enough attention to it and think, “I have to tell Duane about that.” (Seriously, just this week a coworker told me that at an antique store he spotted a coffee mug in the shape of Shakespeare’s head. “I thought you’d like that. But it’s not like I was going to buy an antique for you.”)
I am extra happy to report that the next generation has taken over. As summer vacations wrap up and the kids get ready to get back into the school schedule, sports practices begin and so on, my daughter texted me a picture and said, “Look what I got!”
Turns out one of her friends went to Italy for vacation and, while in Verona looking at “Juliet’s balcony”, decided that she had to bring my daughter home a present.
On the one hand it’s a just little tchotchke brought back from vacation, like a souvenir spoon or refrigerator magnet. But I see it quite differently. I see it a whole new generation of Shakespeare geeks. My daughter’s friends know that she’s “into Shakespeare.” So now they’re the ones seeing Shakespeare things in the world and thinking, “Hey, I should tell her about that.” Now my daughter’s actually starting her own collection of memories along those lines. Hopefully one day (NOT soon!) one of her kids sees this hanging out on a knick knack shelf, takes it down to admire, and starts hearing stories about Romeo and Juliet?
My plan is working better than I could have dreamed.
I admit it, this post is a complete advertisement for my latest merchandise. I think I honestly do a pretty reasonable job of not spamming you folks every time I put up a new t-shirt design, don’t I? So surely you won’t begrudge me a Friday afternoon commercial.
When I’m working at night, chances are Netflix is on in the background. I’m one of those folks that just likes the noise. I would love to churn through all the new original shows they’re making, but then I have to pay attention to what’s on, rather than letting it just drone in the background. So instead I turn to old series that I know I like, that have a lot of episodes (that will auto play, you see). You see where I’m going with this.
The entire ten season run of Friends has graced my television so often I think I’ve memorized all the episodes. But it wasn’t until recently that the idea hit me … that opening font of theirs is absolutely iconic. If you do “Skip Intro” you may never even notice it, but when you see it that classic scribble font with the little colored dots you’re definitely thinking, “I recognize that!”
Shakespeare and Friends
I wasn’t even sure Amazon would let these up, so I didn’t go crazy with the “Look! It’s Friends!” keywords. But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell the real story here. To get started I made a bunch of versions of Shakespeare’s most iconic characters – Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio. All are available in both t-shirt and hoodie. The t-shirts are available in men’s, women’s and youth sizes (the hoodies are unisex). All the images below are clickable, where you can see the colors available for each.
What do you think? Did I miss your favorite character? What do you think looks better, character names or play names? For those first couple it doesn’t matter 🙂 but I soon ran out of 5-7 character single words. 🙂 Should I make Prospero and Malvolio and Viola and some other more lesser known characters?
When you heard that the sequel to Gnomeo and Juliet was Sherlock Gnomes and that it would still be the original cast of characters, you probably had the same thought I did. Is there going to be any Shakespeare in this?
The short answer is, “Yes, actually.” But it’s in a way that most people will find funny, and Shakespeare geeks will groan and eye roll at.
Gnomeo has gone missing. Dr. Watson has gone looking for him. “Gnomeo! Gnomeo!” he cries. “Oh, don’t make me say it.” Heavy sigh. “Wherefore art thou Gnomeo?”
It’s at this point that my entire table (we have a local movie theatre where you sit at a table and have dinner) turns to look at my reaction. I throw my hands up in the air, roll my eyes and say, “Well, at least now I can justify getting a blog post out of it.”
So when I heard about a sequel back in 2016 I got all excited….briefly. The sequel? is called Sherlock Gnomes. Huh? How do you do that? Are Romeo and Juliet going to be characters in a Sherlock Holmes story? At the time I hoped for a storyline that involved Romeo and Juliet going looking for characters from Shakespeare’s other works.
Well, it opens this week, so now we get to find out. All the original characters are back along with their original voice actors (including Michael Caine and Maggie Smith). What I don’t see in the IMDB page are any other Shakespeare characters, so I don’t think I’m going to get my wish.
I just can’t get my head around the universe of the movie. It appears as if all the characters have packed up and moved across town and are off an entirely new and unrelated adventure. We’ve talked a lot about Shakespeare sequels over the years, but somehow I don’t think we ever broke out of that fundamental assumption that the sequel, you know, continues the original story in some way.
Not this time! The writers here have fired up the franchise machine, dipped into ye olde public domain bin, and pulled out Sherlock Holmes. Maybe if this one is a hit (yeah, right) they can tackle Frankenstein next? Or maybe Alice in Wonderland?
But seriously, who am I kidding? If there’s a chance there’s some Shakespeare in this I’m still going to see it.
