Orlando Bloom is set to make his Broadway debut as Romeo in an interracial production of Romeo & Juliet.
The 36-year-old actor will be starring opposite Tony-nominated actress Condola Rashad (Juliet) in the classic Shakespeare play. The show will begin previews at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on August 24 with an official opening date of September 19.
“They could have been any number of different ethnicities,” director David Leveaux told the New York Times. “The two actors I wanted to be together producing sparks just happened to be those two and I followed my nose in casting the families.”
“There was nothing simple about that choice but I’m not about to turn a contemporary version of Shakespeare into a sociological or political point,” he added, saying that the Montagues would be an all-white clan and the Capulets would be all-black. “We know there are families from one background or another who would reject their children getting together with someone from another group. Romeo and Juliet reject that notion. It is still the case that children try to oppose the cultural expectations thrust upon them, the rigidity of tribes, the rigidity of fundamentalism.”
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