Rachel Zegler to Star in New Broadway Production of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo + Juliet” This Fall

Posted on April 16, 2024 by Tom Castaneda

Rachel Zegler has landed a star-crossed starring role…

The 22-year-old half-Colombian American Golden Globe-winning actress will star opposite Kit Connor in the new Broadway production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet this fall.

Directed by Tony Award winner Sam Gold, the production will feature music by Grammy winner Jack Antonoff and movement by Tony winner Sonya Tayeh.

The production should not be confused with yet another high-profile revival of the star-crossed lovers = the West End production of Romeo & Juliet starring Tom Holland and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, which also is eyeing a Broadway staging. Jamie Lloyd directs that one.

The Gold fall production will mark the Broadway debuts of Connor, Zegler and Antonoff, who in February won his third consecutive Grammy Award for Producer of the Year.

More information including theatre, dates, design team and additional casting will be announced at a later date.

“With the presidential election coming up in November, I felt like making a show this fall that celebrates youth and hope, and unleashes the anger young people feel about the world they are inheriting,” said Gold.

Tickets will go on sale to the public in May.

Official synopsis: “The youth are fucked. Left to their own devices in their parents’ world of violent ends, an impulsive pair of star-crossed lovers hurtle towards their inescapable fate. The intoxicating high of passion quickly descends into a brutal chaos that can only end one way.”

Zegler earned a Golden Globe for her performance in West Side Story.

Isabela Merced to Portray Juliet in “Rosaline,” 20th Century Fox’s Revisionist Take on “Romeo & Juliet”

Posted on July 2, 2021 by Tom Castaneda

Wherefore art thou Isabela Merced?

The 19-year-old Peruvian American actress has been cast to play Juliet in 20th Century Fox’s Rosaline, a comedic and revisionist take on Romeo & Juliet with Kaitlyn Dever attached to star.

Karen Maine will direct, with 21 Laps, Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen producing.

The script is based on the novel When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle and is a modern twist on the classic William Shakespeare tale. We see “the most famous love story ever told” through the eyes of Juliet’s cousin Rosaline (Dever), a sharp but idealistic young woman—who happens to be Romeo’s recent ex. What begins as an attempt to foil the famous romance and win back her guy becomes a journey of self-discovery as she ultimately works to help get the star-crossed lovers back together.

Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber penned the script.

Merced is best known for her roles in Sicario: Day of the Soldado and as Dora the Explorer in Paramount’s Dora and the Lost City of Gold movie.

She was most recently seen in Netflix’s Let It Snow and also voiced the lead character in DreamWorks Animation and Universal’s Spirit Untamed.

She is currently filming Warner Bros.’ new Father of the Bride film starring Andy Garcia.

Noomi Rapace to Star in Gender-Swapped Adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Tom Castaneda

Noomi Rapace is taking on the Bard’s work…

The 40-year-old half-Spanish actress will lead cast in a gender-swapped adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet from filmmaker Ali Abbasi.

The film will reunite Abbasi with Meta Film after they produced the director’s Oscar-nominated Cannes Film Festival 2018 hit Border.

Iceland’s Sjón is writing the project, with Stine Meldgaard Madsen producing for Meta Film. The film will be produced in collaboration with Boom Films, with principal photography scheduled for autumn 2021.

Swedish-Danish-Iranian filmmaker Abbasi said: “Shakespeare stole the Hamlet story from us. Now it’s our turn to claim it back and make a version so insane and so bloody that make him turn in his grave. Let’s make Hamlet great again!”

Prometheus and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo star Rapace added: “Hamlet is a dream project in its purest and most explosive way. I’ve been hoping, dreaming, wishing for this as long as I’ve been an actress. I base this as much on the material as on the creative alliance that surrounds it. Ali, Sjón and Meta are for me creatives on the highest level. They’re truly brave and groundbreaking in their different areas and always on top of their game. To take on a Danish story with a Scandinavian touch and bring it out into the world with this group of people is a dream.”

Abbasi trained at the Danish Film School and made his feature debut in 2018 with Shelley, which was selected for the Panorama competition at the Berlin Film Festival. His second film, Border, won in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival in the same year.

de la Huerta to Star in Modern-Day Film Adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

Posted on April 24, 2016 by Tom Castaneda

Paz de la Huerta is living the Dream…

The 31-year-old half-Spanish American actress will star in a modern-day film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, according to Variety.

de la Huerta will star alongside Rachel Leigh Cook, Hamish Linklater, Avan Jogia, Fran Kranz, Charity Wakefield, Lily Rabe, Ted Levine and Finn Whitrock in the film, which completed production on Dec. 18.

Producers announced the project Saturday to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.

The new version takes place in present-day Hollywood where fantasy and reality collide. It’s set in a world where glamorous stars, commanding moguls, starving artists and vaulting pretenders all vie to get ahead.

Casey Wilder Mott wrote and directed the feature, marking his directorial debut.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream will feature original music by Mia Doi Todd and Saul Williams, both of whom also appear in the film.

de la Huerta starred in Boardwalk Empire for two seasons. Her other credits include The Cider House Rules, Riding in Cars with Boys and A Walk to Remember.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been adapted into movies numerous times, most recently in the 1999 Fox Searchlight film, which included Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Everett, Stanley Tucci, Calista Flockhart and Christian Bale.

Isaac to Star in Theatre for a New Audience’s Production of “Hamlet”

Posted on April 3, 2016 by Tom Castaneda

Oscar Isaac is about to Ham(let) it up…

The 37-year-old Guatemalan and Cuban American actor will play William Shakespeare’s melancholy Prince of Denmark in a new production of Hamlet for the Brooklyn-based company Theatre for a New Audience. It’s more than a year off, but the play, to be staged by Sam Gold, will certainly be a big draw for artistic director Jeffrey Horowitz’s celebrated and increasingly ambitious company, which presents in its sleek new headquarters, the Polonsky Shakespeare Center.

Hamlet is slated to begin previews June 4, 2017 for an opening June 22 and run through July 30. The pairing of star (Star Wars: The Force Awakens; A Most Violent Year; Inside Llewyn Davis) director (Tony Award winner for staging the Tony Winning best musical Fun Home) should continue TFNA’s upward profile — and demonstrate that the prospect of a Tony nomination isn’t the only reason marquee actors are drawn to the stage or even to Brooklyn

Isaac and Gold previously worked together on Zoe Kazan’s We Live Here, in 2011.

Hamlet is their first Shakespeare collaboration and their first production with TFNA.

“Oscar is celebrated for the honesty, authenticity, and intensity of his performances,” Horowitz said in announcing the production Sunday afternoon, “and Hamlet marks his long-desired return to theater after an impressive series of starring film and television roles. Sam is renowned for the transparent subtlety and nuance of the theatrical worlds he creates. Together [they] will explore the ‘undiscovered country’ of Hamlet’s world which begins, of course, with the first words of the play, ‘Who’s there?’”

Casting and other creative decisions will be announced later.

Former ‘Juliet’ Hussey to Portray Lady Capulet in the “Romeo and Juliet”-Inspired “Social Suicide”

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

Olivia Hussey is returning to her Romeo and Juliet roots… And, she’s bringing her Romeo and her real-life daughter along for the ride.

The 63-year-old Argentinian actress, who was born Olivia Osuna, will be reteaming with her former Romeo and Juliet co-star Leonard Whiting in the upcoming film Social Suicide.

Hussey and Whiting will be portraying Lord and Lady Capulet, the parents of the character based on Juliet in the thriller inspired by William Shakespeare‘s romantic love tragedy. Meanwhile, Hussey’s actress daughter, India Eisley, will portray Julia, the latest incarnation of Juliet.

Social Suicide centers on a police investigation of the murder-suicides of social-media-savvy teenagers. The police investigate the romance and tragedy through videos, vlogs and snapchats, but soon discover nothing was as it seemed.

Bruce Webb will be directing the film, which also stars Jackson Bews as Balthaza.

Hussey earned critical acclaim for her role as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli‘s Academy Award-winning 1968 film classic Romeo and Juliet, winning a Golden Globe and also the David di Donatello Award for best actress.

She’s also well known for her role as Mary, the mother of Jesus in the 1977 TV production of Jesus of Nazareth. She last appeared in the 2008 films Three Priests and I Am Somebody: No Chance in Hell.

Grindstone Entertainment Acquires North American Rights to Leguizamo’s “Cymbeline”

Posted on September 3, 2014 by Tom Castaneda

John Leguizamo’s latest project will hit U.S. theaters in the near future…

Lionsgate’s Grindstone Entertainment has acquired the North American rights to the modern-day film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, starring the 50-year-old Colombian actor/comedian.

The film, which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, centers on a battle between dirty cops and a drug dealing biker gang, set in a corruption-riddled contemporary America. Shakespeare’s play centered on the daughter of the British king Cymbeline, who discovers she has secretly married a man raised in her father’s court, resulting in his banishment from the court.

In addition to Leguizamo, the film also stars Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, Milla Jovovich, Penn Badgley, Dakota Johnson and Anton Yelchin.

Cymbeline, which re-teams director Michael Almereyda with Hawke more than a decade after their collaboration on Hamlet in 2000, will be distributed in the spring.

It’s Leguizamo’s latest appearance in a film adaptation of a William Shakespeare work. He previously starred in 1996’s Baz Luhrmann-directed Romeo + Juliet, an abridged modernization of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

New Trailer Released for “Romeo and Juliet,” Starring Nathalie Rapti Gomez

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Nathalie Rapti Gomez will be getting her William Shakespeare on this October…

The 28-year-old half-Colombian actress stars as Rosaline in Relavity Media’s film adaptation of the Shakespeare classic Romeo and Juliet.

The film, which saw its trailer released recently, stars Hailee Steinfeld and Douglas Booth as the star-crossed teenage lovers.

Along with Rapti Gomez, Steinfeld and Booth, the film’s all-star cast includes Stellan Skarsgard, Damian Lewis, Paul Giamatti and Ed Westwick.

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes penned the script for this latest adaptation of William Shakespeare’s classic tale directed by Carlo Carlei.

Romeo and Juliet is set to open nationwide on October 11.

Fox International Productions Boards Belle’s New Film “Amapola”

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Tom Castaneda

Camilla Belle’s reimagined A Midsummer Night’s Dream is officially a Fox project.

Fox International Productions has joined the team behind the 26-year-old half-Brazilian American actress’ latest film Amapola.

The directorial feature debut of Argentinian opera and theater director and Oscar-winning art director Eugenio Zanetti, the film is described as a romantic reimagining of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream set against the turbulent backdrops of the 1962 Argentinian military coup and the 1982 war for the Falkland Islands.

Belle stars are the title character in the film, which also stars Francois Arnaud, Geraldine Chaplin, Lito Cruz and Leonor Benedetto.

Production on the film, which Zanetti wrote, is underway in El Tigre, Argentina.

Twentieth Century Fox will distribute the film in Latin America.

Hispanically Yours

Celebrating the Latino Influence

Tag Archives: William Shakespeare