Jersey City’s classical theatre, The Curtain, has announced that they will bring an all-new production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet to Nimbus Arts Center. Performances begin Thursday, September 28th and run through Sunday, October 22nd. Tickets are priced at $25 and are available for purchase at TheCurtain.org.
Set at the dawn of the Jazz Age, this adaptation of the timeless classic features some of Shakespeare’s most poetic language, and, in partnership with Nimbus Dance, a rollicking ‘20s dance number.
Romeo will be played by Aria Shaghasemi, a series regular on CW’s “The Originals” & spin-off “Legacies,” and Italian actress and Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Award winner Anita Pomario will be making her American stage debut as Juliet.
Also in the production are Andrew Sellon (Mr. Penn, recurring character on FOX’s “Gotham”) who plays ‘Friar Laurence’ and Mark Torres (in the original Amadeus on Broadway) plays ‘Capulet,’ amongst others.
The production is directed and adapted by Sean Hagerty, The Curtain’s Producing Artistic Director, who holds a Masters Degree from the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon and has served as a panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Curtain was founded to deliver accessible interpretations of classic works with a focus on international and cross-cultural exchange. They debuted under the name Shakespeare@ Grace Church, with a 2019 production of Hamlet at Grace Church Van Vorst in Jersey City.
This is the company’s first in-person production since the pandemic, during which they restructured their format to continue employing artists and serve their mission with the entirely audio “Shakespeare@ Home” performance project, where they set out to recapture the great heyday of serialized radio drama of the 1930’s and ‘40’s.
“I am beyond thrilled to announce our return to stage performance, bringing Shakespeare@ to a new life as The Curtain,” said Sean Hagerty. “Romeo & Juliet strikes me as the perfect story for our time—and setting it at the dawn of the Jazz Age in 1920 makes absolute sense with its inherent themes of the age-old conflict between the young and the old, new movements vs. the old establishment, and the societal divides that can stifle beauty and destroy love.”
For additional information, visit TheCurtain.org.