Shakespeare in LA

Donnla Hughes and Will Bradley. Photos by Daniel Reichert

Will Bradley and Donnla Hughes will star as Romeo and Juliet in A Noise Within’s production of William Shakespeare’s classic love story. Director by Dámaso Rodríguez, performances begin February 14 and will continue through May 8, 2016.

ANW artistic director Geoff Elliott says, “When we approached Dámaso about directing for us this season, he responded by saying that he has wanted to do Romeo and Juliet because it deals with the most basic of human emotions – love, rashness, hate, fate – as in being star-cross’d – and tribalism, which drives just about anything we call news. Humans have passion, conduct war, and kill each other over a tribalism that often doesn’t even remember what has driven the conflicts. And I think that Dámaso has found a direct and compelling way to tell this story.”

Dámaso Rodríguez adds, “I recently went to Cuba where I saw theatre companies without much in the way of money putting on plays, with found objects for props and scenery, and in very low-tech, low-resource performance spaces. And the plays with just the actors themselves having to rely on their skills, were powerful and inspirational. In this place where there are few resources, actors and audience link as a community with the powerful need to tell and hear stories joining them as a whole.”

“So I wanted to bring this experience to Romeo and Juliet—the most elemental and known play,” he continues. “We have a frame story of an acting company like the ones I saw in Cuba: their costumes will be clothes that the actors own, the props are ones they found on the street, the setting will be urban, and the play will exist in telling rather than the trappings. At the start there are two families that just hate each other; the prejudice and hate have been passed on for so long that neither side knows or remembers the source of it.”

In addition to Bradley and Hughes as Romeo and Juliet, the cast includes Amir Abdullah, Christian Barillas, Alan Blumenfeld, June Carryl, Robertson Dean, Charlotte Gulezian, Rafael Goldstein, Chase Green, Carina Haller, Jill Hill, Seven Pierce-English, Marcos J. Ruiz, Larry Sonderling, Kathryn Ventress, and Troy Whiteley.

A symposium with a lecture from a noted scholar will take place on Wednesday Feb 17 at 6:30 pm, and post-performance conversations with the artists will be held following the Friday March 18 (8pm), Friday April 8 (8pm), Friday April 29 (8pm), and Sunday May 8 (2pm) performances.

ROMEO AND JULIET
February 14 – May 8, 2016 (opening night 2/20)
A Noise Within
3352 East Foothill Blvd.,
Pasadena, CA 91107
Tickets: www.anoisewithin.org or 626-356-3100 ex 1
Single Tickets from $44.00 Student Rush with ID an hour before performance $20.00 Groups (10 or more): Adults from $30/ticket; Students from $18/ticket. Pay What You Can Performance: Thursday, Feb 18 at 7:30pm. Tickets go on sale at the box office window the day of the performance, starting at 2pm, and are sold on a cash-only basis based on availability; limit of two tickets per person.