Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler Make Their Broadway Debuts in Romeo + Juliet Tonight

Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, starring Emmy Award winner Kit Connor and Golden Globe Award winner Rachel Zegler as the star-cross'd lovers, begins performances tonight at Circle in the Square Theatre for a strictly limited,16-week engagement. The official opening is set for October 24. Tony Award winner Sam Gold directs, with music by Grammy Award superproducer Jack Antonoff and movement by Tony Award winner Sonya Tayeh.

Connor and Zegler are making their Broadway debuts in the production. Connor is best known for his lead role as Nick Nelson in the TV adaptation of Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper, whose third season comes to Netflix next month. Zegler rose to fame with her breakout role as Maria—a Juliet descendant—in Steven Spielberg's West Side Story. She has also starred in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Shazam! Fury of the Gods and will be seen in Disney's upcoming live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Zegler and Connor will be joined by Tony Award nominee Gabby Beans (The Skin of Our Teeth) as Mercutio/The Friar, Tommy Dorfman (Netflix's 13 Reasons Why) as The Nurse/Tybalt, Nihar Duvvuri as Balthazar, Sola Fadiran (Camelot) as Capulet/Lady Capulet, Daniel Bravo Hernández as Abraham, Taheen Modak as Benvolio, Jasai Chase-Owens (Amazon Prime's The Expanse) as Gregory and Gían Pérez (Sing Street) as Samson/Paris/Peter.

The promotional tagline: "The youth are f**ked." We're predicting the production will lean heavily into the Gen Z of it all.

In a statement accompanying the show's announcement, Gold said, "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." Speaking to Broadway.com, Beans put it another way: "If a bunch of young, gorgeous, queer people broke into Circle in the Square and decided to just do the play… That’s what [audiences are] in for."

The creative team includes scenic design by dots, costume design by Enver Chakartash, lighting design by Isabella Byrd, sound design by Cody Spencer, production stage management by Rachel Bauder, hair, wig and makeup design by Robert Pickens and Katie Gell, violence direction by Drew Leary, intimacy direction by Claire Warden, voice and text coaching by Gigi Buffington and dramaturgy and text consulting by Michael Sexton and Ayanna Thompson.

Romeo + Juliet is notably one of three Shakespearean tragedies receiving major productions this season, with Kenneth Branagh bringing King Lear to The Shed and Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal starring in Othello in 2025.