Free Shakespeare in the Park Romeo & Juliet 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 🇨🇳 🇨🇴 🇩🇴 🇵🇭 🇰🇪 🇲🇽 🇪🇸
In this English play, the lovers speak Spanish 🇪🇸
Directed by Saheem Ali 🇰🇪
Choreography by Mayte Natalio 🇩🇴
Spanish translations by Dr. Alfredo Michel Modenessi 🇲🇽
Public Theater at Delacorte Theater, Central Park
May 22 – June 28
Free, but you have to stand in line for tickets, or use other options
Free Shakespeare in the Park Romeo & Juliet
“Romeo & Juliet” (around 1594-1596) is one of the world’s iconic love stories. Lines from the famous balcony scene are some of the most quoted in English literature. Many famous stories including “West Side Story” are based on “Romeo & Juliet.”
Both love and young people have minds of their own, and every couple has its own love language that nobody else fully understands. In this English play, Saheem Ali has the lovers speaking Spanish, the most global romance language.
The Public Theater’s Associate Artistic Director and Resident Director, Saheem Ali, is a Kenyan-born director. He has this wonderful way of pulling new meaning out of old words, while staying true to the original. He does it so fast and naturally that directing must be like breathing to him. He was probably born to be a director.
He directed a bilingual “Romeo y Julieta” for Free Shakespeare in the Park in 2021, but the pandemic closed theaters, so he quickly recast it as a radio play. It was great.
Mayte Natalio is a Dominican American choreographer from Queens. She first learned to dance by dancing merengue and bachata at home with her family. She is a graduate of SUNY Purchase and LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, both great performing arts schools.
Dr. Alfredo Michel Modenessi, a full professor at UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México), is a Mexican Shakespeare scholar. He has written about and translated a lot of Shakespeare.
Cast
Ra’Mya Latiah Aikens (Juliet) is African American, originally from Georgia. 🇺🇸
Sergio Mauritz Ang (Friar John/Ensemble) is Filipino American. He trained at Brooklyn College and LaGuardia Arts. 🇵🇭
Daniel Bravo Hernández (Romeo) is Mexican Dominican American from Washington Heights. He was just nominated for a 2026 Drama League Award for his work in “Spread” at the INTAR Theatre. 🇲🇽 🇩🇴
Andrés Nicolás Chaves (Ensemble) is Colombian-born. 🇨🇴
Francis Jue (Friar Lawrence) is a Chinese American great-great-grandson of Chinese immigrants who moved to San Francisco in the late 1800s. That same community later built Manhattan Chinatown, and railroads across the Caribbean. 🇨🇳
Ariyan Kassam (Tybalt) is a British-born South Asian Muslim actor with roots in East Africa, raised in South Africa. His background sounds like our beloved Mayor Mamdani. 🇬🇧
LaChanze (Lady Capulet) is African American, born in St. Augustine, Florida. 🇺🇸
Jason Manuel Olazábal (Lord Montague) is Mexican American with Basque origins on his father’s side, born in Santa Maria, California. 🇺🇸
Jessica Pimentel (Escalus) is Dominican American, born and raised in Brooklyn. Her parents are from La Romana, Dominican Republic, with Taíno Native American roots. 🇩🇴
I couldn’t confirm the heritage of the other actors, but there is a lot of talent here. I wonder what Spanish accent they use because every Hispanic country/region/city speaks its own version of Spanish.
Why Romeo & Juliet Now?
The Public Theater’s curation of Shakespeare plays is always a sly, unspoken commentary on current events. Even if I don’t see the show, I’m always curious why they curated this particular show now.
The curation is often a critique of national or international politics, but I don’t think this one is critical.
I think the Public Theater is saying that regardless of our perceived differences, we can still love each other. It’s an invitation for all Americans to come together.
West Side Story
This isn’t the legendary “West Side Story,” but that story was based on “Romeo & Juliet.” In a way, this play is the bookend to “West Side Story.”
That story was originally called “East Side Story” about the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish one. In the 1950s, American Jews were assimilating, so the story didn’t make sense. They were no longer “others.”
The story was recast in the old Black and Latin neighborhood of San Juan Hill. This vibrant neighborhood with a very strong community was a victim of the “urban renewal” movement of the time which claimed to be improving city life, but mostly just pushed out people of color. It was gentrification with a wrecking ball.
The pull of jobs in New York, and the push of the end of the sugar economy in Puerto Rico caused a “Great Migration” of Puerto Ricans to New York. In spite of being American citizens, they became the new “other.” It was the first time many Americans even heard of Puerto Rico. Lyricist Stephen Sondheim said he didn’t even know any Puerto Ricans.
One of the things “West Side Story” did was to label Puerto Ricans as gangsters in front of the whole world. Like all communities, we have some gangsters and some Puerto Ricans like to play up that image, but most of us are hard-working, family-oriented, fairly religious people, just like everyone else.
Gangsters do not create great art, but all kinds of New Yorkers working together do. That’s why you should go see this play. Everyone is included and there are some great rising talents in this show.
Dr. Marta Moreno Vega, founder of the CCCADI ~ Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute once said in response to “West Side Story,” “We have to tell our own stories.”
Thanks to the Public Theater for letting us tell our own stories inside one of the world’s great love stories. As Juliet says:
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
Juliet in Act 2, Scene 2
She is speaking the universal truth that you get what you give. If you give love, you will receive it, and a good love is so strong that it overflows onto the people around it.
OMG. Juliet sounds like Walt Whitman, the poet of New York. If you want to hear that in Spanish, go see the show.
Get Tickets
One way to get Free tickets is to wait in line at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park on the day of the show. But there are several ways throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The Public Theater’s website explains it all.