St. Louis Shakespeare Festival and Saint Louis Zoo Team Up for Romeo & Zooliet

The St. Louis Shakespeare Festival presents the world premiere of Romeo & Zooliet, a collaboration with the Saint Louis Zoo produced in partnership with Henry Warshaw Broadway Shows and Blank Slate.

Romeo & Zooliet imagines that, after the keepers go home for the night, the animals sneak out and mount elaborate productions of Shakespeare for each other on a crude recreation of his stage that they render “The Glowb.” The Capulets are carnivores, and the Montagues are herbivores; Juliet is a grizzly cub, and Romeo a prairie dog. Their forbidden friendship is now the 90 minutes’ traffic of that stage.

This production marks the first collaboration between a major zoo and theater company, and the first full-scale theatrical presentation inside a zoo. It features puppets by Michael Curry Design (Broadway’s The Lion King and Frozen).

The play is adapted from the graphic novel, The Stratford Zoo Midnight Revue Presents Romeo and Juliet, by Ian Lendler and Zack Giallongo. Written by Jennifer Joan Thompson, the production has direction by Tom Ridgely, composition by Jeffry “JQ” Qaiyum, scenic design by Scott Neale, costume design by Raquel Adorno, lighting design by Jesse Klug, sound design by Stephen Ptacek, and choreography by Sam Gaitsch.

The complete cast includes Bryce Cleveland, Jeff Cummings, Rae Davis, Ricki Franklin, Daisy Held, Charlie Mathis, Genevieve Mazzoni, Jordan Moore, Rian Amirikal Page, Jacob Schmidt, Olivia Scicolone, Ryan Omar Stack, Stophia Stogsdill, and Nisi Sturgis.

Romeo & Zooliet runs through August 17.