ROMEO AND JULIET IN GREENCITY
An inhouse production of English Theatre Milan
English Theatre Milan’s Shakespeare workshop 2024\25 started on 26 September and will run to the end of May 2025. Sessions are weekly, on a Wednesday, from 6.30pm to 8.30pm at the All Saints Church, in via Solferino 17, Milan, with some extra rehearsals in April and May before our final performances. For the 2024\25 workshop, the group will perform in three venues: Ortimisti in Parco Segantini, All Saint’s Church, and the Pacta theatre (see below for more details).
Running time: approx. 180 minutes.
Director and Adaptor’s note about Romeo and Juliet in Greencity
For me, Shakespeare’s timeless love story Romeo and Juliet is irresistible. At first sight, these two young people fall head over heels in love. Shortly after, they marry and just as quickly meet their tragic end.
But what is the city of Verona like?
There’s conflict and fighting on many levels: generational conflict as Juliet Capulet fights tooth and nail with her parents about the man she should marry. Feuding families and their households, the Capulets and the Montagues, create a situation which results in many deaths. And finally, there’s conflict and tension between these families and Prince Escalus, ruler of Verona.
Cities in Shakespeare’s day, such as Verona and London, could be dangerous places. Violence and crime were everywhere, and this early tragedy shows that Shakespeare, who spent much of his adult life in London, was well aware of this situation and the law. Already in the opening scene, immediately after the street fighting, Prince Escalus of Verona gives the Capulets and Montagues an appointment at Freetown, the City’s Lawcourt. The Prince, like the Citizens and the Watch, have a duty to keep law and order. Three young people – Mercutio, Tybalt and Paris – are murdered, and for Tybalt’s murder, Romeo could have been executed. Instead, the Prince shows leniency and sends the young man to Mantua in exile. The Apothecary, who gives Romeo the deadly potion to kill himself, knows full well he is breaking the law and could be hanged if discovered.
At the same time, Verona is a ‘green’ and sustainable city, where the natural environment is never far away. Romeo, Juliet and their fellow citizens mention orchards, pomegranate trees, fruit-tree and mountain tops, larks and nightingales, feasts and harvest feasts. They feel closely connected to this natural world, and allude to the elements of sun, moon, stars and sky. The play offers us a chance to imagine what a city could still be, even today, if only we could stop the violence and disorder and reconnect with nature.
This new version of Romeo and Juliet, abridged and in slightly modernized English, propels us back to an age when people lived less on average than we do today in Western Europe – the average life span was around forty. Still, they lived life to the full, enjoying music, dance and song that relieved the darker moments.
Maggie Rose, 13 May 2025
MAGGIE ROSE. After a PhD in European Theatre Studies at Lancaster University, Maggie taught at Milan University, where she held the chair of British Theatre Studies and Performance. She has published in the areas of British contemporary drama and theatre, Shakespeare in performance, women’s studies and most recently eco-theatre. Since the mid 1990s she has worked in Scotland and in Italy, as a writer, dramaturg and workshop leader, with well-known practitioners: Andy Arnold (the Arches and Tron), Graham Eatough (Oran Mor and Traverse), Carrie Cracknell (Traverse), Liz Lochhead (Casa degli Alfieri). She is a member of the Scottish Society of Playwrights. Several of her stage and radio plays, focusing on Italian migration to Scotland, such as the co-written Walking Through Stones and Six Month Here Six Months There, have been presented at the Edinburgh Fringe, The Gateway (Edinburgh) and Soho Theatre (London). Her recent work, exploring gardens and the environment in Shakespeare’s plays, includes the site-specific, Shakespeare in a Herb Garden, A Walk in Shakespeare’s Garden, Ophelia, Herb Woman (see Youtube: Ofelia donna delle erbe), the last two directed by Donatella Massimilla of CETEC (Centro europeo teatro e carcere), New Caliban (in development as a film in Glasgow). She wrote the script of the documentary, Shakespeare, Arlecchino and Green Passion, directed by James Willetts, presented at the Piccolo Teatro in 2019. In June 2025, Two Sisters will open at Tudor World, Stratford upon Avon. She has led writing, performance and theatre translation workshops in major theatres, universities and prisons, such as the EU Lifelong Learning workshop, WWW.Venice. She co-led the three-year translation and performance workshop “Intercultural Dialogues”, with guest practitioners, Hanif Kureishi, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Rani Moorthy and Arne Pohlmeier, supported by British Council, Milan and Warwick Universities. She helped set up citizens’ workshops organised by the association, P.E.R. Venezia Consapevole. She curated Play Your Part. Climate Change Theatre (Milano University Press). From 2022-2024, she co-curated and worked as a dramaturg on TYPUS (Transforming Young People Using Shakespeare), a Creative Europe Programme, organized by Milan University and Punto Zero theatre company at the “Cesare Beccaria” Young Offenders Institution. For English Theatre Milan, with Sal Cabras, she co-directed the online productions, Shakespeare’s Conflict Zones (2021), and A Lion Among the Ladies (2022). She directed As You Like it (All Saints Church and Milan’s Casa Museo Alda Merini), 2023, The Tempest in Milan (2024), at All Saints Church, Cam Garibaldi, Teatro Filodrammatici. Romeo and Juliet in Greencity will play at Teatro Pacta, Ortimisti in Parco Segantini and All Saints’ Church in May and June 2025.
THREE PERFORMANCES
FIRST VENUE
AN OPEN REHEARSAL AND TWO PERFORMANCES
FIRST VENUE
IL TERZO ORTO, ORTIMISTI IN PARCO SEGANTINI, SATURDAY 24 MAY AT 5PM (running time approx. 3 hours)
English Theatre Milan thanks the cultural association Ortimisti for inviting us to perform in their garden, where there is a good selection of herbs, flowers and fruit trees.
Following the show, there will be a post-performance discussion in Italian, with Cristina Protti, supervisor of the 3rd Orto and Angela Ronchi, a member of the Rete degli Orti Botanici della Lombardia, about the plants, flowers and food in Romeo and Juliet. See their bionotes below.
CRISTINA PROTTI: Diplomata all’Accademia Belle Arti di Brera , inizia la sua professione di scenografa realizzatrice nei laboratori di Scenografia del Piccolo Teatro di Milano. Ha collaborato alla realizzazione degli allestimenti per diverse Compagnie ed Enti Teatrali .
Appassionata di piante e curiosa ricercatrice dei miti e significati a loro connessi, per approfondire gli interessi botanici che ha sempre coltivato frequenta il corso il Progettazione del Verde presso la Civica Scuola Arte & Messaggio arricchendo la sua formazione e le competenze professionali nell’ambito della progettazione e realizzazione di spazi verdi.
Da oltre dieci anni è attiva come volontaria nell’ Associazione Parco Segantini (Associazione di cittadini che si prendono cura dell’ Ambiente e del contesto urbano operando in tre orti condivisi e un Oasi Verde), In questo spazio collettivo ha l’opportunità di realizzare nel Terzo Orto un progetto di Orto- Giardino in cui conoscere e ospitare piante edibili , officinali… e le loro storie.
ANGELA RONCHI: laureata in Scienze Biologiche, ha conseguito il phD lavorando su tematiche di ricerca nell’ambito della genetica molecolare delle piante, alle quali si è dedicata per circa diciotto anni nei laboratori del Dipartimento di Bioscienze dell’Università Statale di Milano. Dopo una parentesi agronomica dedicata a guidare la sperimentazione in pieno campo di erbe officinali, la passione per le piante l’ha portata a dedicarsi al nascente Orto Botanico universitario di Città Studi, alla guida della programmazione delle attività educative. In parallelo ha condotto per una decina d’anni i programmi di formazione insegnanti nell’ambito delle materie STEM in collaborazione con la Provincia di Milano. Grazie alla ventennale collaborazione con la Rete degli Orti Botanici della Lombardia porta avanti progetti educativi di conoscenza del mondo delle piante in numerosi ambiti. Dal 2020 gestisce le attività del Bosco Maestro, una realtà di Outdoor Education che ha come finalità l’educazione in natura a partire dall’età prescolare.
Ha una grande passione per la musica, la fotografia e l’acquarello botanico.
THIRD VENUE
Pacta teatro, via Ulisse Dini 7, Milan on Wednesday 4 June at 7pm.
English Theatre Milan thanks Milan City Council for assigning us this venue. We also thank Annig Raimondi, Maria Genni D’Aquino and Riccardo Magherini, founders of the Pacta theatre, for hosting this performance.
CAST OF ROMEO AND JULIET IN GREENCITY
Zoe is very excited about this production of Romeo and Juliet in Greencity. After being in Milan for a few years, she didn’t find it easy to find theatre opportunities in English. That was until her friend introduced her to English Theatre Milan. She is so grateful to everyone in this production and is thrilled to be part of it.
Henri Costanzo
Henri is thirteen and lives in Milan. He was born in the UK but has lived most of his life in the US. Henri´s hobbies include playing football (soccer), playing videogames, reading and hanging out with friends. At his high school he has been in many plays and musicals, including Murder on the Runway and The Tempest, Chicago. This will be his first time performing for English Theatre Milan.
Kaylee Donovan
Kaylee is super excited to be in Romeo and Juliet in Greencity. She is fifteen and has been part of eleven productions, both as an actor and behind the scenes. She enjoys reading, baking, travelling, singing, drumming, filmmaking, watching films and writing. She is currently working on a script for a musical that she hopes will be performed someday. She would like to thank all her friends and family who have inspired her to do what she loves.
Marie
Originally from Belgium, Marie is 23 and has lived in Milan for nearly two years, pursuing a career in fashion. With a deep passion for all forms of art, she has returned to the stage for the first time since a school play at elementary years sparked her love for performance. Romeo and Juliet in Greencity marks her official stage debut and she’s thrilled to be discovering the magic of theatre.
