Sam Gold, a Brooklyn-based director, adapted “Romeo and Juliet” as a way of connecting to a younger audience through theater. Gold’s directorial work on “An Enemy of the People,” starring Jeremy Strong of “Succession” fame and Michael Imperioli from “The Sopranos” and “The White Lotus,” drew a younger crowd and was well-received online, which ignited an interest in Gen Z theater-goers for Gold.
“I’ve been on an eight-year exploration of Shakespeare’s great tragedies. They speak to the world right now, and they feel like the best way for me, as an artist, to explore what it means to be alive right now,” said Gold. “I felt that young people needed a meaty exploration of the of some of the large things that people are going through right now. Theater provides something a lot of other cultural mediums aren’t providing — this very deep, intense, full, complicated, nuanced exploration of what it means to be alive right now, and I could just feel young people really hungry for it.”
Gold received critical acclaim for his work on Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” “Hamlet” and “Othello.” On Sept. 26, Gold is bringing “Romeo and Juliet” to the Circle in the Square theater, starring Kit Connor as Romeo and Rachel Zegler as Juliet.