Out of the Classroom and Into the Professional Theater, A.R.T.’s Harvard Interns Take on ‘Romeo and Juliet’

“Romeo and Juliet,” running Aug. 31 to Oct. 6 at the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge, is a unique production for the American Repertory Theater — it hosts five Harvard College students as summer interns. The students and the play make for an intuitive match as the young and experienced learn from each other, enlivening the classic curriculum text through live performance.

William Shakespeare’s 1597 tragedy tells of the doomed romance between two youths from feuding families, Romeo Montague (Rudy Pankow) and Juliet Capulet (Emilia Suaréz). Rife with brawls, stabbings, and poison, “Romeo and Juliet” portrays a community teeming with hate upended by an extraordinary love.

On any given day, the interns closely assist theater professionals, which includes taking extensive notes to ensure each rehearsal improves upon the last. While stage management intern Elizabeth A. Resner ’25 meticulously ensures that the cast adheres to Shakespeare’s script, sound and stage management intern Teddy E. Tsui-Rosen ’25 keeps track of sound cues, and directorial intern Dree O. Palimore ’25 records what Tony Award-winning director Diane M. Paulus ’88 wants to work on the next day.

“I’ve never really been able to see [directing] in real life, and what I learned is in order for the ship to sail very smoothly, you have to be extremely patient,” Palimore said in an interview with The Crimson.

Several of the interns have worked on student productions or taken theater-related classes. Working with the A.R.T., however, is distinguished by a stricter focus on detail, specific professional skills, and invention or adaptation on the spot.

For example, Bernardo de Moura Sequeira ’26, an acting intern alongside Michael T. Torto ’25, understudies actor Will Savarese — requiring Sequeira to stand ready through early October, even if he has to run from class to perform for an audience of 500. Spontaneity features in his observations of the cast, too.

“There’s very little inhibition. There’s a willingness to play and a willingness to try things, and a willingness to be generous with each other and to go along with somebody else’s idea,” Sequeira said.

While watching and learning make up much of the interns’ daily lives, they’ve also contributed their own ideas to a creative process that depends on collaboration. Putting on Shakespeare requires studious interpretation, especially in the early days of table work.

“The creative team let us, in turns, be part of that conversation and sit at the table and have our own opinions as well,” Sequeira said. “That informed the work we were doing on the text.”

Although Resner — along with countless American high schoolers — read “Romeo and Juliet” in English class, she finds that the staging process plumbs the difficult text for meaning while making it more enjoyable to consume. Engaging in live performance also helps underscore the fact that the classic characters and their original audience “were just people,” according to Resner.

“There’s these people in the 1500s who are watching this play that we relate to now, and it relates to them,” Resner said. “So I think there’s multiple layers of universality.”

In bringing Shakespeare’s play to contemporary audiences, the interns reflected on hatred and its consequences today, as well as the insights that theater can evoke in audiences. According to Resner, “Romeo and Juliet” often prompts people to question the feud between two families who have so much in common, which can resemble modern-day conflicts between groups with insubstantial differences.

“There’s a lot happening in the world. A lot of people are struggling with reconciling with hate, and divisiveness, and polarization, regardless of political beliefs [or] identity,” said Palimore.

Yet the A.R.T.’s creative team wants to pivot conversations about the play towards love. Despite the apparent triumph of hate over the play’s titular lovers, the story is, after all, still considered a great romance, and portrays reconciliation and growth in the aftermath of violence.

“New life goes on beyond the tragedy and there can still be hope, as long as you allow yourself to believe that things can still get better,” said Tsui-Rosen.

“Romeo and Juliet” runs at the Loeb Drama Center through Oct. 6.

—Staff writer Angelina X. Ng contributed reporting.

—Staff writer Isabelle A. Lu can be reached at isabelle.lu@thecrimson.com.