Countless productions of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet have run since it was published by William Shakespeare in the late 16th century. But, next month Elon alumna Victoria Tucci is putting a twist on the classic that the bard himself would likely appreciate.
Tucci, a theatre studies major who graduated from Elon in 2008, is the producer of “Romeo and Juliet: Forbidden Love Comes to North Carolina”.
“(It’s) a gender-bending production of Romeo and Juliet, featuring two women as the ill-fated star-crossed lovers,” Tucci said.
The play will run in New York City March 9 and 10, before moving to the Common Ground Theatre in Durham for shows from March 14 - 17.
The play is billed as a direct response to North Carolina Amendment One. The ammenment aims to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman exclusively. Tucci heard that the North Carolina State Legislature passed Ammendment One in September, and began to think of plays she could do in response to the legislation.
Tucci had seen a play called “Ampersand: A Romeo and Juliet Story” that she calls a “queer, modern, musical” adaptation of the original. After considering “Ampersand,” an idea popped into Tucci’s head — why not do the classical Romeo and Juliet play, but have Romeo and Juliet both be women?
During the past five months, Tucci has worked to bring this vision to life. Other than switching Romeo’s gender from male to female, she also had to cut the text to save time. Despite this change, the play stays true to the original.
“We are trying to stay as true to the text and period as we can,” she said.
While keeping with the themes of the play, Tucci has remained close to her original reason for conceiving it: responding to Amendment One.
“Marriage equality is an issue that is close to my heart, not only because many of my dearest friends are members of the LGBTQ community, but also because I am gay,” she said.
Tucci said she was devastated when she heard about Ammendment One, in large part because it made her feel unwelcome in her home state.
“I thought, ‘That’s it. I’ll never move back to North Carolina if Amendment One goes through’,” she said. “Why would I move back to a state that doesn’t recognize my love and my rights and won’t respect the love and rights of my best friends and their families?”
After thinking through the situation Tucci said she began to feel sad about not being able to move back home, and was also concerned about gay friends still living in North Carolina.
“I just couldn’t not do anything about it,” she said.
Bringing the play to the stage has been a lot of work. In addition to playing the part of Romeo, she is responsible for finding and setting dates for performance, casting the show, securing rehearsal space, making sure she has props, costumes and public relations for the show and securing funding.
Despite the motivation behind the play, Tucci said she feels it will be enjoyable for anyone, regardless of his or her feelings toward same-sex marriage.
“Our main priority is to tell an amazing story," she said. "If you want to see a great love story filled with passion, humor and kick-ass sword fights, then regardless of your feelings on same-gender marriage, this show won’t disappoint.”