By GEOFFREY MURPHY

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet may seem, for many people, trite, pretentious, sappy, or even boring. But Joe Calarco and Erica Schmidt would beg to differ. In 1997, Calarco created a response to those who dislike the play. Primarily a theater director whose work has been seen regionally throughout the U.S. (including at New York Theater Workshop and Second Stage in Manhattan), Calarco adapted his own version of Romeo and Juliet, titled Shakespeare's R&J, which sets the familiar tale as a play-within-a-play about students in a boys' private school. This fresh approach will be performed this month by fourth-year students Seth Numrich, Brian J. Smith, Maxwell Angelo de Paula, and James Patrick Davis of Juilliard's Drama Division.

Juilliard's production is under the direction of wunderkind Erica Schmidt, who received a great deal of attention in 2003 when a reduced-cast production of Shakespeare's As You Like It that she directed for the New York International Fringe Festival was remounted by the Public Theater. That production caught the New York theater scene by surprise, leaving critics gushing with praise for the young director. Since then Schmidt has gone on to direct productions at such venues as Playwrights Horizons and the Papermill Playhouse.

Costume sketches by Michelle Phillips for the four students at a Catholic boarding school who play all the characters in Shakespeare’s R&J . Joe Calarco’s fresh take on the well-known tragedy won a 1998 Lucille Lortel Award when it premiered Off-Broadway at the John Houseman Theater.

Although this will be Schmidt's directorial debut at Juilliard, she is by no means unaccustomed to the surroundings. Before her directing career took off, Schmidt spent a good amount of time on the D level, where Juilliard's costume shop is located. "I was a professional intern in costume design for a year," she explains. "I have worked many times in the costume shop as an overhire and in wardrobe and was briefly on staff as a first hand."

The original Romeo and Juliet is about two violently feuding families in 16th-century Verona, Italy: the Capulets and the Montagues. After a public brawl, the prince of Verona lays down an ultimatum to both families: stop fighting or face the punishment of death. Shortly following this fight, young Romeo (son of Lord Montague) goes uninvited to a Capulet party with his friend Mercutio. At that party he meets Juliet, the young daughter of Lord Capulet, and they instantly fall in love. They arrange a secret marriage, but soon after they are wed Tybalt (Juliet's cousin) challenges Romeo to a duel. Romeo is unwilling to fight, so Mercutio fights for him, and as Romeo tries to break up the fight, Tybalt kills Mercutio. In a fit of rage, Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished from the kingdom. The star-crossed lovers try in vain to find a safe haven for their love, but missed communications lead to tragic endings. Shakespeare's R&J is not just a cutting of Shakespeare's classic play, but a high-concept reworking of the text in order to tell both that classic tale and a completely different story.

Calarco's play—using almost entirely text extracted from the original Romeo and Juliet—tells the story of four boys at a Catholic school where Shakespeare is forbidden, staging a rogue performance of the play and through it learning about the nature of love and life. Having two stories developing simultaneously can be confusing, and Schmidt says her challenge for this piece is "communicating both stories equally well: the journey of four students and the story of Romeo and Juliet."

But how can a script aimed at a specific production (Calarco adapted the script according to his own directorial ideas for the first production) have fresh interpretations? "This play is very much a director's vision scripted," observes Schmidt. "I have had to find my own way into the text while also being true to Joe's vision: four heterosexual schoolboys discovering, through Shakespeare's words, a forbidden love that has no limit, boundary, or end. To that end, I am using the stage directions as a gentle guide to what has come before and hope to find a production that is unique to Seth, Brian, Max, and Jimmy."

Shakespeare's R&J Adapted by Joe Calarco Drama Theater Thursday, Nov. 16-Monday, Nov. 20 All tickets distributed; standby admission only. Please see the Calendar of Events for more information.

The beginning moments of the play are a sort of montage of the dull, day-to-day life of the boys during their day at school. Once the day is over and night falls, they are able to create the magic of the theater. The boys gather outside in a field and begin what Calarco describes as a ritualistic ceremony that reflects the mentality of a tribe. At first, the play is a game for the boys, but as their evening progresses, they enter more and more fully the world of the play, until eventually they become one with it.

If you are unfamiliar with Romeo and Juliet—or, conversely, if you consider yourself to have been overexposed—have no fear in either case, for Schmidt's goal for the piece is that "the audience will hear the play as if for the first time."

The text of Calarco's play calls for a blank stage, but Schmidt plans something a little different. "Because we are in a larger, more conventional space than Joe originally conceived this piece for, we do have a set. The designers and I have worked hard to create a space that is both real and also true to the fluid, metatheatrical empty space Joe used. I won't disclose what the set is; come see the show."

Ultimately, all that matters is one thing: When asked how much this production is going to rock, Schmidt promises, "It will rock hard."

Geoffrey Murphy is a second-year drama student.