FEATURING
Libby Lindsey, Clara Tristan
Juliet, Voice
Jorge Carrión, Maximilian Macdonald
Romeo, Guitar, Voice
Anna Bikales
Nurse, Benvolio, Harp, Voice
Flavio Gaete
Friar Lawrence, Balthazar, Prince, Others
Guitar, Piano, Viola, Voice, Synthesizers
Kenji Golden
Bass, Guitar, Mandolin, Piano, Violin, Voice
CREATIVE
Craig Bacon & Janina Picard
Directors
Flavio Gaete
Music Director
Rose Kanj, Aaron McDaniel
Production Managers & Stage Managers
Cristian Gastelo
Graphic Designer
Reza Mirjalili
Videographer, Photographer
PRODUCTION
Leah Michalos
General Manager
Katie Rosin
Press Agent
“There are a million ways that Romeo & Juliet has been performed, but there is something so uniquely sweet and endearing about The Masque of Night, that sets it apart from the rest. With an earnest cast, pitch-perfect musical accompaniment, and distinctive setting, this one-hour production of Romeo & Juliet is a delicious bite-sized confection of romance and tragedy.”
– Austin Fimmano, playstosee.com
“During the pandemic, while I was working long distance with my MFA students at The Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University, we, collectively had a couple of inspired moments, out of which, I said to myself “one day I will pursue with my wonderful students full productions of Othello and also Romeo & Juliet. At that time, I was working with Maximilian Macdonald and Libby Lindsey and told them that someday, somehow they would play Romeo & Juliet with New Place Players.
Parallel to this, I found myself, at different times, sitting with Janina Picard at the Hungarian Pastry Shop in Manhattan, and also Zooming with Flavio Gaete from Colombia and we shared our interest in the play. I’m not sure whether I wanted to explore developing a shorter Cabaret form of the play, or the full production – that’s an ongoing conversation – but at some point one of the members of our board, Hale Gurland, talked me into doing a fundraiser for University Settlement, and somehow I felt a sudden burst of an idea based on the love and potential of creating something with everyone, also along with our wonderful harpist/director/choreographer Anna Bikales.
It was as if the idea was so right that we had been discussing it for years.”
Craig Bacon, Artistic Director
“New Place Players, the innovative actors-and-musicians ensemble that performs Shakespeare with music and without a fourth wall, presented a condensed version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Brilliantly directed by Craig Bacon and Janina Picard, the performance focused on the main scenes between the two protagonists, interspersed with modern-day songs.”
“How to infuse the most well-known of well-known Shakespeare plays with new energy, making the age-old story of star-crossed lovers as fresh and captivating as it was when the audience first encountered it (probably in high school)? The New Place Players’ The Masque of Night, a cabaret of songs (some Elizabethan, mostly contemporary) interspersed with Romeo and Juliet’s most iconic set-pieces, does just that.”
“You can whittle Shakespeare down to a core, you can stage him in a living room, you can do most anything to him; in our collective imagination his characters still stand tall, their cries still ring. Directors Bacon and Janina Picard know this, and their nocturnal “masque” found the heart of Romeo and Juliet.”
