Romeo & Juliet

PERFORMANCE DATES AND TICKETS

Romeo & Juliet will run from June 2nd through July 9th at the Botanischer Garten Frankfurt.

Performances begin at 19:00. 18:00 on Sundays.

Please reserve your tickets by clicking on the button below.

TRAILER

PRODUCTION PHOTOS

Photography by Stephan Junek

DIRECTOR'S NOTE

Romeo and Juliet has often been referred to as timeless. The main story of lovers from feuding families is found in many different cultures and religions, which is why it is hard to establish the origins of the story that Shakespeare modelled his version on. Because of its universal appeal it works in so many different places and times, we chose to focus on the future. The world is advancing in so many ways and yet we still struggle with acceptance, tolerance and inclusion, I personally don’t see that changing until we can get past the current state of dissemination of misinformation our species struggles with today. One of the places where this can be seen the most is in religious ideology. Even the religions that claim to espouse concepts of love are filled with hateful rhetoric and the marginalization of “others”. This is the core struggle we are examining in this production. We have created a world that is very recognizable to our audiences, civil strife based on long held beliefs and hatreds. The hate each household has for the other is palpable and the rest of society is getting fed up with the constant violence. Too often we focus solely on the love between Romeo and Juliet and forget about the why. Why they can’t be together, why their families create an environment that causes their deaths and why they so desperately need to have these hatreds in the first place. At its core this is a story of forbidden love, a true love, a love based on the impetuousness of youth and the desire for something other than what is planned for them. One of the most beautiful elements in this story is that both Romeo and Juliet are trying to break the bonds of hatred and the past, but it’s only with their sacrifices that the community can find a way forward. I believe whole-heartedly in the concept of hope and although this is truly a tragedy, I trust we will leave our audiences with a sense of hope for the future.

PJ Escobio | March 20th 2023

MEET OUR

CAST & CREW

Kyle Ballantyne (Romeo)
Kyle Ballantyne is a multilingual German/South African actor who grew up in Barcelona, Spain. He first began acting at the age of 13 when he moved to England and hasn’t stopped since. Kyle recently graduated with a first-class degree in Acting from The Institute of the Arts Barcelona; a UK drama-style conservatoire based in Barcelona. Being a German ex-pat, he is excited to explore Frankfurt/Germany and really looks forward to performing the role of Romeo in his first production with Shakespeare Frankfurt.
Blanca Schüllermann - she/her (Juliet)
Blanca is nineteen years old and is currently studying musicology in Frankfurt. Her interest in the Arts arose at a young age, with six years she started taking singing, dancing and piano lessons. Through school she was inspired to join the English Theater Workshop at the AmKa where she discovered her love for acting. This is her second time working with Shakespeare Frankfurt, having performed as Celia in "As you like it" in 2022.
Melanie Kenny – she/her (Benvolio)
Melanie is an Irish actor born in Dublin, but raised in Germany. She has lived there for most of her life, aside from relocating to England for her training at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, from which she graduated in 2022 with a BA (Hons) in Acting. A firm believer that variety is the spice of life, Melanie has pursued performance opportunities in all sorts of different fields, from musicals, to Shakespeare, to cabaret. She made her professional debut at 10 years of age as the child soloist in Evita at the Alte Oper (Old Opera House) in Frankfurt, where she also grew up to sing and dance in cabaret shows at Alte Liebe, and played Eilif Stockmann in Henrik Ibsen’s Enemy of the People with Shakespeare Frankfurt in 2018. Aside from her training, she performed an outdoor production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth where she played the 1st Witch and Lennox, and has continued to indulge her love for all things horror and Hallowe’en since graduating, participating in the horror nights event Traumatica Festival of Fearat Europa Park, Germany. Melanie also used her fluency in German for her latest endeavour, filming the web-series So Leben Wir in Deutschland for BBC Bitesize.
Dominic Fabio Betz (Mercutio)
Dominic was born in Frankfurt where completed his acting diploma at the Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst. He then spent four seasons as part of the ensemble at Landestheater Detmold where he played a variety of roles including Wilhelm in Black Rider (Burroughs / Waits) and the leads in Leonce und Lena (Büchner) and Prinz von Homburg (Kleist) for which he received the award for Best Actor and bearer of the first “Detmolder Theaterring”. After moving back to Frankfurt he started working as a freelancing actor. He performed at Staatstheater Mainz, Staatstheater Kassel, Katakombe Frankfurt, regularly at Volksbühne im Großen Hirschgraben, Barock am Main and Oper Frankfurt where he did several productions including Geschichte vom Soldaten, Messiah and recently Norma and Fedora. He can also be seen on screen in the mini-series Kontaktlos (ARD / Hessischer Rundfunk) and Blestem an upcoming independent movie production. Romeo and Juliet is Dominic’s first production with Shakespeare Frankfurt and his first time acting in English language.
Patrick Joyce (the Prince)
Born in Italy and raised in the UK, Patrick moved to Frankfurt fifteen years ago to work in the video games industry. Romeo and Juliet will be his fifth project with Shakespeare Frankfurt. He's very happy to be reprising a role he first played at school.
(Nurse)
Jim has been performing and directing since the late 1980s. With Shakespeare Frankfurt, in its various guises, he has performed Stephano and Alonso in The Tempest, Orsino in Twelfth Night, Rodorigo in O, Macduff in Macbeth, Stan in Sweat, and multiple Shakespearean roles in Antony and Cleopatra and Travellers, Fools and Thieves. He was in the company’s first film, Spiritus Vitae – The Breath of Life, as Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. In Germany, he has additionally performed for Oper Frankfurt, Frankfurt English Speaking Theatre, including last year’s The Madness of Lady Bright, and for the Interkulturelle Bühne (in German), and directed for FEST, the English Theatre Frankfurt, and the European Central Bank Theatre Ensemble. He has appeared in two German-language short films and one music video. As a playwright, he has adapted three works by Native American poet Beth Brant for the stage, an homage to his Cree Nations mother.
Paul Cowlan (Capulet, Juliet's father)
Paul became a professional singer-songwriter in 1975, touring worldwide for forty years thereafter. With assorted poetry and alchemical publications, and nine albums of his own songs, he was also active in both the Poetry and Song-Slam scenes. All his life he has been 'onstage', performing, lecturing or conducting courses. As a Shakespeare fanatic he was active in Shakespeare Anyone? between 2012 and 2015; and subsequently, Shakespeare Frankfurt. He was one of the originators of Hortus Inclusus (2016), which he researched, and in which he played several roles. He played Prospero (The Tempest. 2016); Sir Toby Belch (Twelfth Night. 2017); Morten Kiil (Ibsen's An Enemy of the People. 2018); Oberon and Flute (A Midsummer Night's Dream, 2018. For which he also composed the music); and Iago, in the 2019 condensed, seven-actor, presentation of 'O' (Othello). In the 2019 Garden presentation of Macbeth, he played the expanded role of Seyton (incorporating the Porter and Old Man), the sinister coven-master of the three witches; and in the 2021 Garden performance of King Lear, he played the royal title role. In addition to his acting roles he is also the company's Shakespearean dramaturge. www.paulcowlan.co.uk
Varvara Pomoni (Lady Capulet, Juliet’s mother & Intimacy Coordinator)
Varvara comes from Athens, Greece. She has trained on Meisner Technique, Improvisation, Shakespeare’s Language, Meyerhold’s Biomechanics & Physical Theatre at various theatre organisations in Germany, Austria and England. She has attended workshops on theatre pedagogics at Theaterwerkstatt Heidelberg and she trains regularly at New International Performing Arts Institute in Berlin. Some of her performance credits include the roles of Cleopatra (Antony & Cleopatra), Eckart (Baal), Kent (King Lear), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Tupolski (Pillowman), Emilia (Othello), Aslaksen (An Enemy of the People) and Hippolyta & Fairies (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). She also performed for two years at The English Theatre's production of Huck Finn. Currently she performs in Shakespeare Frankfurt’s production of Julius Caesar at the Internationales Theater Frankfurt which also marks her debut in directing a full-length play.
Hannah Kajer (Montague, Romeo’s mother)
Hannah has been involved in theatre for most of her life and earned her undergraduate degree with a minor in theatre in 2017. While attending college, Hannah appeared in roles including Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew, Paulina in The Winter’s Tale, and the titular role in Medea. She also worked with UnCovered Theatre Company in the United States in roles including Charles the Wrestler and Phebe in As You Like It, Inez in No Exit, and a Witch and Lady Macduff in Macbeth. Aside from acting, Hannah recently designed lighting for the Amelia Earhart Playhouse’s 2023 production of Something Rotten! and 2022 production of Cinderella. She also designed lighting for UnCovered Theatre Company’s 2018 production of No Exit and Rochester College’s 2017-2018 season including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Cherry Orchard and Into the Woods. Romeo and Juliet is Hannah’s first production with Shakespeare Frankfurt.
Susanna Mauer (the Friar)
Susanna is an actor and singer/songwriter currently based in Frankfurt. After spending her early childhood in the UK, she moved to Germany with her family and received an acting scholarship for the Ustinov Theatre School. As a teenager she appeared in several productions at the English Theatre and the Gallus Theater in Frankfurt. In 2020, Susanna graduated from the University of Cambridge, where she was an active member of the student drama scene and participated in 35 productions alongside her degree, including shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival such as ‘Rust’ (Best Musical of the Fringe, The Derek Awards 2019). This is her seventh project with Shakespeare Frankfurt. Her previous credits with the company are: Portia in ‘Julius Caesar’ (International Theatre Frankfurt, 2023), Rosalind in ‘As You Like It’ (Botanical Gardens Frankfurt, 2022), Charmian, Pompey, Agrippa, Octavia, Scarus and Thidias in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ (International Theatre Frankfurt, 2021-22), Performer in ‘Travellers, Fools and Thieves’ (Go West Theatre Festival Frankfurt, 2021), Regan in ‘King Lear’ (Botanical Gardens Frankfurt, 2021) and Dorine in ‘Tartuffe’ (2020).
Isabella Pizarro (Tybalt)
Isabella has performed on stages such as Shakespeare Frankfurt in the Botanical Garden, ETF, FEST, ITF, and the Amelia Earhart Playhouse. In 2022, Isa took on her first Shakespearean role as Orlando in As You like it with Shakespeare Frankfurt. She performed as Oscar in the Pulitzer winning drama SWEAT by Lynn Nottage at the ITF. She has won a Toppers Award for Best Female Supporting role in a Musical as Meg in Little Women the Musical as well as being awarded 1st Place at the Drama Fest Monologue Competition for her interpretation of Trudy from The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. Back in 2020 at the One Act Play Festival in Kaiserslautern, Isa was awarded “Outstanding Youth Performance” for Erda in Sleeping Beauty, Briar Rose. In the same year, Isa also played the female lead at her Highschool as Fiona in Shrek The Musical and Rose Alamarez From ByeByeBirdie at the WHS. She hopes too soon make her way into an acting school to further continue the lifelong adventure of a Thespian.
David Jamieson (Paris)
After a loud performance as The Innkeeper in a primary school production of “The Nativity”, David took off his dad’s dressing gown and retired from the stage to pursue his other love: cricket. He returned to the stage in 2010 with the Usingen English Actors, where for the past 13 years he has been active as actor and director, helping to bring entertaining, easily understandable English language theatre to a small town in the Taunus. In Frankfurt he has appeared on stage for TLS Frankfurt, both with a script in The Foreigner, A Grimm Tale and The Underpants, and without a script in the Dangerous Play improvised theatre series. He has also appeared for Frankfurt English Speaking Theatre in Harold Pinter’s short play “A Slight Ache”. Romeo and Juliet will be his first production with Shakespeare Frankfurt.
James Roberts (Prince’s watch/Apothecary)
James moved from the rainy UK to the slightly less rainy Frankfurt in 2010, and has been interested in the arts for as long as he can remember.. This is his first production with Shakespeare Frankfurt and he is looking forward to playing both an upholder of the law and a sneaky criminal. He has previously worked with the ECB Theatre Ensemble where he adopted the role of the Maniac in Accidental Death of an Anarchist, and starred in two Harold Pinter plays.
James Bailey (Prince’s watch 2 & Costume Supervisor)
Romeo and Juliet is James’ first play with Shakespeare Frankfurt in the Botanical Garden. It is not his first foray into the garden with Shakespeare Frankfurt, however, having appeared previously in the Spiritus Vitæ film project. More recently, James was seen at the Amelia Earhart Playhouse in Something Rotten (Shakespeare). In addition to acting, James also enjoys costuming, providing the costumes for this production of Romeo and Juliet, and additionally creating the costume design for the previous production of Sweat.
Aisling Hayes (Capulet house member)
Aisling is an Irish actor and musician currently based in Frankfurt. After moving to Germany in her early teens she received an acting scholarship from the Peter Ustinov foundation and appeared in various productions at the English Theatre and the Gallus Theater in Frankfurt. This is her first production with Shakespeare Frankfurt.
Conor Doyle (Assistant Director & Paris’ Page)
Conor is a trained comedian and actor from Ireland, he has performed regularly in Ireland and Canada and Frankfurt. This is his first time working as Assistant Director for Shakespeare Frankfurt and he is also performing the role of the Page of Paris. Conor works as a pedagoge and actor for the English Theatre Frankfurt where he works with young audiences to help their language and performance skills. Conor performs regularly in the Stand Up Comedy scene in Frankfurt and he runs a Comedy show called Feckett which you should check out instagram for upcoming shows.
Sara Omairan (Capulet house member – Sampson)
Sara is twenty years old and realized her love for the performing arts when she was trying to figure out what to do after her Abitur. She had felt drawn to the Arts from a young age, and had pursued that attraction by learning how to play instruments, taking singing lessons and joining in on nerdy, theatre-geek extracurricular activities. After deciding to explore this interest further, she was inspired to join an English Theater Workshop. "Romeo and Juliet" will be her second production with Shakespeare Frankfurt.
Sarah Jane Williams (Capulet house member - Gwendolyn)
Sarah Jane is 17 years old and is portraying the character of Gwendolyn. She is currently a student at International School Frankfurt Rhein-Main. Joining theatre productions from the age of 9, her love for theatre has long been developing. Raised in Germany by Scottish parents, she has been exposed to a diverse array of theatre and media. Previous pieces she has been part of include school productions of Peter Pan the Musical as Peter Pan and Beauty and The Beast as Lumière (performances cancelled due to Covid). She also was a part of the Choir and Drama Club at school along with IGCSE assessments in music and english literature. In her time at highschool age, she has been Captain of the Senior league Debate team, competing at the national scale among peers in a variety of topics and ranked 13th out of roughly 200 speakers for the 2022-2023 season. Romeo & Juliet is her first production with Shakespeare Frankfurt.
Isabelle Escobio (Montague house member)
Isabelle is seventeen years old and is currently in the exam phase of her Abitur. She was part of Shakespeare Frankfurt production of Macbeth as one of the unnamed children. Isabelle has also performed in two school plays, as Lady Capulet in a modern adaptation of Romeo & Juliet and as Helen of Troy in The Hysterical History of the Trojan War by D.M. Larson. She is hoping to continue her school career in English Literature after she graduates. In this production of Romeo & Juliet Isabelle is a Montague house member.
Elena Lepp (Montague house member - Abra)
Elena Lepp is the actor of the serving woman Abra for the house Montague. She is seventeen years old and goes to high school while being a part of Shakespeare Frankfurt. Elena wants to be an actor since she was little. Due to that, she was part of the actors in a village near Frankfurt. There they played theatres for children on Christmas and much more. She danced, played theatre in school and plays volleyball now. All of these abilities help her to realize the fights to protect the Montague house. Elena takes every opportunity to widen her horizon as well as meet new and interesting people. For example she experienced five months in Spain in 2022 and is very excited to be included in the play of Romeo and Juliet this year.
Leander Weiß (Montague house member)
Leander is from Frankfurt and got his passion for film and theatre from the early works of Giuseppe Verdi, mainly „La traviata“ and fell in love with storytelling while doing Romeo and Juliet in a school theatre group. In 2022, he committed to especially musicals, both in film and theatre, during an Internship at the English Theatre Frankfurt, where he met PJ Escobio, who later offered him to work with Shakespeare Frankfurt on „Romeo and Juliet“. His knowledge in old English Poetry, especially in the works of Shakespeare, comes from his in America living Uncle. Other theatrical projects he has done are mostly to mention the locally known play „Schelm von Bergen“ with over 800 spectators per show, that is traditionally played every 4 years. He has participated twice in that play, once as a homeless kid on the streets and once in the role of the jester. He also writes music and composed for a variety of plays on Violin, piano and Guitar.
Trisha Fiss she/her (Stage Manager)
Jamaican born Trisha Fiss moved to Germany in 2000 and has been involved in theater since the opportunity in 2016 arose for her to play in the staged reading adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's 2005 Pulitzer prize winning play Doubt, when she made the decision to follow her passion in the arts. Since then, Trisha has been involved in other Spring Reading projects with the Theatre Language Studio (TLS) Frankfurt, including The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl in 2017, as well as the 2011 Pulitzer prize winning play, Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris in 2018. Steadily active on stage in Wiesbaden, Trisha has had the privilege of working with the Hessisches Staatstheater in the opera Anna Nicole by Mark-Anthony Turnage in 2020 and the German performance of Three Sisters by Russian play-write Anton Chekov in early 2022. Trisha joined the Shakespeare Frankfurt ensemble last year in her first major role as an actor in the Pulitzer prize winning drama Sweat by Lynn Nottage, and is thrilled to be working with Shakespeare Frankfurt again on the production of Romeo and Juliet, this time as stage manager.
PJ Escobio (Director)
Romeo and Juliet will be PJ’s seventh season of Shakespeare at the Botanischer Garten Frankfurt, other seasons as Director include: As You Like It, King Lear, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the film Spiritus Vitae: The Breath of Life. He has directed for the English Theatre Frankfurt productions of A Girl with a Book by Nick Wood, Robinhood and Huck Finn. He is also a house director at the ITF, where he has directed Sweat by Lynn Nottage, The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh, Trojan Women by Euripides, An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen, Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, Othello, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest. For Kulturhaus Frankfurt he directed Grounded by George Brandt and co-created Where. He is the Artistic Director of Shakespeare Frankfurt and was the Associate Artistic Director of WordBRIDGE Playwright’s Laboratory. He also cast and directed BFA playwriting thesis projects for NYU’s Tisch school of the arts and has taught Acting, Scene Study, Stage Combat and Shakespeare courses at the collegiate level as well as high schools and private institutions for over 20 years. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Missouri-KC in Acting and Directing.

Photography by Stephan Junek

Romeo – Kyle Ballantyne

Juliet – Blanca Schüllermann

Benvolio – Melanie Kenny

Mercutio – Dominic Fabio Betz

The Prince – Patrick Joyce

Nurse – Jim Phetterplace

Capulet, Juliet’s Father – Paul Cowlan

Lady Capulet, Juliet’s Mother – Varvara Pomoni

Montague, Romeo’s mother – Hannah Kajer

The Friar – Susanna Mauer

Tybalt – Isabella Pizarro

Paris – David Jamieson

Prince’s watch/Apothecary – James Roberts

Prince’s watch 2 – James Bailey

Paris’ Page – Conor Doyle

Student Cast Members:

Sara Omairan – Capulet House (Sampson)

Sarah Jane Williams – Capulet House (Gwendolyn)

Isabelle Escobio – Montague House

Elena Lepp – Montague House (Abra)

Leander Weiss – Montague House

Production Team:

Director – PJ Escobio

Assistant Director – Conor Doyle

Stage Manager – Trisha Fiss

Costume Designer – Lena Langenkamp

Costume Supervisor – James Bailey

Graphics/Animator/Artist – Melanie Meyer

Fight Director – Mathias Kunzler

Props Master – Christina Paraschiv

Special LED effects – James Roberts

Prosthetics Designer – Lara Trumpetter

Dramaturge – Paul Cowlan

FOH Manager – Sid Pizzarro

PERFORMANCE DATES AND TICKETS

TRAILER

PRODUCTION PHOTOS

Photography by Stephan Junek

DIRECTOR'S NOTE

MEET OUR

CAST & CREW

Photography by Stephan Junek

CATCH A GLIMPSE INTO OUR

REHEARSAL PROCESS

Photography by Stephan Junek