Romeo & Juliet

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. His father was a glove-maker and served as alderman in Stratford. After completing school, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children – Susanna, Judith and Hamnet. By 1594, he had joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a theatre company in London, as an actor and playwright and had written three comedies, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, as well as two tragedies, Titus Andronicus and Richard III. He had also written the narrative poems “Venus and Adonis” (1593) and “The Rape of Lucrece” (1594), as well as over 150 sonnets, which were published in 1609.

Over the next few years, Shakespeare wrote and produced several of his plays with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men at The Theatre in Shoreditch, including the comedies Love’s Labour’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Merchant of Venice, the history plays King John, Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V, and the popular tragedy Romeo and Juliet. In 1599, after their lease on The Theatre had expired, Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men dismantled it and rebuilt it as the Globe. Shakespeare, who was a part owner of the theatre, produced his greatest plays there, including the comedies Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida and The Merry Wives of Windsor, and the tragedies Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus and Timon of Athens.

After the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men became the King’s Men and received the patronage of King James I. In 1608, the King’s Men bought the indoor theatre Blackfriars, where Shakespeare produced his final plays. These later works, Pericles, Prince of Tyre (which he wrote with George Wilkins), Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, were comedies that featured spectacle, romance and magic. He also collaborated with John Fletcher on Henry VIII, The Two Noble Kinsmen, and the lost play Cardenio. After the Globe was destroyed in a fire in 1613, Shakespeare retired and returned to Stratford. He died on April 23, 1616. The first collected edition of his plays appeared as The First Folio in 1623 and included 36 plays.

Jerry Lee is Sierra Rep’s Artistic Director. He’s appeared in the SRT productions of Misery, Sunday in the Park with George, Elf The Musical, Shrek The Musical, Camelot, Cabaret, Route 66, Intimate Apparel, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Man of La Mancha, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s State Fair, and The Drowsy Chaperone. As an actor: I Love You…Change, Forbidden Broadway (California Musical Theatre); Life Could Be a Dream, A Christmas Carol (CenterREP); A Little Princess, The Fantasticks (Sacramento Theatre Company); West Side Story (Mountain Play); Orlando, An Iliad, A Tale of Two Cities (SacImpulse Theatre). As a soloist: Rodgers and Hammerstein Celebration (Sacramento Choral Society); Billy Bigelow in Carousel in Concert (Sacramento Philharmonic). As a director: HAIR, Little Shop of Horrors, Mean Girls JR., Sh-Boom! A Christmas Miracle (World Premiere), Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Twelfth Night, Jersey Boys, Clue, Disney’s Winnie the Pooh KIDS, Elvis The Musical (West Coast Premiere), Dogfight, Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Steel Magnolias, Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka KIDS, I Love You…Change, The Wizard of Oz, Holiday Jukebox, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, The Robber Bridegroom (SRT); I Love You…Change (STC). Lee began his association with Sierra Rep in 2010 when he stepped in as a replacement in Guys and Dolls.

In 2019, Lee created SRT in Schools, a touring program that brings live professional theatre to Tuolumne County schools at no cost to the schools, students, or their families. In 2023, the program branched out to include Stanislaus and Calaveras counties.