By Ty Jackson, Contributor
Brian Chalk, Ph.D., and his English 329 class will head downtown to see “Romeo and Juliet” live on Broadway on Nov. 13.
This process began when Chalk approached the Kakos School of Arts and Sciences dean, Marcy Kelly, Ph.D., to support the cost of the tickets.
Starring Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler as Romeo and Juliet, respectively, these characters are an impulsive pair of star-crossed lovers who hurtle towards their inescapable fate.
The play is directed by Sam Gold, who has prior experience adapting Shakespeare’s plays into the modern lens with his 2022 work “Macbeth.” The play also incorporates floor seats, which puts the audience up close for a unique theatrical experience, similar to seating arrangements used in the seventeenth century.
Chalk teaches several Shakespeare-centric classes at Manhattan University, including the 329 course for English majors. The goal of this class is to articulate the ideas and language of William Shakespeare as a playwright through the lens of acting out his plays.
In the eyes of Chalk, a modern production of a classic Shakespeare play can open a new representation of how one might have perceived the play prior.
“The ability to combine New York City with the subject matter of my class on Shakespeare’s early career specifically, was a really inspiring coincidence,” Chalk said. “I hope [the students] have a great time and that [the Broadway play] increases their awareness of all the amazing things that are going on a very short distance from where we are as a university.”
Junior English major Bella Cannizzo shared her enthusiasm with The Quadrangle about seeing her first show on Broadway.
“I have never been to a live Broadway performance, so I am really looking forward to seeing ‘Romeo and Juliet’ with our class,” Cannizzo said. “I hope to gain a better understanding of live performers and live audiences.”
Cannizzo mentioned the importance of Chalk’s interpretation as students go through certain scenes as a class.
“Through acting out certain passages and scenes, you can really put yourself in the position of the characters and feel what they’re feeling,” Cannizzo said. “Dr. Chalk helps explain what the characters [are] thinking, and I get a lot out of that.”
Junior English major and theater minor Max Bennett-Myles shared his appreciation for Chalk’s teaching style compared to other English classes he’s taken.
“The class is special because of how open and honest it feels, that we won’t be shamed for seeing a perspective differently than others,” Bennett-Myles said. “Compared to when you are reading [a play], it’s often in one ear and out the other, but when you’re acting it out and performing it, you’re seeing everything beyond just the words, and it stays with you.”
Mary-Abigail Caglione, a junior adolescent education major with a concentration in English, wrote to The Quadrangle regarding Chalk’s vision of Shakespeare’s plays and how they have positively impacted the classroom setting for herself and her classmates.
“As a future English teacher, I hope I could be half the teacher [Chalk] is,” Caglione wrote in the email. “I’ve never been more interested or passionate about Shakespeare than what he offers to the class. The small details and intimate analysis that he allows me and others to make in our personal lives and relationships is the best part. I never thought I could relate to Romeo or Juliet until I realized Dr. Chalk made it possible.”
Chalk continued by addressing how many people understand the general idea of Romeo and Juliet, but only on a surface level. The story can be interpreted in many different ways because of how flawed Shakespeare writes his story and characters.
“In a number of ways, Romeo and Juliet is a play people take for granted, assuming that they know it very well, when actually they don’t,” Chalk said. “It’s a complicated and disturbing play about how conflicts can pass themselves down from one generation to another and how violence seems to be the only solution to these problems, and how we should seek opportunities to fund nonviolent solutions and to not underestimate young people.”
Chalk carries this notion to each of his class sessions, which students say has benefited their education and made them perceive English literature differently from when they stepped inside the classroom.
“Romeo and Juliet” will be on Broadway for only 20 weeks, with its final show being played on Feb. 16, 2025.