NEW YORK – Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler have been announced to be making their Broadway debuts in the new production of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo + Juliet.” The two will play the roles of Romeo and Juliet, respectively. 

The 1596 classic about the star-crossed romance between the children of two feuding Italian families will return to the Broadway stage in the fall of 2025. Tony Award winners Sam Gold and Sonya Tayeh will be in charge of directing and the movement of the production, while the music will be by Grammy winner Jack Antonoff. 

Along with the two leads making their Broadway debuts, so will Antonoff. Even though it is his first time working on Broadway, it is not the first time his music has made it there, as his hit song “We Are Young,” which he made with his band Fun., is one of the songs that is performed in the musical “Moulin Rouge!”

According to People Magazine, the logline for the production reads, “The youth are f–ed. Left to their own devices in their parents’ world of violent ends, an impulsive pair of star-crossed lovers hurtle toward their inescapable fate. The intoxicating high of passion quickly descends into brutal chaos that can only end one way.”

The two stars of the production, Kit Connor, 20, and Rachel Zegler, 22, have been seen multiple times on screen. Zegler made her film debut in 2021 when she starred as Maria in Steven Spielberg’s version of “West Side Story.” She won a Golden Globe for her work in the film. Since making her debut, she has played roles in the film “Shazam! Fury of the God” and most recently as Lucy Gray Baird in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.” Connor is known for his roles as young Elton John in the 2019 film “Rocketman” and voicing the character Panalaimon in “His Dark Materials.” But he is famous for his role as Nick Nelson in the Netflix show “Heartstopper, a television adaptation of the popular graphic novels of the same name, which are written and illustrated by Alice Oseman. 

In 2025, Zegler will lead the Disney remake of their 1937 classic “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” She also has a film called “Spellbound” releasing this year. 2024 will be a busy year for Connor, as he has several projects that will be released. Along with making his debut in Broadway’s “Romeo + Juliet,” he will be voicing Brightball in the new animated film “The Wild Robot,” which releases in September. He will be returning to the small screen as Nick Nelson in October for “Heartstopper” season 3. He has three other movies that he is starring in: “A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow,” “One of Us,” and “Warfare,” but they have unknown release dates at this time. 

According to People Magazine, “Romeo and Juliet” has been on Broadway in nearly 40 previous productions, including its most recent revival in 2013 that starred Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashard.” This is the second production of the famous play to make headlines recently: the West End revival starring Tom Holland and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers. The West End revival will be running at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London from May 11 to Aug. 3. There have been rumors speculating a possible Broadway transfer of the cast, but nothing has been officially announced. 

More information about the Broadway production, which will include the theater, dates, design team, and the rest of the cast, will be announced soon.