A rose by any other name would smell as sweet...

Romeo and Juliet at the Shakespeare Theatre

9/17/8 - 10/12/8

Sidney Harman Hall
610 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20004

(202) 547-1122

I went to see an all-male cast performance of Romeo and Juliet yesterday during one of the press nights and was extremely impressed with the lovely and energetic execution by the amazing actors. Juilliard graduate, James David (pictured left) played Juliet and except for a couple of manly bouts of anger and excitement she was beautiful and lithesome and made me forget the role was being played by a man.

I sat in the front row only a couple feet from the actors and I wanted soooo badly to photograph them, I probably would have tried (w/o flash) if one of the ushers hadn't been right next to me. Expetedly, the costumes where extremely inspiring, and my favorite one was actually that of a man - Lord Capulet played by Dan Kremer, whose performance, much like his costume, was outstanding. I was mesmerized by the texture of his sleeves and his magnificently adorned jacket. It reminded me of this sumptuous black dress from Olivier Theyskens' 2005 Collection for Rochas and feeling very melancholic for the days when their fashion division was still alive and created sublime and lavish gowns, I decided to revisit it and fell in love with it once again.

These gowns are so modern and timeless, it's hard to believe this was Fall 2005. Don't they remind you of Shakespeare?