On the Red Carpet: Romeo + Juliet Composer Jack Antonoff Reveals That His Favorite Musical Is Fun Home

You wouldn't think that pop songwriter-producer Jack Antonoff, who's worked with superstars like Taylor Swift, would be a big musical guy. But you'd be wrong. He wrote two new songs and incidental music for the Broadway revival of Romeo + Juliet, currently running at Circle in the Square Theater. On the red carpet for Romeo + Juliet's opening night October 24, Antonoff revealed that his favorite musical of all time is actually Fun Home—which was directed by Sam Gold (the director of Romeo + Juliet) and which also played at Circle in the Square.

"Sam just literally texted me, 'Would you want to do Romeo and Juliet on Broadway?'" he recalls to Playbill. "He explained to me what he wanted to do, but also explained to me that there was a lot of space, and anything could happen, and there could be songs. I feel incredibly lucky and inspired that my first Broadway musical, I got to enter through Sam Gold, absolutely."

Read the reviews for Romeo + Juliet here.

On the red carpet, Gold was very clear on his goal for the production, which stars Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler as the ill-fated lovers. "I was doing a play last spring, and I just saw young people coming to the theatre and got very excited that there's a young audience out there that we haven't been tapping," he explains. "We haven't helped young people fall in love with theatre enough right now, post pandemic. Romeo and Juliet, it's an obvious play to use to connect to young audiences, and my goal was to bring folks, like, 15 to 25 to see a play, and for them to fall in love with the theatre and want to come see more."

It seems he's been succeeding. Videos from the show have gone viral on TikTok, and critics have now called the show a Romeo and Juliet for Gen-Z audiences.

Below, the cast of Romeo + Juliet play a game of "Is it Shakespeare or a pop song?" See how well they did in the video below.

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And a great way to get young people to the theatre is to cast the stars that they love. Kit Connor has become something of a teenage heartthrob because of Netflix's Heartstopper, but he's no stranger to the stage. He got his start doing plays in London, though it's been six years since he's done theatre. This means Romeo + Juliet is not just a Broadway debut, but a stage return. "I feel like a different person now than I was six years ago," says Connor. "I am incredibly excited for the next 20 weeks, because it really is an incredible thing for an actor to do, to be able to take up that stage...I think I would recommend most actors to do it, even if they're more used to the screen."

And Romeo + Juliet has been especially challenging for its cast, many of whom have to run all around the theatre itself—not just on the stage. The players are also double-cast, some are even triple cast. Gabby Beans, a Tony-nominated actor, is no stranger to a challenge—but playing three roles is something else, she admits (especially when those roles are the all-important Mercutio, Friar Lawrence, and the Prince). "It was two characters to begin with, and then I got a third. So hashtag booked," she jokes. "I knew it was going to be a technical challenge, but we had the space and time in the room to figure it out, and we figured it out on stage. And I think as an actor, you're always trying to reach towards the impossible, and this felt slightly impossible. So I don't know if I'm fully doing it yet, but I'm trying. And the effort of that is enlivening."

For the show's Juliet, Rachel Zegler, this may be her first Broadway credit, but she played María in the 2021 West Side Story film (for which she won a Golden Globe Award). Zegler said that Broadway's been her longtime goal, and she hopes that by living her dreams on the stage, she can inspire the next generation of theatre kids. "They can achieve their dreams," she enthuses. "This is my biggest dream come true. This is all I've ever wanted in my life. And so to now see young people in the audience who maybe didn't think that someone who looked like them could be Juliet, that somebody like them could be on Broadway, or just achieve the dream that they always wanted—I hope that they see that it's possible."

Below, see the celebrity attendees walk the red carpet—including Oscar Isaac, Busy Philipps, and Noah Centineo—and the cast take their post-show bows.