Trigger & Content Warning: Parents Strongly Cautioned. Some Material May Be Inappropriate For Children Under 13. According to the film classification rating guidelines, this production is rated PG-13 for depictions of mature content, adult themes, sensuality, violence, suicide, and drug and alcohol use. This production contains choreographed fighting with knives, murder, self-harm, and artificial blood use. Please take care of your mental and emotional wellbeing while engaging with this performance. If you find yourself struggling, please feel free to leave the auditorium at any time.

Adult Content in Roméo et Juliette

Please note we are still staging and this list is subject to change.

Sexuality 

General Note: throughout the opera, Roméo and Juliette hold hands, caress, and kiss.

Act I

• • Capulet and the chorus make a stylized gesture: swirling hand around a pile of gold glitter (glued) on a mirror, then lifting their hand in the air as they inhale. This happens at the top and end of Act I.

• • Chorus choreography: swaying hips, embracing other choristers, caressing other choristers. Groupings include both heterosexual and same-sex partners. 

• • In Mercutio’s Mab aria, Benvolio and Stéphano find a deflated blow-up doll under the stairs. They blow it up and make it dance around. Mercutio blindfolds Roméo with a bandana, and when he sings about the virgin kissing for the first time, Benvolio and Stéphano bring the doll forward as blindfolded Roméo puckers up. They make it caress Roméo’s cheek. Mercutio tears away the blindfold and Roméo gets startled when he sees the doll in place of the pretty woman he was imagining. Benvolio and Stéphano resume making the doll dance around until the end of the aria, when Mercutio snatches it and throws it back under the stairs.

• • At the end of the act, three of the choristers find the blow-up doll and dance with it, partying like they’re at a rave.

Act II

• • Roméo and Juliette touch hands from the balcony. Roméo kisses her hand.

Act III.1

• • Roméo and Juliette hold hands and kiss in Friar Laurence’s cell

Act IV

• • Roméo and Juliette lie in a bed. They caress, kiss, touch hands, spoon.

Act V

• • Roméo and Juliette lie on the plinth together. They caress, kiss, touch hands, spoon.

Violence

Act I

• • Chorus brandishes switchblades when Roméo is revealed at the end of the Act. Capulet gestures for them to put them away.

Act III.2

• • Stéphano brandishes a switchblade in Que fais-tu, cuts and thrusts in the air.

• • Grégorio and Stéphano draw switchblades and circle each other. Stéphano trips Grégorio, choristers grab Stéphano, Grégorio brandishes switchblade, Mercutio interrupts him by raising a tire iron as if to strike (does not).

• • Tybalt and Mercutio skirmish, drawing weapons then wrestling into a lock.

• • Roméo draws his dagger but then puts it back in the sheath.

• • Tybalt and Mercutio fight, including a head butt and fighting with a dagger and a switchblade.

• • Tybalt stabs Mercutio. There is a blood pack.

• • Roméo fights Tybalt, both using daggers. Roméo stabs Tybalt. There is a blood pack.

• • Tybalt and Mercutio both die onstage and remain onstage for the rest of the scene.

• • Chorus (SATB) fight each other using fists, daggers, switchblades, baseball bat, pool cue, brick/rubble pieces. They strike each other. There are blood packs.

Act IV

• • Capulet gives Juliette Tybalt’s handkerchief, which has stage blood on it.

• • Juliette drinks a poison

• • Juliette brandishes a dagger when she says “ce poignard”

• • Tybalt enters like a ghost, covered in blood

• • Chorus enters with Juliette’s wedding dress. They are still covered in blood from Act III.2

• • Juliette collapses as if dead.

Act V

• • Roméo drinks a poison. He chokes as if it is a real poison

• • Juliette stabs herself with a dagger

• • Roméo and Juliette die onstage