Nikki M. James to Star in Stratford’s Romeo & Juliet

Walmartopia star Nikki M. James will star in the 2008 Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s production of Romeo & Juliet, May 7-November 28. The production will be directed by Tony Award winner Des McAnuff.

In addition to James, who will play Juliet, the cast will feature Gareth Potter as Romeo, Evan Builung as Mercutio, Peter Donaldson as Friar Lawrence, Gordon S. Miller as Benvolio, Lucy Peacock as Nurse, and John Vickery as Capulet. The show will feature set design by Heidi Ettinger and lighting design by Robert Thomson.

As previously reported, Tony winner Brian Dennehy will star in a double bill of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape and Eugene O’Neill’s Hughie (June 18-August 31) along with a new production of Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, directed by Marti Maraden and co-starring Martha Henry, Jeff Lillico, Stephen Ouimette, and Tom Rooney (June 19-August 23).

Tony winners Christopher Plummer and Anika Noni Rose will play the title roles in Caesar and Cleopatra, to be directed by McAnuff (August 7-November 9). That production will also co-star Donaldson and Vickery, as well as Diane D’Aquila, Timothy D. Stickney, and Steven Sutcliffe.

The Festival season will also include Joanna McClelland Glass’ Palmer Park, Morris Panych’s adaptation of Moby Dick, Peter Hinton’s Her Infinite Variety, which celebrates the women in Shakespeare’s plays, the musicals Cabaret and The Music Man, and new productions of Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Trojan Women, Fuente Ovejuna, and Emilia Galotti.

For more information, visit www.stratfordfestival.ca.