Romeo & Juliet

Bright Umbrella are bringing Romeo & Juliet to The Studio at the Grand Opera House from Thursday 11 February to Saturday 13 February 2027. It's an abridged production, cut down to around 70 minutes, and it's being performed by a cast of five professional actors. If you're taking a school group, the Thursday show includes a director's talk and a Q&A afterwards, so you'll get to hear how they put it together.

It's a Belfast company, and they've set the play in a contemporary Belfast neighbourhood in the aftermath of recent racist violence and disorder. Shakespeare's original text is left unaltered, just trimmed, but the staging reimagines the two families: the Montagues are a family who've recently arrived in Belfast from Eastern Europe, and the Capulets are an established local family. It's pitched as a good fit for schools studying the play, and the shorter runtime makes it an easy one to fit into a day trip.

Bright Umbrella is a Belfast-based company that works through professional performance, participation and community engagement. Their home venue, The Sanctuary Theatre in East Belfast, is currently undergoing restoration and development work, so they're bringing their shows exclusively to the Grand Opera House Studio for the time being. The project is supported by the Grand Opera House Trust and by PEACEPLUS, a programme managed by the Special EU Programmes Body.

There are matinees at 2:30pm and evening shows at 7:30pm across the three days, so you can pick whatever fits your schedule. Tickets are £25.00 to £15.00, which includes the maximum applicable per-ticket booking fee. The Studio is at the Grand Opera House, 17 Great Victoria Street, Belfast BT2 7AD.