is an assistant professor of English at Florida State University, the author of Latinx Shakespeares: Staging U.S. Intracultural Theater, which will be published in fall 2022, and co-editor of Shakespeare and Latinidad, published by Edinburgh University Press in June 2021. She is a past Folger fellowship recipient. She is on Twitter @CarlaDellaGatta.
Carla Della Gatta writes about Baz Luhrmann’s movie Romeo + Juliet, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, which became an indelible version for Gen X, Gen Y, and even Gen Z. In homage to West Side Story, it Latin-izes the Capulets, including Tybalt, played by John Leguizamo.
Sixty years old this week, the 1961 movie West Side Story, based on the acclaimed Broadway musical inspired by Romeo and Juliet, also became a de facto representation of US Latinx in musicals for many years.
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