Bag & Baggage Real.Provocative. Theatre.

Joe Calarco

Joe is the adaptor/director of Shakespeare’s R&J. which ran for a year Off- Broadway, becoming the longest running version of Romeo and Juliet in New York history, and earned him a Lucille Lortel Award. He also directed the play’s premieres in Chicago (5 Jeff Award nominations including Best Play and Best Director) and Washington, D.C. (Helen Hayes Award nominations for Best Play and Best Director). He also directed the premieres in London’s West End (Evening Standard Award honorable mention for Best Director) and in Tokyo. The play is published by Dramatists Play Service in the U.S. and by Methuen in the U.K.

His reworking of Ring of Fire: the music of Johnny Cash toured the U.S. for over a year. Off Broadway credits include the world premiere of the musical In Transit at Primary Stages, The Burnt Part Boys by Mariana Elder, Chris Miller and Nathan Tysen Floyd and Clea Under the Western Sky by David Cale and Jonathan Kreisberg at Playwrights Horizons.

He directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of the musical Sarah, Plain and Tall (book by Julia Jordan, music by Larry O’Keefe, lyrics by Nell Benjamin) at the Lucille Lortel. A newly revised two act version of Sarah Plain and Tall premiered at Dallas Theatre Center. He also directed Julia Jordan’s The Summer of the Swans at the Lucille Lortel and Ms. Jordan’s play Boy at Primary Stages.