The actress performed the chilling ballad “Man of the House” alongside the cast of the production
Broadway‘s pop-injected Romeo and Juliet revival opened at New York’s Circle in the Square Theatre earlier this month but took a detour last night to unravel on the stage at The Tonight Show With Stephen Colbert. Rachel Zegler brought her leading role as Juliet to the performance of “Man of the House” with assistance from Jack Antonoff, who wrote and produced music for the production.
With Antonoff on piano and the cast of Romeo + Juliet backing her, Zegler delivered a tender performance of the aching ballad. “Do you have doubts? I curse your name, it brought me pain,” she sings early in the record. “And now, without you I don’t know how to be/Hurts so bad it brings me to my knees/I still believe.”
Romeo + Juliet marks Zegler’s Broadway debut as an actress and Antonoff’s debut as a composer. The show, scheduled to run through Feb. 16, was directed by Tony Award-winner Sam Gold and choreographed by Sonya Tayeh, another Tony Award winner.
“Man of the House” is the first record from the updated production soundtrack to be released on digital streaming platforms. Antonoff co-wrote the record with pop maestro Ryan Beatty, who specializes in these kinds of quietly heart-wrenching ballads. Antonoff has previously helmed movie and TV soundtracks for the 2018 film Love, Simon, the 2022 animated film Minions: The Rise of Gru, and Apple TV+ The New Look.
“The whole play is scored,” Antonoff said during an appearance on The Tonight Show earlier this month. “And then there’s between 3 to 5 original songs. The play is the exact Shakespeare text, except it doesn’t look like it. All the score is mostly coming off of Moges and Juno Sixes so it’s pretty buzzy and low-indie, which is very modern sounding. And then we kind of leave the play for moments and the actors sing songs.”
