Julia + Roselo

Shakespeare’s La Florida Part IV An Adaption of “Romeo and Juliet” by Lope de Vega

For Immediate Release

Part history and part fantasy, we imagine a couple falling in love despite all the odds during a period in Florida history when Spain’s most prolific playwright and poet, Lope de Vega, wrote his version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ — just as the Spanish were exploring and securing portions of ‘La Florida’ for their kingdom.

What would become the Seminole nation began as a group of Creek and other tribes moving into central and northern ‘La Florida’ in and around the first Black free colony in the northern hemisphere, Fort Mose, established at the turn of the 17th century. Black residents of Fort Mose were given plots of land by Spanish authorities if they adopted the Catholic Church. Various native tribes lived ‘freely’ if they too demonstrated loyalty to Spain and catholic religious practices.

What might Lope de Vega have written about the Black Seminoles, a legacy of diverse and resilient people from the real marriages, adoptions of individuals and families of the free nation of Seminoles and Blacks living alongside one another?

Initially these two communities had strained relations but the shared fear of those that sought to rule their kingdom in La Florida, the…