1. Shakespeare did not come up with the actual plot himself. It is based on a poem by Arthur Brooke: The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet (1562), which itself was a translation of another work, Mariotto and Gianozza by Masuccio Salernitano, published in 1476. In this version the story takes place in Siena, and the author claimed it was a true story.
2. It is unknown when exactly Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, but some scholars believe it was written in 1591, because Juliet's nurse refers to an earthquake she says occurred 11 years ago. The Dover Straits earthquake took place in 1580, although this was not the only earthquake to occur around this time, so nobody really knows.
3. In Shakespeare's time, there were two editions of the play, which were somewhat different from each other. The first, which appeared in 1597 is 800 lines shorter and contains imperfections. Some scholars think it was a pirated version produced from memory by one of the actors, or that a typesetter did not include Shakespeare's corrections to the first draft. Another version appeared in 1599, and this is the one that is the basis for printed versions of the play today.
4. The play takes place over a time span of four days in mid July.
5. Juliet is only 13 years old, although her fourteenth birthday is in two weeks. Her birthday is Lammas Eve; so since Lammas is on August 1, her birthday is July 31st. Although that seems terribly young to us, it was not uncommon for nobility in those times to marry very young.
6. One important character in the play is not seen and has no lines. Her name is Rosaline, and she is the one that Romeo is in love with at the beginning of the play. She is not interested, having taken a vow of celibacy. However, she is invited to the Capulets' party, and wanting to get a glimpse of her is the reason Romeo crashes a party held by his family's arch-enemies. It is at this party that he first sees Juliet and falls for her instead.
7. Either Juliet's nurse or Lady Capulet is called Angelica. Juliet's father speaks a line about Angelica getting a feast ready, but it is not clear which of the two he is talking about.
8. Even a play as popular and as classic as this was panned by some critics at the time. The first person to give it a bad review was Samuel Pepys, who wrote in 1662: "it is a play of itself the worst that I ever heard in my life."
9. In Shakespeare's time, all female parts in a play were played by boys. The first woman known to have played the part in a professionally produced play was Mary Sanderson in 1662.
10. The modern day musical West Side Story is based on Romeo and Juliet. An even more recent version was produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Mudlark Production Company in 2010. It was called Such Tweet Sorrow, and was in the form of a series of real time tweets on Twitter.
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