Romeo and Juliet is the world's most famous drama of tragic young love, ending with their suicides, against the backdrop of a vicious family feud. It has been praised for its language and dramatic effect. Shakespeare set the scene of the play in Verona, Italy. Juliet, a Capulet, and Romeo, a Montague, fall in love at a masked ball. Because the two noble families are enemies, the couple is married secretly by Friar Laurence. After Tybalt, a Capulet, kills Romeo’s friend Mercutio in a quarrel, Romeo kills Tybalt and is banished to Mantua. Juliet's father then demands that she marry Count Paris. When Juliet goes to Friar Laurence for advice, he gives her a potion that makes a person appear to be dead. He suggests that she take it and that Romeo rescue her; she agrees. Not knowing about the Friar's scheme, Romeo hears of Juliet's apparent death and returns to Verona. After killing Count Paris, he finds Juliet in a burial vault. He gives her a last kiss and kills himself with poison. Juliet awakens, sees the dead Romeo, and kills herself. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Shakespeare was the son of a prosperous merchant of Stratford-upon-Avon, and tradition gives his date of birth as 23 April 1564; certainly, three days later, he was christened at the parish church. He attended the local Grammar School but had no university education. In 1582, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had two daughters, Susanna and Judith, and a son, Hamnet, who died in 1596. How he became involved with the stage is uncertain, but he was sufficiently established as a playwright by 1592 to be criticised in print as a challengingly versatile 'upstart Crow'. He was a leading member of the Lord Chamberlain's company, which became the King's Men on the accession of James I in 1603. Being not only a playwright and actor but also a 'sharer' (one of the owners of the company, entitled to a share of the profits), Shakespeare prospered greatly, as is proven by the numerous records of his financial transactions. Towards the end of his life, he loosened his ties with London and retired to New Place, the large property in Stratford which he had bought in 1597. He died on 23 April 1616, and is buried in the place of his baptism, Stratford's Holy Trinity Church.