Jamie Lloyd, the British director and founder of an eponymous theater company, is known for casting high-profile actors in his plays. Take, for example, his 2019 revival of Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, which featured Tom Hiddleston, or his 2022 version of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, with Emilia Clarke as Nina. “I think he’s always just trying to tell the story in the clearest and most exhilarating way possible,” said the actor James McAvoy, whom Lloyd directed in 2020. Growing up in a working-class family in southern England, Lloyd did not fit the standard British theater mold. He’s worked to make theater more accessible to all, and his newest project is Romeo & Juliet, with Tom Holland as Romeo and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers as Juliet. —Jeanne Malle