| Character | Description |
| Chorus | The narrator who appears in the Prologues to Acts I & II |
| Balthasar | Romeo's servant. He travels to Mantua to inform Romeo of Juliet's supposed death. |
| Benvolio | Montague's nephew & Romeo's friend. He attempts in vain to prevent the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt. |
| Tybalt | Lady Capulet's nephew and Juliet's cousin. After mortally wounding Mercutio in a duel, he is killed by Romeo. |
| Capulet | Juliet's father; He arranges Juliet's marriage to Paris and makes peace with Montague after the lovers' deaths. |
| Lady Capulet | Juliet's mother; she favors Juliet's marriage to Paris and, with her husband, rebukes her daughter when she protests the match. |
| Montague | Romeo's father; He reconciles with Capulet after Romeo's and Juliet's deaths. |
| Escalus | The prince of Verona. He attempts to prevent the public brawls between the feuding houses and banishes Romeo from Verona for killing Tybalt in a battle. |
| Romeo | The son of Montague and Lady Montague. |
| Paris | A nobleman and Escalus's kinsman. He is engaged to Juliet before her apparent death and is killed by Romeo at the Capulet vault. |
| Nurse | Juliet's attendant. She helps arrange Juliet's secret marriage to Romeo. |
| Juliet | The daughter of Capulet and Lady Capulet. |
| Mercutio | Romeo's friend and a kinsman of Escalus. He is killed by Tybalt in a duel. |
| Friar Lawrence | A Franciscan priest. He conducts Romeo and Juliet's secret wedding and devises a scheme to prevent Juliet's marriage to Paris. |
| Apothecary | A maker of drugs and medicines who sells Romeo the poison with which he kills himself. |
| Friar John | A Franciscan monk. He is quarantined in Verona because of the plague before he can deliver Friar Lawrence's letter to Romeo. |
| Gregory, Antony, Sampson, Potpan | servants to Capulet |
| Peter | servant to Juliet's nurse |
| Montague and Capulet | heads of two feuding houses |
| Lady Montague | Romeo's mother |
