Review Roundup: & JULIET Launches National Tour

The North American tour of & Juliet has officially opened at The Hippodrome in Baltimore, MD - and the reviews have started coming in.

The cast includes Rachel Simone Webb in the title role of ‘Juliet,’ Paul-Jordan  Jansen as ‘Lance,’ Teal Wicks as ‘Anne Hathaway,’ Corey Mach as ‘Shakespeare,’ Nick Drake as ‘May,’  Kathryn Allison as ‘Angélique,’ Michael Canu as ‘Romeo,’ and Mateus Leite Cardoso as ‘François.’  

The ensemble includes Naima Alakham, Camille Brooks, Nella Cole, Lois Ellise, Ishmael Gonzalez,  Kenneth Onesimus Goubran, Shelby Griswold, Christopher Robert Hanford, Jourdan Ibe, Josh Jordan,  Nicole Lamb, Yoshi Maysonet, Usman Ali Mughal, Jaydon Nget, Kyra Smith, and Francisco Thurston.

The production is stage managed by Joel Rosen. The company manager is Denny Daniello. 

Featuring songs by the legendary Grammy-winning songwriter/producer Max Martin, a book by the  Emmy-winning writer from “Schitt’s Creek,” David West Read, direction by Luke Sheppard and  choreography by Emmy-Award winner Jennifer Weber, & Juliet opened on Broadway in November  2022, where it continues playing to sold-out crowds and breaking box office records. 

The full creative team for the Broadway production of & Juliet includes David West Read (Book),  Max Martin & Friends (Music & Lyrics), Luke Sheppard (Direction), Jennifer Weber (Choreography),  Bill Sherman (Musical Supervision, Orchestrations and Arrangements), Soutra Gilmour (Scenic  Design), Paloma Young (Costume Design), Howard Hudson (Lighting Design), Gareth Owen (Sound  Design), Andrzej Goulding (Video & Projection Design) and J. Jared Janas (Hair, Wig & Makeup  Design) and Dominic Fallacaro (Music Director, Additional Orchestrations and Arrangements). The  North American tour is music directed by Andre Cerullo. US Casting is by Stephen Kopel, Carrie  Gardner, and Jillian Cimini, CSA. & Juliet is Executive Produced on Broadway and tour by Eva Price. 

Let's see what the critics have to say, and check back for more reviews!

Timoth David Copney, BroadwayWorld: & Juliet brings a fresh and welcomed take on the age-old tale of the star-crossed lovers, peppered with familiar phrases still in use today that the Shakespeare character points out as amusing asides to the audience. By changing the focus from the tragic situation in the original play to a new, upbeat conclusion with the addition of a couple of major tweaks to the story, it becomes a tale of female empowerment led by both of the female protagonists. This version will appeal to a wider, younger audience and as a grateful member of Baltimore’s theatre community, I for one am delighted to see new life breathed into old stories. And just wait until you see how the title is arrived at on stage. I loved the ending, the beginning, and just about everything in between. I bet you will, too.

Chuck Duncan, Hotchka: I really wasn’t sure what to expect from & Juliet. Knowing it is a jukebox musical with already established songs, it does have a bit of a Moulin Rouge vibe (especially with the neon signs), but it also made me think of the fantastic Six with its original music but anachronistic costumes. If those two shows had a baby, & Juliet would be it. And what a bundle of joy it is. A stellar production, pop music you know, and some of the best performances you’ll see this year makes & Juliet one show not to miss when it comes to your town (or nearby).

Lynne Menefee, MD Theatre Guide: Obvious influences from the jukebox musicals “Moulin Rouge,” “Six,” “Head Over Heels,” and the more recent “Once Upon a One More Time” (using the music of Britney Spears) and the hilarity of “Something Rotten” are on display. Important issues of feminism and self-acceptance (and acceptance) are a part of this fantasy that blends two worlds eight centuries apart. That said, it feels like it is trying to do much, skimming over the surface of the issues which are resolved too easily.

Jeffrey Kare, BroadwayWorld: Under Luke Sheppard’s direction, he has everything staged on Soutra Gilmour set, which not only looks evocative of Shakespeare’s plays when they were first performed, but also very retro. Paloma Young’s costumes are also true to the era while still doing something stylish with the clothing. Howard Hudson’s lighting is so eye-popping. Gareth Owen does such amazing work with the sound design, making everything the audience hears on stage very clear without becoming deafening to their ears. Sheppard also provides slick transitions between scenes while Jennifer Weber delivers very energetic choreography. Plus, Bill Sherman’s orchestrations (with some help from Dominic Fallacaro) successfully creates a cohesive sound for all these different pre-existing pop/rock hits.

Lawrence Toppman, The Charlotte Ledger: The real point of the cheerfully brainless musical at Belk Theater is to assemble more than two dozen songs by Swedish producer-writer Max Martin and his collaborators, getting the crowd to “throw your hands up in the air/And wave them around like you just don’t care.” Audience members who did so didn’t mind that author David West Read created an irrelevant subplot about a 19th-century boy band just to shoehorn “(Everybody) Backstreet’s Back” into the tale.

Perry Tannenbaum, BroadwayWorld: With some showy lighting by Howard Hudson setting the glitz aglow, we can simply enjoy. Read tosses out plenty of feminist critiques and barbs in the marital clinches between Will and Anne, the puns and wordplay are delightfully sharp, and guess what? Besides reinventing his own Shakespeare and Anne as stage characters, he often wittily emulates the Bard. Yes, poetry!

Greg Kerestan, BroadwayWorld: The choreography by Jennifer Weber is tight and self-contained; it's one of the first Broadway shows I've seen that successfully roots its choreographic language in the present day. The dance aesthetic's physical tightness in terms of conservation of movement and space covered is clearly designed with the camera's eye in mind, the way studio dancers or TikTok dance influencers choreograph and perform. In keeping with the style, it looks fun and flashy but is not so athletic or presentational that you don't think "I want to go home and try that in front of the camera myself." (I'm FAR from a dancer, but even I could see the appeal in a TikTok trend of the "Roar" dance in particular.)

Sue, PghLesbian: The show is fun, the music is engaging and catchy because of course it is. Kudos to choreography (Jennifer Weber) that was just stunning. The costumes (Paloma Young) were on point, the singing generally good, and the acting was fine.

Kathi Scrizzi Driscoll, Cape Cod Times: The terrific cast includes a finely tuned (vocally and otherwise) ensemble led by four stand-out performances. Webb’s Juliet combines powerhouse vocals with appealing determination and confusion, while Drake’s May offers the poignant view of a frequent outsider. Corey Mach wonderfully plays Shakespeare as an initially self-involved, striving artist, with Wicks’ beautifully nuanced Anne as his struggling wife yearning to give herself and women’s viewpoints a more important place in her husband’s world.

Michael Rabice, BroadwayWorld: In what can only be described as one of the cleverest bits of writing in recent years, the brilliant script by David Rest Read (of SCHITT'S CREEK fame) somehow manages to find a way to update Shakespeare's most famous romantic tragedy and make it a story of empowering women. What would happen if Juliet did not kill herself and leaves Verona to find happiness? Anne Hathaway challenges her husband to avoid the dreary ending, and fashion a new production where the action unfolds as the husband and wife extemporaneously write the new script, as the actors act it out.

Aaron R. Conklin, Madison Magazine: Thanks to David West Read’s snappy book, packed with puns aimed at Shakespeare nerds and plenty of modern pop culture references, “& Juliet” lives mostly in the latter camp, turning 2000s-era bangers and ballads into gut-busters. The show even manages to make two of its three Katy Perry songs relevant, which is no small feat.

Rachel Weinberg, BroadwayWorld: The show’s fun, feminist-lite narrative about reclaiming the ROMEO AND JULIET story is cotton candy fluff, but it has a SIX-like sensibility that makes it clever, too. & JULIET poses the question: What happens if Juliet lived? In a battle of wills (pun intended), the pompous, SOMETHING ROTTEN-esque Shakespeare (Corey Mach, nailing the machismo and charming schtick) and his wife Anne Hathaway (Teal Wicks) duke it out about an alternate version of the classic story. Anne wants to reclaim Shakespeare’s quill and rewrite a story that gives plucky Juliet (Rachel Simone Webb) some freedom and the chance to decide if the airheaded Romeo (Michael Canu, who hilariously and note-perfectly supplies spacey, vapid boy band energy) is truly who she wants.

Tristan Bruns, New City Stage: I haven’t mentioned the story yet because it really doesn’t matter. That sounds cruel, but the show itself is in on the joke and takes delight in ripping Shakespeare to shreds. With the swing of a magic quill pen—a deus ex stylus—the plot shifts like quicksand; yet it gets no more imaginative than Juliet making the same mistake as with Romeo by attempting a quick marriage to Françoise (Mateus Leite Cardoso), who is actually in love with Juliet’s friend May (Nick Drake). In line with the zeitgeist, May expresses gender ambiguity, singing new meaning into “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman.”

Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune: “& Juliet” does all of that while also skillfully drawing on the enduring box-office popularity of two of the most famous Shakespearean characters, Romeo and Juliet, here recasting Romeo as a dumb, dreamy, boy-band kind of dude and Juliet as a super-smart seeker of personal empowerment and, of course, a voice she can call her own. It’s axiomatic in the world of musicals that women buy most of the tickets on Broadway.

Catey Sullivan, Chicago Sun-Times: The plot is convoluted, but convoluted plots were definitely a thing with Shakespeare, so stylistically, it tracks. The music — featuring songs made famous by Britney Spears, Pink, Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry, the Backstreet Boys and REO Speedwagon, among others — is pure ear candy. Weber’s choreography — a wild, wonderful mix of hip-hop, breaking and ballet among other genres — is pure, kinetically stunning eye candy.

Average Rating: 76.7%