SHAKESPEARE, INTERRUPTED

About five minutes into & Juliet, Juliet belts “…Baby One More Time” with such raw confusion you half-believe Britney’s lyrics might hold the secrets of the universe. It should collapse under its own absurdity, yet it lands. That is the show in miniature: ridiculous on purpose and, against the odds, brilliant.

Rachel Simone Webb and Mateus Leite Cardoso

The premise sounds like a late-night dare. Juliet does not die. She bolts to Paris with her friends and finds herself inside the Max Martin catalog. You know these songs already: Katy Perry’s catharsis, Kelly Clarkson’s fire, Backstreet Boys harmonies that refuse to fade. I arrived expecting cynical product wrapped in glitter. I was wrong.

Rachel Simone Webb and Michael Canu

The book from David West Read (writer of Schitt’s Creek) is sharper than it has any right to be. Shakespeare is drafting his tragedy when Anne Hathaway barges in demanding a rewrite, and the two spar over authorship. What could have been a lecture in feminism turns instead into a wry debate about storytelling itself. The script keeps surprising, and even the gender jokes that should bomb manage to glide.

Nick Drake

The first act hums. Juliet is not a banner-waving symbol but a teenager in freefall. “Since U Been Gone” erupts less like nostalgia and more like excavation. Then May, the non-binary character, sings “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman.” No choreography, no irony, just stillness. The Ahmanson, where this national tour opened last night, fell quiet. In a show built on sequins and shrieks, it was the knockout moment.

Kathryn Allison

Rachel Webb gives Juliet a presence that feels recognizable. She sings with clarity rather than force. Nick Drake’s May turns quiet into spectacle. Kathryn Allison, as Angelique, Juliet’s sassy nurse,  fires off punchlines with crackling ease. Corey Mach’s Shakespeare resembles a Thanksgiving uncle straining to stay cool. Teal Wicks as Anne Hathaway has just enough bite to make rewriting literary history feel like something you might do while stirring stew.

The company

Act II stumbles. Subplots multiply, Juliet drifts into a generic romance, and May’s arc loses focus. Ben Jackson Walker’s Romeo, alive after all, salvages much of it. His swaggering, clueless charm makes “It’s My Life” soar past karaoke into something oddly touching. Still, the pace slackens, and the magic thins.

Ben Jackson Walker

Luke Sheppard directs with manic energy, but he understands that jukebox musicals only work when the songs feel essential to the story. Jennifer Weber’s choreography borrows freely from boy-band tours yet feels affectionate rather than derivative. Soutra Gilmour’s sets shift with ease, Paloma Young’s costumes marry Renaissance ruffles with pop sparkle, and Howard Hudson’s lighting favors mood over flash. The only weak link is a muddy, over-amplified sound design, an all-too-common issue in the cavernous Ahmanson.

Corey Mach

Comparisons to Moulin Rouge are inevitable, but misleading. Where Moulin hurls every hit at the wall, & Juliet curates. Each number has a job to do, and most of them succeed.

Teal Wicks, Rachel Simone Webb, Nick Drake and Kathryn Allison

The bigger surprise is how earnestly the show considers who gets to tell a story and who has the right to rewrite it. It does not grind these ideas into essays. It acknowledges them, then gets back to the glitter. Some may want more heft. I was relieved not to be lectured.

The Company

What lingers is not revolution but agency. Juliet writes her own ending. Not a symbolic one, but a literal one. In a culture still eager to script young women’s choices, that feels quietly radical. The show’s secret lies in how it treats pop music itself: not as kitsch, not as camp, but as a vessel for genuine feeling. Strip away the machinery, and you find longing, heartbreak, and joy.

Corey Mach and the company

I keep thinking about that Britney moment. The straight-faced belief that teenage confusion matters. In a world allergic to sincerity, taking that seriously feels almost revolutionary. Maybe even necessary.

Teal Wicks and Rachel Simone Webb

photos by Matthew Murphy 

& Juliet
national tour
reviewed August 15, 2025 at Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson Theatre in LA
ends on September 7, 2025 | then plays Segerstrom Hall in Costa Mesa September 9-21, 2025
tour continues; for dates and cities, visit & Juliet