Romeo’s teenage bride gets a new lease on life in the West End-to-Broadway smash & Juliet, quite possibly the most hit-packed musical in Broadway history and one that now tops my list of favorite shows of the past ten years right up there with The Prom, Come From Away, and Dear Evan Hansen.

Has there ever been a Broadway musical with as many chart-toppers as & Juliet?

 From Britney Spears’ “…Baby One More Time” to Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” to *NSYNC’s “It’s Gonna Be Me” to Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” to Celine Dion’s “That’s The Way It Is,” if Swedish songwriting superstar Max Martin co-wrote (and most likely also produced) it, you’ll be hearing it in & Juliet.

Not only are there a whopping 30 or so chart-toppers in Juliet’s earworm-packed soundtrack, book writer David West Read has managed to string them all together in a clever, captivating storyline, each song proving such a perfect fit, you might think each of them was written expressly for the show and not culled from a songwriter’s preexisting canon.

Read’s premise is as follows:

 Dissatisfied with the downer of an ending her husband William Shakespeare (Corey Mach) has come up with for his latest romantic tragedy, Anne Hathaway (Teal Wicks) decides it’s time for Mrs. Shakespeare to put her own quill pen to use and give Juliet (Rachel Webb in a dazzling National Tour debut) a fresh new start by sending her off to Paris accompanied by her attentive nurse Angelique (Kathryn Allison) and her androgenous best friend May (Nick Drake).

 Freshly arrived in the city of love, the threesome head off for a night on the town upon which they make the acquaintance of Francois (Mateus Leite Cardoso), who feeling pressured by his father Lance (Paul-Jordan Jansen) to take a bride posthaste proposes to Juliet despite his obvious attraction to her nonbinary bestie May, who seems to feel the same way about Francois.

Let the romantic complications begin.

& Juliet’s nine Tony Award nominations, including one for Best Musical, prove just how far the Jukebox Musical has come over the past twenty-five years where critical respect is concerned, acclaim due in large part to how ingeniously its book has been tailored to make each song appear to have been written expressly for it, and not the other way around.

 Will and Anne declare their intentions to write two diametrically different endings for R&J in “I Want It That Way.” Juliet’s “Oops!… I Did It Again” is precisely the reaction you’d expect from a young woman who finds herself engaged to be wed only days after she became a teen bride and widow. And if Britney’s “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” never quite made sense to me before, it does now as sung by May in a heartfelt declaration of gender identity that brought tears to my eyes, not the only time & Juliet left me more than a little verklempt.

Not only that, but given how many Max Martin singles have become dance club standards (that would be pretty much all of them), it’s perhaps no wonder that choreographer Jennifer Weber has the entire cast dancing up a music-video-ready storm in one exhilarating high-energy production number after another.

Masterfully directed by Luke Sheppard (who has taken the show from its 2019 Manchester, England debut to the West End and then on to Toronto and Broadway), & Juliet has been just gloriously and resplendently designed by Soutra Gilmour (sets), Andrzej Goulding (video and projections), Paloma Young (costumes), Howard Hudson (lighting), J. Jared Janas (hair, wigs, and makeup), and Gareth Owen (sound), whose contributions make each and every new scene a veritable feast for the eyes and the ears.

Performances simply could not be more entrancing, from Webb’s incandescent Juliet to Jansen’s formidable Lance to Wicks’ radiant Anne to Mach’s charismatic Will to Drake’s appealing May to Cardoso’s adorable Francois, and L.A. audiences get the added treat of seeing sexy Ben Jackson Walker recreate the role he originated in Toronto and on Broadway. (The program gives away which one that is, but I won’t.)

 Triple-threat ensembles don’t get any more sensational or more diverse than & Juliet’s Naima Alakham, Camille Brooks, Lois Ellise, Ishmael Gonzalez, Kenneth Onesimus Goubran, Shelby Griswold, Christopher Robert Hanford, Jourdan Ibe, Josh Jordan, Nicole Lamb, Kate Mina Lin, Yoshi Maysonet, Usman Ali Mughal, assistant dance captain Kyra Smith, and dance captain Francisco Thurston, who like their castmates appear to be having the time of their lives, and the feeling is mutual.

 Music director Andre Cerulo conducts & Juliet’s live orchestra, who get a deserved curtain call of their own. Susanna Wolk is associate director. Joel Rosen is production stage manager and Danny Danielo is company manager.

I absolutely love jukebox musicals, in particular those like Mamma Mia!, All Shook Up, Rock Of Ages, and Escape To Margaritaville that find ingenious ways to integrate an artist’s Greatest Hits into a fictional storyline.

To this list can now be added & Juliet, a jukebox extravaganza that’s got everything I love in a musical, catchy songs, thrilling dance numbers, characters I care about, humor, romance, and above all heart. I’ve already made plans to see it again!

Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles.
www.CenterTheatreGroup.org

Also:
Segerstrom Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Tuesday, September 9 to Sunday, September 21.
www.scfta.org

–Steven Stanley
August 15,2025
Photos: Matthew Murphy

Tags: Ahmanson Theatre, Center Theatre Group, David West Read, Los Angeles Theater Review, Max Martin, William Shakespeare