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[0:00] Miranda Moffat: Hello, this is Miranda Moffat, your host for another very special episode of Theatre in the D. Today, we are covering & Juliet, and today I am joined by, as always, my favorite co-host.

[0:37] Jesse McAnally: I'm the co-host, Jesse McAnally. He gets to be relegated to the co-host today because he's driving, so I'm recording. As I said, today we are covering the musical & Juliet.

[0:51] Miranda Moffat: This musical was written by, let's see, Jesse had to turn on the light in the car, Music & Lyrics by Max Martin & Friends, and the book was by David West Reid. This musical, in particular, is basically a jukebox musical that uses the songs written by this gentleman, Max Martin. Songs that have been sung by a lot of different artists, Katy Perry, Kesha, Backstreet Boys, a lot of different very popular pop songs that you may not have realized were all written by one singular man, and those songs are used to tell the story of & Juliet.

[1:30] Miranda Moffat: Spoiler warning for anybody that has not seen this show yet and does not want to be spoiled on the plot. This is basically a retelling of the Romeo & Juliet story from the moment that they both kicked the bucket, but in this case, Juliet actually never killed herself and goes on to have a new adventure. Essentially, William Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway, wink wink, are the Greek chorus of the show, acting kind of similarly to the children in Shocked, although we know who they are the whole time, basically kind of allowing his wife Anne Hathaway to rewrite the story in a way that she likes. So this is, again, a jukebox musical similar to Mamma Mia, using pop songs to tell the story. I personally enjoyed it.

I thought I was a little scared in the first act, kind of had me in the first act, where I wasn't sure if I was really going to like it, kind of like gelling all the songs to the story and the way that they kind of set it up. I wasn't sure. But I think like halfway through the first act is when it really started to settle on me and I actually really started to enjoy myself. I kind of went in with no context, and I figured it would be sort of Hamilton-esque, sort of like riding the wave of that, of using modern music to tell an old story. And it is that, but sort of Hamilton if you mixed it in a bucket with Six. But I personally enjoyed it. What did you think, Jussie?

[3:01] Jesse McAnally: I think I'm too big of a Shakespeare nerd for a lot of this. Not that any of it is bad. I think this is great. This is actually one of the most requested episodes for us to do on Musicals with Cheese, and we never did it. So this was me walking into this blind as well. But I was just kind of being there where they were like, throw it out of Shakespeare facts and I was either pointing like the Leo meme or being like, well, that's not actually how it happened. He did write some happy wedded people. Look at Midsummer Night's Dream. I was being a pedantic dick. But that didn't mean that I didn't enjoy this. I struggle a bit with jukebox musicals. I've talked about it in the past. Here I really kind of felt compelled by the jukebox musical side of it.

Maybe it's because I didn't know the pop songs all that well. There were a few where it's like, oh, those are inescapable radio hits. And then there's others where I'm like, I have never heard of this before in my life. But this is a rare musical where I was much more compelled by the story and the framing device than I was the actual song and dance numbers. Not to say anything about the song and dance numbers. As Miranda said about the plot, I really liked the idea. I think they took it in as many directions as they possibly could and didn't leave a stone unturned. It does have a very distinct point of view and you kind of know where it's going from moment one of this premise of Anne Hathaway taking the pen away from William Shakespeare.

But it's not really trying to change the world here. This is trying to give you a damn good time in the theater and judging by our audience, they sure did. It's the kind of show where from moment one, you know, we're going to end with confetti. Confetti cannons. And confetti cannons we did.

[5:04] Miranda Moffat: And I would agree with you. I think that jukebox musicals specifically can be sort of like a gateway for theater fans most of the time. I think if you're not in the world already, if you didn't grow up with it, if you're just seeing a musical for the first time as an adult, it can be kind of odd and inaccessible. It's sort of strange to see people talk and then burst into song. And also, musical theater acting is so specific and heightened. It's different when you watch a movie or a show. And even if you're just watching a play, plays typically that are played more straight and meant to be more normal human interaction, whereas musicals are very heightened in their acting and it can be kind of cringe sometimes.

Even for somebody like myself who really enjoys musicals and has grown up with them, it can be a little strange to watch people burst into song. But I think for people that are just getting into it, jukebox musicals can be kind of a gateway drug into musicals. Because you're a little bit more used to seeing somebody burst into a song if it's a pop song. Not to say that this musical didn't have some moments that made me cringe a bit, but every single one does. I think overall, as Jessie said, a very good time.

[6:35] Jesse McAnally: The nurse.

[6:36] Miranda Moffat: And the nurse. And the nurse, Angelique. The other characters are completely made up, well obviously the whole story is made up, but new to the Romeo and Juliet story, made up for the purpose of this play. My favorite parts of it were Lance, who is Francois' father, and Angelique, the maid, have a backstory and they are like two older people who used to be in love when they were young and could have been a Romeo and Juliet story and then went their separate ways and met when they were older and were still in love. I really enjoyed their parts. I thought it was very funny. I really enjoyed the gentleman who played Lance. I think we looked in his bio and he was a previous Sweeney Todd, which I definitely could see him singing. I was like, oh yeah, that's Sweeney. And Juliet also, the young lady who played Juliet, was fabulous. She, according to her bio, is fresh out of high school, which is crazy and incredible. She is so good and has such an amazing voice.

[6:57] Miranda Moffat: I will say some things that I really enjoyed. I think in particular, my favorite parts of the story were Lance, who is... It's been a long time since I read Romeo and Juliet, but it seems to me that Romeo and Juliet are the only people that are in the original story, no?

[7:36] Miranda Moffat: I think also, and again, spoilers if you haven't seen the musical, I'm going to spoil some moments for you. There is a moment when they all get together, some of like Romeo and Francois and William Shakespeare and Lance the dad and May, who's also a character made up for the show, get together and they end up singing the Backstreet Back number. It was probably my favorite part of all of it and people were losing their minds. There was a lot of, they welcomed people getting up and dancing. I think at one point Angelique even holds up a sign that says dance on it. I think they intended for people to get up and dance, but when you're watching a musical people are just like, I don't know if I should.

Also, I saw a lot of people doing the respectful white people head nod, which is like, white people are always a little scared to get too into things, so they're just respectfully bobbing their head along to the music very gently. It's like a sensible, it's like a dance version of the sensible chuckle, and I saw a lot of people doing that, which is the best compliment that older white people can give to something, in my opinion. But yeah, I thought overall a really good time. What did you think, Jesse?

[8:49] Jesse McAnally: I really want to highlight something that was always brought up to me whenever this show would come up in conversation, which is the trans representation of the character of Mae. So Mae is a trans non-binary character, written to be so and played by a trans non-binary performer as well, and there are some truly casual misgendering, which feels so real and so honest to the real world, but it doesn't feel shoved down your throat, in a way. Like this isn't Rent with Forgiveness to Rent, where it's like, we are going to have a message about this. This is more like, this is Mae's everyday life, and we're going to give them this beautiful romance between Francois and them, and you are going to enjoy it, and it will be of equal importance to our leads, and as well as our other relationships.

It is truly like the classical musical theater, we have our main couple, we have the Curly and Lori, and then we're going to have the Will and Annie, and that is how this is structured. It is a true blue Rodgers and Hammerstein musical with pop numbers, and my poor little heart really liked the structure and seeing those pieces, because you don't see them very often.

[10:04] Jesse McAnally: And I also really wanted to highlight the sets and pyrotechnics and the way projections are used. I complain about projections a lot, especially in touring theater, I feel like it can be a crutch relied on. Here, the projections are used to accentuate the scenes happening on stage, whether it's amplifying movements in a dance number, or making the set reach around the entire theater, which I don't think I've ever seen done, like, especially in a tour, like maybe when we saw Beetlejuice on stage on Broadway, but that's about the only time I can think of projections being used to, like, integrate the theater space we're in, and it really set me up for happiness and success with that. I will say that the cast is wonderful, and everything that was happening on stage was great.

Some of the audience members got a little too rowdy for my taste, maybe? I don't think you should be full-on singing during very somber ballads, or giggling every time a song that you recognize comes on, but as far as that goes, I think this handled the pop songs, recontextualizing them for the story as opposed to just using them as they literally were written to be, a lot better than something like the Moulin Rouge! musical, which I thought really did not do that as effectively. I can see why this is so popular, I can see why it ran so long, and I know that Joey Fatone played the dad on Broadway, and I can only imagine what it was like seeing that Backstreet's Back sequence with him in that role.

I don't want to lock in a cheese rating, if I'm being honest. I kind of want to hold off on this one a little bit, so it's going to be a big old question mark for me. Miranda, what is your cheese rating?

[11:49] Miranda Moffat: What is my cheese rating? And let me think, let me see if I have anything else that I want to say about this. I agree with you. I think one of the things I did know was, you know, there's a lot of song numbers, dance numbers, and that kind of stuff, but they had a whole setup of lights on both sides of the stage, as well as in the traditional spots. I think the use of lighting, like you said, to enhance movement and enhance story was really smart. The pyrotechnics and the confetti cannons and all of that stuff was also obviously just really cool to see. For me, I think it does a pretty good job of recontextualizing the songs for the purpose of the story, mostly in, like I said, the latter half of the first act and the second act.

I think there are some misses in there for me, especially in that very first kind of setup section. I wonder, too, even whether the sort of framing of Shakespeare and his wife rewriting the story together could have been maybe different. I almost wonder what it would have looked like if you just almost did the first five to ten minutes of the show as just actual Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare's language, and then all of a sudden it kicks off.

[14:07] Jess: Extra part of this, which something I could not stop thinking about. I have not seen the movie Hamnet, but I know what happens in it, how depressing it is. And I just think like these two very different story versions that are like basically using William Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway, like how divergent, how weird to now watch the story where they're singing and dancing and having fun and then thinking about the events of Hamnet because she does mention their son that died in the musical. And I was like, Oh my God, Jesse Buckley.

[14:41] Taylor: I mean, we can't hold this to the standard of trying to replicate the factual events of Shakespeare. If I did, then my nitpick of like, Romeo and Juliet was actually a story called Pyramus and Thisbe, which Shakespeare had already parodied in Midsummer Night's Dream by the time he was writing Romeo and Juliet. It was like culture. It was like a remake of something. It was like another adaptation of Batman when Shakespeare took his hand to it. It's not like he came up with this. The thing that he came up with was the poetry and the lines and the dialogue and wherefore art thou Romeo? That's really what he brought to that story and not like, Oh, it's another sad tragedy.

[15:24] Taylor: I agree. I'm not saying that they should be living up to the standards of Hamnet depressing us all. I'm just saying it's very weird to be like, these are two very different interpretations that modern media has decided to make of these two particular historical figures, how divergent they are. Also, just like the timing of seeing this and that just having passed Oscar season is, it's funny. But I think generally, like I said, generally, as I say most often time, like a very, very good night. And for me, in particular, if there are moments that I think, wow, I'd really like to see that again. I wish I could like turn back time and watch it again or experience it again. It's very rare that that happens for me the first time around with things usually has to sit with me.

But there were many points during this show, even if I didn't like the initial kind of setup, there were many moments that I was like, that was so fun and so cool that I would just like to experience it again and let it wash over me again. And in particular, again, spoilers. I think the funniest moment that both of us belly laughed at is that the dad, Lance, is the only one doing a French accent, even though his son is, you know, going to be from the same place as him. And there's a point where Romeo comes into the story disguised as someone else and is like pretending to do a French accent is like trying to disguise himself as one of this guy's brothers. And then Shakespeare is like, no, we're not doing accents.

And the dad breaks his accent for the first time in the show and is like, oh, we're not doing accents. That was the funniest moment in the show. And again, very hard for me to like actually laugh at something. And that one got me.

[17:01] Jess: I want to talk about another highlight for me. I know I've been highlighting the character May, but that really was, that was kind of the most groundbreaking thing. Like, I know we're kind of in 2026, but when this first premiered, I want to say around 2022 and maybe 2020 in the West End, there was a lot, if you're a thing, and it wasn't really that much representation of this kind on stage. It was controversial to even have them in minor roles, let alone lead roles. And I think my favorite interpretation of a song is I'm not a girl, not yet a woman, which means something completely different in the mouth of May than it did in the original writing. And I thought it was so effective and probably my favorite song in the entire show, as far as ballads go.

[17:53] Taylor: Fair enough. Fair enough. I also really enjoyed the general storyline, and especially that character as well. That is probably, I think, the best addition that they've made as far as people added for the show. And it does not surprise, you said it premiered in the West End. That does not surprise me at all. Those Brits, they love their unseasoned food and jukebox musicals. There's nothing they love more. You have no idea what an epidemic that is, as far as like... Sometimes it works, like & Juliet, but Andrew and I covered the wildest shit I've ever... We Will Rock You is probably one of the worst things I've ever seen in any medium. The Brits, and they eat it up. As long as they hear a couple tunes, they're like, oh, jolly good. Great time. Great time in the theater. But A Strange Loop plays like, oh, a bit of a depressing night at the theater. Don't like that.

[18:44] Jess: Your accent is about as good as a fake French accent. It became Australian there at the end, didn't it? No offense to the UK folks. We love you, and I've visited you, and you're great, but...

[18:51] Taylor: Full offense. We got UK folks at our Patreon. I'm talking about you. Full offense. Do better. Less salt, more spice.

[19:03] Jess: Yeah, but I really did enjoy it overall. I think maybe the one piece, like I said, the framing, I think... Not that I think it's bad, but I wonder what it would have looked like if it was a little bit different. I think it does get a little cringe in the sort of like the Juliet of it all being like, you know, she can be an empowered woman and make her own choices, and that's the point. And then, oh, she's gonna end up right back where she started. I mean... But it's her choice this time. It's like giving her the agency to make the choice. She made the choice the first time. None of us thought it was a good choice, and it was obviously a choice made because she was very young and naive and hadn't known love before, but it was still her choice. If we were talking about West Side Story, I'd agree with you. Romeo and Juliet, she's kind of dragged along through these things.

[20:02] Taylor: Maybe. It's been since freshman year of high school that I read Romeo and Juliet, so I guess I can't really speak to that. But I think it's just... I don't know. That storyline maybe could have been dealt with a little bit better. I don't... Maybe I'm just upset that she ended up with Romeo again at the end, that they're giving it a second go. I'm like, nah, girl. Just go live your life.

[20:15] Jess: I kind of get it, because I found Romeo charming by the end. I was charmed by the dude. I thought the actor, for one, he's kind of adorable, and on the other hand, it's a representation of Anne Hathaway and Will Shakespeare's self-inserts, for lack of a better word, because they also have other self-inserts, coming together in the same way that they did. And I got that as far as a meta-narrative goes, but I think I get what you're saying, too, that it feels a little white girl feminism.

[20:50] Taylor: Yeah, I think that is really what I am getting at. It does feel a little girl bossy. Not that that's not still a valid idea. We always need a little bit more of that in the world. It's never a bad thing when it shows up, women's empowerment. But I think it could have been done a little bit more, I don't know, respectfully. But I think still, overall, I appreciate the idea of giving Juliet a retry. And I think it is basically somebody, you know, like our modern interpretation of that story being like, they were way too young. They didn't know what they were doing. They were very naive. You know, they were only together for four days, and they were like 13 or 14 years old. Like, this is ridiculous.

Why is this a great love story of our time? And sort of like taking it out of that context and sort of like, giving life to those thoughts, like a modern interpretation of that story is something I appreciate generally. And the fact that it came with like, you know, sparkles and cannons and lots of cool dancing doesn't hurt. So my overall thoughts is very enjoyable. Especially if you're someone like, I know Jesse was complaining a little bit about some, you know, rowdy patrons nearby. But jukebox musicals, in the same way as Mama Mia, that we just saw, like, they tend to be a little bit more like concerts than musicals sometimes. And, you know, singing along, dancing, getting into it, I can always appreciate that, because it is a good time. And it is really fun. I think if you can see this, it's a great time.

[22:22] Jess: Though I want to leave with a thought of the composer and man behind all these songs, of Max Martin. How rich is this man? He has a monopoly on songs that get the DJ at a wedding turn on to get all the white girls onto the dance floor. Like, these are such great songs, and such a good time. And how loaded is he? And I'm wondering, was this his brainchild? Or was it David Westreed? Or someone else? Because when you have that much money, how ambitious can you get? The royalties alone will fund 90 generations of this person's children.

[23:00] Taylor: Fair enough. Flip to the song page. I just want to read you a few of the songs.

[23:04] Jess: Oh, yes.

[23:05] Taylor: that this man has written. As I stated, you've got many Backstreet song, Backstreet Boy songs, Everybody, Larger Than Life, I Want It That Way, some Britney Spears, The Baby One More Time, Overprotected, you've got a lot of Katy Perry in there, Teenage Dream, I Kissed a Girl, Roar, Since You've Been Gone, Kelly Clarkson, he's worked with a lot of people. And these, a lot of the songs in this are the song, if you're a millennial or an elder Gen Z, this man has written the soundtrack of your childhood and early teen years.

[23:43] Taylor: I did want to say, an added context for why this show probably hit as hard as it did, because this was a big success on the West End, a really well-received show on Broadway. It premiered right before COVID and then suspended production and then came back. And I don't know of a better show to watch after no theater for nearly a year. Like, going back with your mask on, seated away from each other. I also would have a dopamine hit that would rise to the ceiling where I'd be dancing and singing and crying at the end of this. So with that context, yeah, this is probably a very important show to a lot of people. I totally get it. Thank you again to ATG in Detroit for making this possible. And our next episode is going to be on Shaina Taub's Tony Award winning musical, Souths.

It will be playing at the Fisher Theater, April 14th and to the 26th. So get excited for that. But right now, go see & Juliet at the Fisher Theater. It's a good time. Bring your mom, bring your family. It's a great time at the theater. You'll have a blast.

[24:49] Taylor: Why are you an old woman in New York right now? Yes, please go see & Juliet if you can. The Fisher Theater, always one of my very favorite places to see theater. Every seat is a good seat, pretty much. And it is an incredible time. And especially if you are, like I said, millennial, elder Gen Z, you are going to know the whole soundtrack. So go see it.

[25:09] Jess: I am also at a loss for cheese rating. Unfortunately, I feel like maybe Pepper Jack. It's like, you know, basically a piece of Swiss cheese with like some extra spice on top. So it's like, you know, the general story of Romeo and Juliet, but like with some extra, extra sauce on it. So that'll be my general rating. You still have a rating?

[25:30] Taylor: No, I want to save it because I think I'm going to force Andrew to watch this. So I kind of want to save it for the episode. It's just not good enough for just me. He has to have the whole team watch it. Can you blame me? Imagine the takes.

[25:43] Jess: Imagine the takes indeed. Stay tuned, folks. All right. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time. And I'm the co-host.

[25:51] Taylor: You know, we should rewrite all your plays.