Vanessa Sears, Julia McLellan, Matt Raffy and Sarah Nairne in & Juliet | Photo by Dahlia Katz
My biggest surprise of 2025, I fell pretty hard for & Juliet. I’ve been a little obsessed, actually, and am seeing it again next month. Though it’s pretty silly, my appreciation for it keeps growing upon continued reflection. It’s not that the story is all that deep, but it’s an absolute banger in terms of its craft. There is so much going on under the hood of the neon-lit, bubble-gum flavoured aesthetic of this Shakespearean/pop-hit fusion. It’s silly, yes, but it proves that you can show an audience an unabashedly good time without insulting their intelligence.
I’ve already reviewed it (you can read that here), that’s not what this is. Neither will I get into the weeds with the cleverness of David West Read’s book and how it press-gangs over two decades of Max Martin songs into a cohesive shape (Howard Ho has a great video about that!). I won’t even elaborate on my theory of fate as a star-spinning cosmic DJ. At the risk of revealing as much about my own neuroses as the show itself, I’d like to shout out a specific aspect of & Juliet that I found personally significant and which actually allowed me to surrender to it.
& Juliet is undeniably youth-centric, most of the specific songs, though, have special relevance to a demographic now settling into middle-age. Nostalgia aside, the story—a feminist-slanted what if scenario that sees Juliet living her best life on her own terms—is wish-fulfilment fan-fiction. I was into it from the beginning, of course, it’s that good, but there is a moment, relatively early on, when it fully clicked into place for me.
It’s when Anne (Shakespeare’s wife), who has asserted herself as a collaborator in this re-telling of Juliet’s story, decides to insert herself directly into the narrative as one of Juliet’s best friends. Crashing Juliet’s slumber party with May, this April character is her chance to be part of the adventure. Since she is notably older than most of the principal characters, this firmly posits her as an audience surrogate for a very specific generation of fans. She wants to play too, to feel “sexy and free,” and this admission gives us permission to follow suit.
Just in case this self-insertion isn’t enough to convince us that it’s okay to unironically align our body-aching, jaded selves with youthful impulse and bravado, this enticement is reinforced. When our fan-fiction wish-fulfiller Anne-April arrives with her new besties (including Juliet’s nurse, Angélique, who is in a similar tag-along position) outside of a Renaissance Ball (a meta-theatrical stand-in for da club), May sings “Now you’re one of us, you’re coming with me.” She’s been officially, unambiguously accepted into the fold.
And now we, the not-quite-so-young-anymore folks, can fully submit to the pulsing beats, strobing lights and all the flashy, fun antics that follow. The middle-aged acceptance doesn’t end there. Lance and Angélique’s romance—as representatives of a generation up from Juliet, Romeo, May and Francois—is similarly coded. I mean, in the throes of giddy passion, this not-so-young anymore duo sing “Teenage Dream!” I mean, come on!
Amidst all the Shakespearean and pop culture references, purposeful design elements and fabulous vibes, this invitation—an affectionate hand outstretched to folks in the thick of middle-aged angst—is one of the most clever, under-appreciated bits of narrative strategy. We may not go, we aren’t guaranteed a good time if we do, but everyone wants to be invited to the party. Fortunately for me, I not only accepted the invitation, but I also had a good time with & Juliet. It really is a joyride, with a solid theatrical engine to bolster its momentum.
David Silvestri and Sarah Nairne in & Juliet | Photo by Dahlia Katz