& Juliet – Courtesy of Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade. Used with permission.
& Juliet – Courtesy of Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade. Used with permission.
Presented Tuesday night by Broadway in Indianapolis at Clowes Memorial Hall, & Juliet played to a full house made up mostly of young adults. The crowd felt like the right one for a musical that knew exactly what it was: big, colorful, funny and packed with pop songs people already knew. Instead of retelling Romeo and Juliet the same old way, the show asked what would happen if Juliet got to keep living and make her own choices. The idea could have felt cheesy, but the musical made it work by being fun, fast and surprisingly heartfelt.
What stood out most was the energy. The show often felt closer to a pop concert than a traditional musical, but the staging gave it shape instead of letting it become a playlist. The sets, lighting and costumes were all eye-popping, with sharp color, quick visual shifts and enough detail to keep the stage busy without overwhelming the performers. The cast kept the pace high, moving through jokes, dance breaks and emotional turns with confidence. The leads gave the familiar songs a real arc, easing into verses as if they were spoken thoughts before pushing into clean, sustained notes that brought the audience in before the applause arrived. Because so many of the songs were familiar, it was easy to connect right away. The stronger numbers also avoided feeling random by showing what the characters wanted, what they feared and how they were changing.
& Juliet – Courtesy of Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade. Used with permission.
The plot worked because it started with a simple but satisfying question: What if Juliet did not die at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedy? Instead of remaining trapped inside Romeo’s story, she stepped into a new adventure that let her make mistakes, test her independence and decide what kind of future she actually wanted. The show balanced comedy and self-discovery well, especially when it placed Juliet’s personal growth against the expectations of the people around her. The story was not subtle, but it did not need to be. Its power came from its directness and its refusal to let Juliet be defined by one famous romance.
The songs were one of the production’s biggest pleasures, and there were a lot of them — about 30 in all. The score leaned into recognizable pop hooks, including “Larger Than Life,” “I Want It That Way,” “…Baby One More Time,” “Domino,” “Since U Been Gone,” “Roar” and “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” The faster songs landed as comic release and declarations of confidence, while the ballads gave Juliet and the supporting characters room for doubt, longing and vulnerability. Even with a running time of about 2 hours and 40 minutes, the show moved quickly because the music kept pushing the story forward instead of stopping it cold.
The show also has an interesting creative history. Officially titled & Juliet, it is a jukebox musical built around the pop catalogue of Swedish songwriter and producer Max Martin, whose hits for artists such as Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, and others form the backbone of the score. The book is by David West Read, known for his work as a writer and producer on Schitt’s Creek, and the production was directed by Luke Sheppard with choreography by Jennifer Weber. Rather than telling the life story of a singer or band, the creators used Martin’s songs to rethink Romeo and Juliet from Juliet’s point of view, turning a tragedy into a comic, contemporary story about choice, identity, and second chances.
& Juliet – Courtesy of Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade. Used with permission.
& Juliet premiered at the Manchester Opera House in 2019 before transferring to London’s West End later that year. Its success there helped lead to a Broadway production in 2022. The musical received major recognition in both London and New York, including Olivier Award nominations and Tony Award nominations. That history matters because it shows that the show is more than a clever pop-song gimmick: it became a widely produced modern musical by combining a familiar Shakespearean premise with a polished, crowd-pleasing pop-theater style.
By the end, & Juliet has done exactly what it sets out to do. It sends the audience out lighter, louder and more willing to go along with a story that never pretends to be anything but entertainment. The show works because it does not ask to be overanalyzed. It asks the audience to enjoy the joke, take the emotional moments seriously enough and give in to the pleasure of a big, bright musical built for escape. For a couple of hours, that is more than enough.
For tickets and info about & Juliet, running through June 21, visit broadway.indianapolis.com or call 317-940-6444.
