What if Juliet didn’t kill herself when she woke up in the crypt and found Romeo lying dead beside her?

“I want it that way,” sings Anne Hathaway to her husband William Shakespeare, launching into a number made famous by the Backstreet Boys.

Anne is determined that Juliet should have the opportunity to find herself and stand on her own two feet. But that’s not the way The Bard wants it.

As the two of them wrestle with Shakespeare’s quill, rewriting Shakespeare’s tragedy about the famous “star-cross’d lovers” on the run, Juliet is given a second chance at life.

Cast members of & Juliet. Photo © Daniel Boud

So begins & Juliet, which features around 30 infectious songs by Swedish pop maestro Max Martin (who wrote hits for the likes of Britney Spears, P!nk and Katy Perry) and a book by David West Read (a writer for Schitt’s Creek).

After premiering in Manchester in the UK in 2019, & Juliet transferred to London’s West End, then opened on Broadway in 2022. The Australian production began life in Melbourne in 2023 and has since toured to Singapore and Perth, before now arriving in Sydney.

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