The Cast Photo by Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade

This story begins with the death of Romeo, with Juliet (Fabiola Caraballo Quijada) waking in the tomb. (The first scene notes that this can't possibly be a spoiler because, after all, the play has been around for hundreds of years.) This time, though, fate intervenes in the form of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's wife (Crystal Kellogg), a woman who is left in Stratford with the kids for months at a time by her famous husband. Anne, as it happens, has hired a babysitter and traveled to London to see her hubby's latest play. When she learns of the ending, though, she is stunned: he had told her the story was based on their love, and he has them die? No way! Shakespeare, also a significant character here, played by CJ Eldred, allows this because he is sure she will not like the tedium of the craft and give up. But Anne knows exactly what she wants: she rewrites the last scene so that Romeo remains dead but Juliet never kills herself.

The never-dead young bride's parents (even worse here than in the original) order her into a nunnery, but Juliet feels that that would be a different kind of death. She is joined by her nurse (Kathryn Allison, who finds all the power and the humor in a woman here dubbed "Angelique"), her nonbinary best friend, May (Nico Ochoa, who never once allows what could easily have been a caricature to leave the realm of romantic possibility), and her other bestie, April (Anne's self-insertion into the new plot line).

The jukebox part of this show is very heavy on early 21st century music, especially including Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. Joey Fatone, a founding member of *NSYNC (Backstreet Boys' rivals in boy-band territory), is here as well. Fatone plays Lance, a former lover of Angelique who is also the French father of Francois (Noah Marlowe), a young man whom the travelers meet at a party–I guess Anne didn't mind reusing her husband's structure–and who ends up kissing both May and Juliet, though apparently he has never kissed anyone before.

Fatone has a wonderful time here, and it is a clever meta twist that he sings so many Backstreet Boys songs. (Marlowe gets to sing the only *NSYNC number in the show.) Fatone's presence is clearly a selling point–he's a veteran Broadway performer and very well known. The crowd instantly recognized him on opening night, and his work here is excellent. Lance does have a bent for traditional parenting and even threatens his son with forcing him to join the military, but he reveals a softer side as the play goes on.

I'm going to give something away here. Forgive me, but I have to talk about Joseph Torres' really fun performance as Romeo. Yes: Romeo. Shakespeare, realizing that Anne won't stop, decides to revise her revision and resurrect the boy that Anne had already established was a serial womanizer. (All that lovely flirting poetry? It is the east and Juliet is the sun and all? That was just his regular schtick.) Obviously, this Romeo can't be the same as the one in the original play, and Torres has lots of fun deconstructing his character.

But it is Quijada, who was winning high school accolades only a year ago, who makes the play work. Her Juliet is both sweet and (with Anne's help) worldly, innocent and a bit bawdy (which she must have learned from the truly bawdy Angelique), and a perfect choice to glue all of this together. Like the rest of the cast, her singing and dancing is superb, and she easily sells even scenes that contrive to have her flying in the air (on a moon or a chandelier) or climbing out on a balcony (of course). And she demonstrates some serious acting range as well, as in a momentary crisis of confidence she has near the end, when Angelique beautifully serenades her with Pink's "Fucking Perfect," a beautiful message to all kids everywhere, especially those who don't receive enough love.

Luke Sheppard directs and Jennifer Weber choreographs this wonderful, uplifting, English class adjacent play by Max Martin and David West Read. & Juliet is an aggressively anachronistic musical comedy based on a tragedy turned on its edge, and every choice it makes works. I loved it. It is only here for two weeks, though, so don't delay.

& Juliet runs through August 2, 2026, at The Auditorium Theatre, 50 East Ida B. Wells Drive, Chicago IL. For tickets and information, please visit andjulietthemusical.com/