Britney Spears meets Romeo and Juliet: Welcome to the future of musical theatre

Even if you’ve never heard the name Max Martin, it’s guaranteed you’ve heard his music. The Swedish songwriter is the architect of no fewer than 25 Billboard No. 1 songs, more than any other musician aside from John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

He’s collaborated with Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Maroon 5 and Australia’s own The Veronicas, but it’s his work with some of the most iconic pop stars of the 1990s that cemented his reputation as a king of hits.

Lorinda May Merrypor will play the lead role in & Juliet in Melbourne.Credit:Eugene Hyland

NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys might have been battling it out for the 90s boy band throne, but two of their biggest hits, It’s Gonna Be Me and I Want It That Way respectively, were actually written by the same person: Max Martin. He’s also responsible for Britney Spears’ breakout single …Baby One More Time.

It’s an extraordinary catalogue, so it’s probably not a surprise that Martin’s wife suggested he try to turn it into a musical. Who wouldn’t want to hear contemporary renditions of their favourite nostalgic pop hits belted out on stage?

Jukebox musicals, which largely feature existing popular songs rather than original music, have been around for decades but the massive popularity of 1999’s Mamma Mia! based on ABBA’s discography spurred on other producers. Musicals based on the songs of Queen (We Will Rock You), Peter Allen (The Boy From Oz), The Beach Boys (Good Vibrations) and Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (Jersey Boys) soon followed.

But the challenge for Martin was that his music had been performed by dozens of different artists. There was no consistency in sound, or even theme. What would the story be? How do you string together a musical that features artists as diverse as the Backstreet Boys, Ariana Grande and Bon Jovi?

Max Martin (right) called on David West Read to help him string his musical together that has songs from artists like Backstreet Boys, Ariana Grande and Bon Jovi.

You turn to one of the writers of the massively popular sitcom Schitt’s Creek, obviously.

“It was January 2016 and my agents asked me if I wanted to pitch a story for a Max Martin musical,” says David West Read, a Canadian playwright and Emmy-award-winning TV writer. “I didn’t know who Max Martin was, so I had to Google it.”

Read quickly discovered that Martin was the writer behind all his favourite pop songs from the past three decades. The idea of having access to that kind of treasure trove of music was a dream come true for a playwright. He was excited to pitch, but then hit his head on a kitchen cabinet and gave himself a concussion.

“I had to lie in a dark room for a couple of weeks, and I just listened to the playlist of Max’s music over and over to try and let a story come out of it,” Read says. “I asked myself ‘What are the common elements?’.”

The answer? Heartbreak and young love.

“The ultimate story of young love and heartbreak is Romeo and Juliet. The basic concept was an alternate ending to Romeo and Juliet. What if Juliet didn’t kill herself? And what if she had another chance of love and happiness? That was the pitch”.

Karina Carvalho interviewing Max Martin, David West Luke Sheppard and Jennifer Weber at the announcement that Melbourne will play home to the hit musical ‘& Juliet’.Credit:The Age

It worked. Read was flown to LA to pitch it to Martin in his studio. Martin loved it, but there was one more hurdle to clear: getting his high-school-age daughter, who was studying Shakespeare, over the line.

“I pitched it again over dinner and said to Max, ‘I hope to see you soon’. He gave me a big hug and said: ‘You will, whether you like it or not.’ And we went from there.”

The end result is & Juliet, an Olivier-award-winning musical that, after debuting in Manchester, has been performed to critical acclaim in London’s West End, Toronto, and Broadway and is coming to Australia later this month.

As per Read’s pitch, the story follows an alternate end to the well-known story where Juliet wakes up to find Romeo dead, kickstarting her journey of self-discovery and liberation, soundtracked by dozens of Martin’s best-known songs.

Tying the worlds of Shakespeare and Britney Spears together was always going to be tricky. The producers turned to UK-based theatre director Luke Sheppard, whose previous work includes directing productions of Rent and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights.

“What excited me most was how brave [& Juliet] was,” Sheppard says. “I didn’t know a huge amount about pop music before this, but I knew how these songs spoke to people like my sister, my mum, my grandma.

“What the show does is celebrate pop as an art form, it celebrates musical theatre as an art form, it celebrates Shakespeare as an art form.”

David West Read, Max Martin, Jennifer Weber, Luke Sheppard at the first rehearsal for & JULIET.

What followed Sheppard’s appointment was a process of mutual learning. He took Martin and the team to see different musicals. They took him to see Katy Perry and Justin Timberlake in concert. The result is a show that is rooted in the traditions of musical theatre, but often feels like a rock concert – complete with confetti and a rush of euphoria.

In a way, & Juliet is the inevitable result of a few different forces at play in the world of theatre, and pop culture more broadly. Post-modern interpretations of classics like Shakespeare allow contemporary writers and directors to use familiar stories and tell stories that feel more relevant to current social and political conversations. Romeo and Juliet can go from being a play rooted in hierarchy and patriarchy to one that interrogates masculinity and romantic jealousy.

Alongside that is the Hamilton effect. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s astonishingly popular musical fused history and hip-hop to bring a new generation of musical lovers into theatres, and showed that diversity could be effortlessly embedded into modern productions. Thematically, & Juliet has little in common with Hamilton but it’s likely to appeal to similar audiences: younger cohorts who want a compelling story, fun and accessible music, familiar pop-cultural references, and a cast that actually looks like modern Australia.

The future of musical theatre is here, and if it continues to use the medium to evoke important social conversations while making you feel like you’re at a concert, then long may it live.

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