&janiqueel will be there to play along. Showing at Marina Bay Sands 21 September to 8 October
Romeo and Juliet with a twist – and what a twist.
There’s an old saying that applies to me: you can’t lose a game if you don’t play the game.
Wm. Shakespeare
Imagine, if you will, a production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, but one in which the winsome teens do not die at the end. That’s exactly what & Juliet, a modern take on a classic tale of love and loss, does – it imagines how circumstances might have been different: More modern. More edgy. More laughs. More Music. So much more music.
Spoiler alert: Here comes a plot synopsis, but fret not, to see it unfold amid the music and motion of a superb Australia-based cast, will be a marvel, especially with a bit of aforehand familiarity with which to fully appreciate the play.
By the end of & Juliet, a play within a play, both of the title stars are alive and well and… Oh, I don’t want to be too much of a spoiler. In this trendy, wild, funny version, Juliet and her nurse Angelique together with newly written characters, April and May, head to Paris. This rewrite is done by Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare’s real wife) and the playwright himself.
As the play-within-a-play hurtles along, with romance everywhere abloom. In Paris, the four fends attend a gala ball hosted by Lance who hopes to find a wife for his young son, Francois. As you might imagine, complications ensue. Nurse Angelique and Lance have a history. May is enraptured with Francois. Anne and William, behind the scenes, have to resolve the many plot twists that they have written.
In a major plot twist, Juliet and Francois plot an elopement of convenience. He, to avoid the military service his father insists upon. She, to circumvent her parents’ plan to send her to a convent. Does their ploy succeed? Hmm…
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
Wm. Shakespeare
Carrying all this mischief along is a rousing array of pop tunes originally from Britteny Spears, Backstreet Boys, Jessie J, Robyn, Kesha, Demi Lovato, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande, Ellie Goulding, Kelly Clarkson, Celine Dion, Adam Lambert, NSYNC, Pink, Bon Jovi, and Justin Timberlake. You’ll recognize many if not all of the songs as they highlight the plot, characters, and actors. Songs like “Since U Been Gone”, “Roar”, “Baby One More Time”, “Larger Than Life”, “That’s the Way It Is”, and “Can’t Stop the Feeling”, to name a few. We are talking MUSICAL with all the dynamic song, dance, repartee, and frivolity that that implies.
Like the original Romeo and Juliet, & Juliet brings to the stage the intrigue of watching characters deal with the sticky situation in which they find themselves.
Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- it’s everything except what it is!
Wm. Shakespeare
For the Singapore production, under the direction of Chantal Prudhomme, the cast is comprised mainly of local talent well-versed in the special demands made by a play, hundreds of years old, transferred in the twenty-first century and presented in Singapore by Base Entertainment Asia.
Having brought many plays, musicals, and stage acts to Singapore, Base Entertainment plays a large role in making our Garden City into what some are starting to call “The Broadway of Asia”. At first blush, that may sound a bit pretentious, but with West End and Broadway productions like War Horse, Slava’s Snow Show, The Sound of Music, Guys and Dolls, The Lion King, and many others the claim hardly seems exaggerated.
You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings
Wm. Shakespeare
and soar with them above a common bound.




MUA Kristina







Research and writing help from JKJ