Review: &Juliet at Regal Theatre
&Juliet Presented by WAAPA at Regal Theatre
Saturday, September 12, 2026
The future of Australian musical theatre is in safe hands, if the current crop of WAAPA third-year students is anything to go by. &Juliet is a high-energy production full of big dance numbers, fun pop music and broad comedy, so it is a perfect canvas for this young cast to joyously show off their incredible talent.
Having already had great success around the world since its premiere in 2019, &Juliet is a jukebox musical, meaning that all of the songs are well-known covers, usually by a single artist. In this case the songs were all written by the superstar songwriter Max Martin. If that name doesn’t sound familiar, the songs certainly will. He wrote massive hits for Britney Spears, NSync, The Backstreet Boys, Demi Lovato, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, P!nk, Robyn, and so many more, which feature in &Juliet.
The premise of the show is that it is the opening night of Romeo and Juliet, and Shakespeare’s wife Anne has travelled to London to see it. When she finds out that Juliet dies in the end, she insists that he change the ending so that Juliet can live her life however she chooses. What follows is a reimagination of the famous play, where Juliet gets to choose her own destiny, while Anne and William Shakespeare wrestle over control of the narrative. The themes are 21st century, the humour is camp, the dancing intense and the singing outstanding.
The entire cast impressed, but there were several standout performances from young performers worth remembering. The vocals of Abby Dickson as Anne Hathaway managed to stand out in an incredibly strong group of singers, while the comedy of William Johnstone as Lance, the silly noble with an on-again off-again French accent, really hit the mark. The disarming vulnerability of Aydin Suitela as the queer young lover François brought a grounding note of earnestness to balance out so much frothy light-heartedness, while Charlotte Allen as Eleanor and Benvolio brought so much charisma to the dance numbers it was impossible to look away.
Juliet was played by Alice Williams (replacing Jess Suares) who nailed the portrayal of a naïve, loveably annoying ingenue faced with decisions that will determine the course of her life. Oliver Miskovich as Shakespeare entered the stage as the adored playwright with a god complex but was quickly reduced by his wife to a clowning player and eventually brought back to earth as a loving husband in a satisfying character arc. These performances were as good as you could hope to see in a major touring production, and everyone left the stage covered in glitter.
Special mention should go to the costume designer, Tenielle Harris, for the mashup of contemporary and Shakespearean styles which gave a visual language to the free-play with history happening on stage. There were singlets with ruff collars, ladies’ gowns with sneakers, and Juliet attending a ball in a sparkly leotard, which gave the audience the constant reminder that it doesn’t have to make sense; it just has to be fun.
Like a Shakespearean comedy, there is nothing subtle about this play. Everything is high-energy technicolour, with broadly drawn characters, silly laughs, more songs than required to move the plot, buckets of pop culture references and an overt feminist message. In other words, everything a musical comedy should be.
SAMANTHA ROSENFELD
