\ud83c\udfad NEW! Tampa Theatre Newsletter<\/p>\n
Created by the Emmy\u00ae\u2011winning writer from Schitt\u2019s Creek, & Juliet lit up the Straz last night with a riot of color, comedy, and unapologetic girl\u2011power energy, but what made this production unforgettable was how boldly it reclaimed the women who had lived too long in Shakespeare\u2019s margins. The soundtrack may have been a love song to Millennials, but this GenX reviewer had an absolute blast hearing these pop anthems reimagined.<\/p>\n
\ud83c\udfad NEW! Tampa Theatre Newsletter<\/p>\n
Anne Hathaway<\/a>, the barely mentioned wife of William Shakespeare<\/a>, delivered some of the sharpest lines of the night. She opened the show by confronting her playwright husband about the terrible ending of Romeo and Juliet. She questioned why Juliet had to die and wondered what might happen if the story allowed a different outcome. She asked Shakespeare, \u201cAre you a strong enough man to write a stronger woman?\u201d and the entire story unfolded as her answer. Crystal Kellogg<\/a>\u2019s Anne was a force, funny and grounded with a voice that could stop the room.<\/p>\n Lois Ellise<\/a>\u2019s Juliet was phenomenal, bringing innocence, rebellion, and comic spark to a character we all thought we knew. Her voice soared, and she wasn\u2019t alone. Angelique, Juliet\u2019s nursemaid, played by Kathryn Allison<\/a>, matched her note for note. Together, they formed powerhouse vocalists who lifted the score into something transcendent. Every time Juliet, Angelique, or Anne stepped into a number, the audience leaned forward, knowing they were about to be hit with something extraordinary.<\/p>\n The ensemble around them delivered humor, heart, and high\u2011energy choreography, but the women at the center – their voices, their agency, their insistence on rewriting the narrative – made the night soar.<\/p>\n While there were other brilliant men in the cast, including Noah Marlowe<\/a> as shy Francois, Paul <\/a>Jordan Jansen<\/a> as his overbearing father, Lance, and Joseph Torres<\/a> as the multi\u2011two\u2011timing Romeo, the show still belonged to the women. Especially now.<\/p>\n The plot of Juliet escaping her controlling parents only to land in a marriage arranged to protect Francois from being forced into the military added a surprising twist with Britney Spears<\/a>\u2019 \u201cOops!… I Did It Again.\u201d It was a clever reminder that even when you run from one cage, another can be waiting. Watching Juliet recognize that truth and step into her own power was one of the most moving arcs of the night.<\/p>\n The back\u2011and\u2011forth between Shakespeare and Anne as narrators was cheeky fun, especially as they kept rewriting the story from the sidelines and then leaping into the action as characters themselves. CJ Eldred<\/a>\u2019s Shakespeare played beautifully against Kellogg\u2019s Anne, their tug-of-war giving the show a playful, meta-theatrical heartbeat.<\/p>\n Juliet\u2019s Best Friend<\/a>, May, played with warmth and honesty by Nico Ochoa, was another standout. Their nonbinary identity was treated with the kind of effortless acceptance that should be standard in storytelling. Juliet\u2019s line (possibly paraphrased), \u201cYou are not he or she. You are my friend,\u201d landed with quiet beauty. I teared up when May found their true love and yet again when Juliet finally claimed her own agency with Katy Perry\u2019s powerful \u201cRoar.\u201d<\/p>\n & Juliet wasn\u2019t just a musical, but a reminder that stories evolve when women don\u2019t hesitate to take the plume.<\/p>\n Reader Reviews<\/p>\n To post a comment, you must register<\/a> and login<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\ud83c\udfad NEW! Tampa Theatre Newsletter Get all the top news & discounts for Tampa & beyond. Created by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-151783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}