Los Angeles Times
- Highly Recommended
"...This good-time jukebox musical relies as much on its wit as on its catalog of pop hits. The show's music and lyrics are credited to Max Martin and friends - which sounds like a low-key cool table at the Grammy Awards. The clever book by Emmy winner David West Read ("Schitt's Creek") creates a world that can contain the show's musical riches without having to shoehorn in songs in the shameless fashion of "Mamma Mia!""
Stage and Cinema
- Recommended
"...About five minutes into & Juliet, Juliet belts “…Baby One More Time” with such raw confusion you half-believe Britney’s lyrics might hold the secrets of the universe. It should collapse under its own absurdity, yet it lands. That is the show in miniature: ridiculous on purpose and, against the odds, brilliant."
LA Splash
- Highly Recommended
"...& JULIET features over two dozen singles on the Billboard Hot 100 since 1998. Celebrated vocalists like Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys, and Katy Perry introduced Max Martin's popular pop anthems to the world. Adjectives like "bold, cheesy, and brash" were coupled with "high energy, fun, joyous experience...campy and irreverent" to describe the musical workaround of a Shakespeare classic which asks the question: What would happen if Juliet decides not to kill herself?"
Stage Scene LA
- Highly Recommended
"...Romeo's teenage bride gets a new lease on life in the West End-to-Broadway smash & Juliet, quite possibly the most hit-packed musical in Broadway history and one that now tops my list of favorite shows of the past ten years right up there with The Prom, Come From Away, and Dear Evan Hansen."
Angeles Stage
- Highly Recommended
"...“& Juliet” is almost entirely a jukebox musical, with a score of mostly pre-existing pop hits by Max Martin (“and friends,” according to the program credit). The only exception is the song “One More Try,” which Martin wrote specifically for “& Juliet.” But if you dislike the connotation of “jukebox musical,” think again."
Stage Raw
- Somewhat Recommended
"...Truly, even more than a story about William and Anne, & Juliet is about putting Max Martin's songs in one soundtrack. But when the songs don't stack up to the originals and their combination doesn't make a whole greater than the sum of its parts, the result is an unfocused and disappointing experience."
Ticket Holders LA
- Highly Recommended
"...What an incredibly entertaining evening in the theatre. I've made a few references in reviews lately about big, glitzy Broadway transplants that seem to be geared from the get-go for an eventual run in Vegas at the Mandalay Bay or the Venetian. In the case of the dazzlingly and continually in-your-face national tour of the international hit jukebox musical & Juliet, that's hardly meant as though that goal is a bad thing."
Indulge Magazine
- Highly Recommended
"...At the center of it all, Rachel Simone Webb delivers nothing short of a star-making turn. She doesn't just play Juliet-she reinvents her, marrying luminous charisma with a voice that sails through Martin's pop juggernauts as though Britney, Celine, and Kelly Clarkson had been waiting all along for a Shakespearean vessel. Webb takes what could have been clever gimmickry and elevates it into something electric, heartfelt, and downright inevitable. She is the glowing heartbeat of this production. The ensemble matches her fire, igniting each number with joyously unbridled energy. Whether riffing on the Backstreet Boys or unleashing Clarkson's powerhouse belts, the cast reclaims radio staples and infuses them with theatrical verve. These are not karaoke covers but character-driven reinventions, each one a mini revelation."
Nerds Of Color
- Recommended
"...& Juliet, now performing in Los Angeles at the Ahmanson Theatre on their national tour, is a bombastic jukebox musical combo of Shakespeare and '90s and 2000s pop music that will leave a gigantic smile on your face when you leave the theatre."
