In the dazzling world of musical theatre, there are few works as innovative and boundary-pushing as & Juliet, a spectacular production that breathes new life into the timeless tale of Shakespeare’s tragic lovers, featuring the music of Swedish pop songwriter Max Martin.
As the highly anticipated musical makes its debut in Sydney, WHO had the privilege of sitting down with David West Read to explore the depths of his creative process, transitioning from television to Broadway, uncovering unexpected sources of inspiration—such as a concussion-induced epiphany—and delving into his delicate balance of blending classic literature with contemporary music.
Did you have any prior experience or knowledge of Max Martin’s music or Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet?
I knew Romeo and Juliet. I studied it in school like many, many people, but I’d actually never heard of Max Martin before. When my agent asked me if I wanted to pitch a Max Martin musical, I said, ‘I don’t know who that is,’ but then I Googled him and of course, found out that he has written all of the best pop songs from the last 30 years. So I knew all of his work, I just didn’t know his name. So that’s where I started.
How did that limited pre-conceived knowledge influence your approach to creating & Juliet – do you think it benefitted your creative process in hindsight?
I think so. Because I wasn’t precious that ‘oh, we have to get this song in’ or, ‘this is who I think Max is’… I could come at it with a fresh perspective.
Max and his wife Jenny decided they would be interested in exploring a musical based on his catalogue but they didn’t know what the story was, they just knew they didn’t want it to be something expected, like the story of a pop star or a boy band. So I had a blank canvas to come up with an idea.
I listened to a playlist of about 250 Max Martin songs and so many of them are about young love and heartbreak. That led me to the idea of the most famous story of young heartbreak – Romeo and Juliet – and thinking well, if we want to reinvent Max’s music and share it in a totally different way, it would be great to also reinvent this story of Juliet.
I read somewhere that a concussion played a role in your creative process and pitching the concept for & Juliet?
I don’t recommend it. I don’t recommend getting concussions to spark musical ideas. But I had hit my head on a kitchen cabinet. I was experiencing dizziness and wearing sunglasses everywhere and basically, I lay in a dark room with my playlist listening to music and it was in that dark space, that the idea of the musical came.
And how did you navigate the challenge of reimagining a classic like Romeo and Juliet while staying true to its essence and themes in & Juliet?
Well, there are a lot of Shakespearean references and in-jokes for anyone who is a big Shakespeare fan. But I think for me this is more the sequel than a revision. The idea is basically what if, at the end of the writing process, Anne Hathaway happens to enter the room and say, you know, what if instead of killing herself because of one boyfriend, who she’s known for three days, Juliet gave herself another chance. And so everything that happens in the show is more of an extension and an explosion out of the ending of Romeo and Juliet.
As you previously mentioned, there are so many easter eggs for Shakespeare fans in the musical. How did you go about incorporating them into & Juliet?
I mean, I love that it allowed me to write way more puns than would ever be included in a more modern story, just because I can say well Shakespearean had a lot of puns.
It was important to me that you can know nothing about Shakespeare and still enjoy the musical and you can also know nothing about Max Martin’s music and come to this as if everything was created for & Juliet.
When working on a concept for the musical, was there another Shakespeare classic you had in mind?
I was thinking more of what are the classic love stories rather than just Shakespeare. It’s so hard to market a brand new musical – so many of them are based on existing brands like a movie or a book or an artist. But with Max because he is so humble and stayed out of the spotlight saying that this is a Max Martin musical, it’s never going to give anyone something to grab onto. So it’s almost like we made Juliet the brand – that character you remember from school or the Baz Lurhman movie.
Fans also know you for your work on Schitts Creek and The Big Door Prize. As someone who has written for both television and stage, do you find yourself approaching character and plot differently when working on a musical compared to a TV show?
For me, the most exciting and also challenging part of writing a musical is that it has to be timeless. I started working on this in 2016 and a lot has happened since then. This musical has now gone on a journey from Manchester to London, to Toronto to New York, to now Melbourne, Singapore and Sydney and so you’re trying to write something that is universal, that doesn’t need a brand new translation every time it goes to a different culture, but also something that audiences will continue to enjoy every night.
I think there’s a push for longevity [with musicals], that is harder than a movie, which comes out and gets all the attention that year and wins all the awards and then you kind of move on to the next. I also find that it’s one of the most rewarding parts of [musicals], because I can come to Melbourne or Sydney and see this cast that I have never seen before and sit with an audience of people who have never seen it, and it feels fresh and exciting.
And how do you manage juggling multiple projects and genres simultaneously? I can imagine writing for both television and Broadway would be very different processes.
They are and I kind of shift channels in my brain. But also, the process of making these things is so long that when I have a break from the musical, I’m working on a TV thing and vice versa. They are all just different idioms and collaborations, so I’m lucky to have really talented people around me wherever I go. They help me get my brain back in whatever it is.
How did the collaboration with Max Martin come about for the original song One More Try? What was the inspiration behind including it in the musical?
One of the main amazing things about Max is he’s always trying to challenge himself and push himself outside of his comfort zone, AKA doing a stage musical when he had basically never seen a stage musical before.
Compared to people who are like ‘You can have my catalogue and just go make a musical because I want to cash the check’, Max’s thing in the beginning was, ‘I only want to do this if I can be really involved and help and learn and grow with it.’
He floated the idea of writing a new song for the musical and there was a natural place in the second act, where we didn’t really have a song in the catalogue that fit the particular moment. So I said to Max, it would be great to have a song like this and then he went and wrote this incredible song called ‘One More Try.’
I was able to write one lyric of the song for that, so I have a very tiny songwriting credit now in my career. In writing even just one lyric, I realised just how extremely difficult songwriting is.
What’s next in 2024? Last year you announced a project with Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, but is there anything else fans can expect from you?
Well, I have a second season of The Big Door Prize coming out on Apple TV in April which I’m very excited about. And then yes, I’m working on a new top-secret show with Matt McConaughey and Woody Harrelson based on their very real, very deep friendship, but I can’t really say much more about that! It’s going to be really exciting.
& Juliet, the internationally acclaimed musical from Emmy-winning writer David West Read is now playing at Sydney Lyric Theatre, starring Rob Mills, Casey Donovan and Amy Lehpamer. Buy Tickets Here.
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