Romeo and Juliet totally works as a modern musical. There's the current show with Jeff Buckley's folk-rock ballads from the 1990's and, of course, West Side Story.
So I'm brainstorming other angles for a culturally relevant (read: money-making) version of the play.
I got this great idea today because our nanny is out of town. How about modernizing Romeo and Juliet as a story about a mom and a nanny? Specifically, about how the mom (Lady Capulet) feels helpless and pathetic because her nanny (the Nurse) knows her child better than she does? This is practically a sub-text in the play, so why not tease it out as the main dramatic tension?
The scene where the Nurse talks about Juliet falling and bumping her head as a child could be spoken during a montage of Lady Capulet going to the office and stressing out about a big presentation in front of the company CEO. And there could be a scene where the Nurse is off on vacation with the other Gossips in town, and Lady Capulet doesn't know what to make Juliet for lunch.
Are you feeling it yet?
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