Since 2019 Juliet: A Revenge Comedy has been touring North America. Written by Loose Moose Alumni Ryan Gladstone, who plays Shakespeare, and Pippa Mackie, the show has Juliet Lili Beaudoin) doesn’t kill herself. While the story sounds similar to the Broadway hit & Juliet, the play predates the musical and tells a different story.

"It's funny when we did the show in the Toronto Fringe, that was when Mervish had their & Juliet premiere," recalled actor Carly Pokoradi. "Our show is telling the story about what happens if Juliet decides not to die because she's only 13 and she just met this guy like two days ago.  Our Juliet takes off and literally wrenches herself from the pages of Shakespeare's folio. She's not only running through her own world, she's running through space and time. She's going through different plays from Shakespeare's cannon and she's coming upon all these other women from Shakespeare's work who were doomed to suffer the same fate as her, which is to take their own lives. The other women who are at the precipice of doing the similar thing as she was, whether it's for love, whether it's kind of left in the shadows when they do it, many different reasons she figures out. And she bands them all together and they go on this revenge tour that's very physical, very fast, and very funny."

Lili Beaudoin plays Juliet while Pokoradi plays the other female characters from Lady Macbeth to Ophelia and even Cleopatra.

"I play everyone else that she interacts with throughout, from in Romeo and Juliet all the way to the end as she goes through all these other different Shakespearian plays, it's all me, baby. Some of the lines I get to say are some of the most famous and sought after lines in western theater history, it’s a dream I love getting to do this role. It's one of the most fun shows I've ever gotten to be a part of."

Whether a traditional production or a creatively licensed look at this story, the works of William Shakespear are still studied and performed around the world.

"When you actually look at the text and when you see how the stories he tells, there's a universality of humanity to it. And as much as we're skewering him in our show from a feminist perspective, it is incredible some of the perspective that he offered to women at that time, especially considering there weren't even women in his plays. It was all like young boys dressed as the female parts. It is amazing considering how long ago they were written, how much we can mine from them today."

A hit on the Canadian Fringe circuit, the show made its off-Broadway debut in 2025.

"It was incredibly dream pinching and everything you would expect it to be. At that time there was a big animosity. Tariffs were high, tensions were happening. At the end of every show when we said we were from Canada there would just be this eruption of warmth, and we had people that would come back and bring friends with them, and we were only there for 2 weeks.

Juliet: A Revenge Comedy runs for just 4 shows January 21, 23, and 24^th. Whether a long-time fan of Shakespear or new to it, the show promises an unforgettable evening.

"If you love Shakespeare, you should come see it if you hate Shakespeare. It is going to surprise you in ways that you're not expecting. It's super-fast, very funny. It'll speed by and you'll want to come back again to see all the jokes you missed."

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Contributor Jason Clevett |

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Locale Calgary |

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Topic One Yellow Rabbit | Theatre |

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