Rain or shine, auditions for & Juliet pushed through at the Manila Marriott’s Grand Ballroom on August 17 and 18. Turnout was heavy enough that Full House Theater Company (FHTC) extended the open call into a third day, August 19, after severe flooding from the habagat — the southwest monsoon that dumped over 200mm of rain on Metro Manila in a single five-hour stretch on August 17 — kept some hopefuls from making it to the first two days.

Produced by FHTC, & Juliet will be staged at Westside Resort — Travellers Group’s still-finishing integrated resort in Parañaque’s Entertainment City gambling district.

What & Juliet Actually Is

& Juliet is a jukebox musical — its songs are pulled from an existing catalog rather than written for the show — built entirely on the pop discography of Swedish songwriter-producer Max Martin, credited with more No. 1 hits this century than any other songwriter: Britney Spears’s “…Baby One More Time,” Katy Perry’s “Roar,” Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” the Backstreet Boys’ “Larger Than Life.” The premise, from Emmy-winning Schitt’s Creek writer David West Read, imagines Shakespeare’s Juliet refusing the ending everyone knows — his wife Anne Hathaway, in the show’s framing device, argues him into letting Juliet live and rewrite her own story instead of dying for Romeo. It premiered in London’s West End, then moved to Broadway in 2022, picking up nine Tony nominations along the way, including Best Musical. FHTC’s version is licensed through Music Theatre International, the same New York rights house behind The Notebook‘s Manila run, and FHTC is billing it as the “first-ever homegrown Asian production” — not a touring import, a cast built here.

The Pattern This Fits Into

& Juliet is the third major Broadway-licensed musical to land on a Manila stage within roughly a year, after Theatre Group Asia’s all-Filipino staging of The Notebook and 9 Works Theatrical’s upcoming production of Frozen. But those two are licensors trusting an existing Manila theater house with a name they already know. & Juliet is Travellers Group betting on itself twice over — building a cast from an open call and opening a venue that isn’t finished, in the same production.

Cast, exact theater within Westside Resort, performance dates, and ticket details remain unannounced, and whether the dance-callback and final-casting timeline shifted along with the open-call extension is also unconfirmed. FHTC has said only that the show is part of its 2027 season, with more announcements to follow through its official channels.