Lorna Courtney Makes ‘& Juliet’ The Sun Of Broadway For Pop Fans And Perfectly Imperfect Girls Everywhere – Tony Award Watch Q&A
deadline.comLorna Courtney was barely out of the University of Michigan when Broadway first came calling. A native New Yorker – Queens, to be exact – and graduate of Manhattan’s performing arts LaGuardia High School, Courtney was a standby in Dear Evan Hansen in 2019 and 2020 before being cast in director Ivo van Hove’s boldly reimagined West Side Story, a production that did away with the iconic Jerome Robbins in favor of the riskier, more avant-garde stylings of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.
Both shows, but particularly the short-lived 2020 West Side Story – which closed due to the Covid pandemic shutdown and never re-opened – were learning experiences for Courtney, who now draws upon those earlier shows for her Tony-nominated performance as the star and title character of & Juliet.
The musical, which features songs written by hit-maker Max Martin (“Since U Been Gone,” “Roar,” “Baby One More Time,” “Larger Than Life,” “That’s The Way It Is,” “Can’t Stop the Feeling,” to name a selection), has become one of Broadway’s most successful crowd-pleasers, routinely pulling in weekly grosses well in excess of $1 million and filling seats at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre.
Deadline spoke this week to Courtney as she gears up for Sunday’s Tony Awards (her nomination is one of nine received by the production, including Best Musical).
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