Dominic Fallacaro and Bill Sherman (‘& Juliet’ orchestrations) on using strings to bring a ‘cohesive’ sound to Max Martin’s pop catalog [Exclusive Video Interview]
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“It was a major challenge,” admits Bill Sherman on working with the wide variety of music used in “& Juliet.” He and collaborator Dominic Fallacaro created the orchestrations for the new Broadway musical, which uses pop songs by Max Martin to imagine what would have happened if Shakespeare’s Juliet chose to live. The pair were nominated for Best Orchestrations at this year’s Tony Awards for their efforts. “How do you create a score? How do you create a cohesive thing?” were the questions reverberating in the pair’s head according to Sherman, “Ariana Grande doesn’t sound like Pink, who doesn’t sound like the Backstreet Boys.” Watch the exclusive video interview.
In order to bring a sense of cohesiveness to the varied soundtrack, the pair explored instruments that would have been found in Shakespeare’s time. They landed on harpsichords and strings as the unifying element which would form a throughline in the music. Not only would this help locate audiences in the period of the play while they listened to contemporary tunes, but strings are the one type of instrument that Martin tends not to include in his songs. According to Fallacaro, this gave the duo a unique opportunity to get creative while unifying the soundtrack, constantly asking themselves: “how do we make these songs the best version of our story?”
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That task extended beyond instrumentals and into the very structure of each song. Radio-ready pop hits generally use a repetitive verse/chorus structure, which runs counter to the goal of musical theater. “Every lyric has to count, every lyric has to move the story along,” explains Sherman. So the team heavily edited each number in order to cut down on repetition and ensure that each tune was successfully furthering the plot and aiding in character development. “There’s no full song in all of “& Juliet,’” he admits, with Fallacaro adding: “then sometimes it’s us thinking about how we can, if we’re returning to the chorus, how do we make this one different? How do we amp up the second time we hear the chorus?” He references the multiple tricks they use to differentiate each entrance to the chorus of Robyn’s “Show Me Love,” which keeps the audience engaged and gives the actors a chance to allow the emotion of the lyrics to build.
In some cases, Sherman and Fallacaro hit the audience with a dose of nostalgia in how they present a song, but in many instances their orchestrations transform a familiar track into something entirely new and unexpected. Max Martin was adamant that if the duo was keen on changing the sound of a song, then they had to go all out, so their adjustments are bold. “If we’re going to go there, then go all the way there and really explore it being a completely different idea and a completely different sound and a completely different tonality,” says Sherman.
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The orchestrators cite “Baby One More Time” as a prime example of this type of total reinvention. The tempo starts slow, with a haunting pulse that drives through an instrumental intro as if it’s Juliet’s heartbeat. As a result, there is a greater focus on the lyrics, which in the context of “& Juliet” are used to convey the title character’s inner thoughts as she decides not to end her life. “We were really given the longest possible leash to do that and really got to go super far with it,” notes Fallacaro. “I love that Max gave us the room to imagine what a string quartet sounds like on Britney Spears.”
Sherman is a past Tony winner for “In the Heights.” The cast recordings of “In the Heights” and “Hamilton” have netted him two Grammy wins. He is a three-time Daytime Emmy winner for his songwriting on “Sesame Street.” Fallacaro earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for “The 93rd Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.” “& Juliet” marks his first ever Tony nomination.
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