WISCONSIN — Fresh off a Jimmy Awards win and a high school graduation, Fabiola Caraballo Quijada had no idea what was coming for her.
She had her plans in place. Go to college at Texas State University. Become a theatre major.
Then she got an audition for the leading role in the touring Broadway production of “& Juliet” — and she booked it.
“I was so, so excited,” Caraballo Quijada said, reflecting on her college plans. “But you know, plans change and the Lord takes twists and turns to our stories.”
The award-winning jukebox musical poses the question: what if Juliet hadn’t ended it all over Romeo? It’s told through familiar (but reimagined) pop anthems from artists like Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, The Backstreet Boys, NSYNC and more.
Fabiola Caraballo Quijada and the company of the North American Tour of “& Juliet.” (Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)
Caraballo Quijada describes it as “two hours of so much fun, color, energy.”
She remembers being pleasantly surprised by how the musical wow’d her the first time she saw it.
“I was just turned on my head. I was like, well, this is incredible, not at all what I was expecting. And then I got the chance to audition, and no other character had felt so right as Juliet; like she and I are just so, so similar,” she said.
Much like Caraballo Quijada’s fresh new beginning on Broadway, her character Juliet is energized to begin one of her own too. The parallels go on.
“I feel like I’m just playing myself on stage most of the time because I am just like one big ball of uncontrollable energy,” she said.
The transition to full-time show life for Caraballo Quijada hasn’t been without its challenges.
The company of the North American Tour of “& Juliet.” (Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)
“This show is very, very vocally demanding. Then, at a certain point, your body starts freaking out, like, why are we doing this so often? We have to change something,” Caraballo Quijada said.
Vocal lessons and training have been a big help, she said, especially in the process of taking on big, iconic songs like “Since U Been Gone,” “I Kissed a Girl,” “…Baby One More Time,” and “As Long As You Love Me.”
“Blow,” by Ke$ha, is one that sticks out to Caraballo Quijada. Set in a Parisian nightclub, the song features Caraballo Quijada flying from a chandelier.
“It might be my favorite musical arrangement of this musical; it just keeps the techno-like disco integrity of the actual recording song, but as its own musical theater taste, and it’s just so beautiful,” she said.
“Roar” and “It’s My Life” are a few more of Caraballo Quijada’s favorites. In fact, she said she dances in the wings for “It’s My Life” because it’s just so much fun.
The costumes are another selling point. Asked how many she wears, Caraballo Quijada mutters to herself, counting them up. From a jacket to a maroon-orange ombre dress to a bedazzled war corset, each one is unique.
Fabiola Caraballo Quijada in the North American Tour of “& Juliet.” (Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)
Just like the costumes follow a journey, so do each of the characters in in this flipped script version of the famous tragedy turned comedy.
“Juliet is just, she’s young, and she’s naïve and she’s just trying to have fun, she ends up making mistakes along the way but she learns that there are solutions to problems and things fall into place the way that they should in the end and that’s destiny and it is in her own hands and no one else’s,” she said.
She said she hopes audiences come to the show and realize this too: that destiny can change at any moment and they have the power to mold it.
“You can decide to start living your truth and living a life of acceptance and love and understanding,” Caraballo Quijada said. “It really takes listening to others and understanding what they’re going through.”
Caraballo Quijada said it’s inspiring to see a show that represents so many different relationships, too.
“We have a marriage that is re-conciliated on stage. We have a queer love story that is represented, which is so, so cool because not very many musicals are blasting that on the mainstream. We have female empowerment, we have father-son reconciliations — there’s just, there’s so much love on stage and I think it’s really beautiful that it shows people that it can take many forms,” she said.
The company of the North American Tour of “& Juliet.” (Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)
For Caraballo Quijada, this early opportunity to pursue her dream has felt incredible. She said as an immigrant, it’s empowering doing what she came here to do.
“I’m showing other people that these kinds of things are possible. The hard work pays off in ways that you can never really imagine…” she said.
“What I do every day on stage is I try to give back to the people in the audience and show them that I am a testament to a parent’s love and to bravery just in every sense because big leaps are scary and my family and I have taken leaps of faith in so, so many different ways and it’s good to know that we can all have happy endings.”
“& Juliet” heads to Appleton first, with shows at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center from June 2-7. You can get tickets for that, here.
It then heads south to Milwaukee, running from June 9-14 at the Marcus Performing Arts Center. You can purchase tickets, here.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source spectrumnews1.com ’
