Is there really a Romeo and Juliet musical?
Yes, there is. It was originally a French musical that came out in 2001 called Romeo et Juliette. It’s been translated into a bunch of different languages and different countries have put on their own productions. It was also revived in France in 2010. There’s a bunch of different productions. For example, the Hungarian is quite different (in costuming/staging/design) from the others but absolutely excellent. (And we are blessed with both a proshot and subtitles.) The most recent is the Italian (proshot; boot - missing some of the dialogues and obv. video quality concerns but the Romeo casting is much better and it makes a lot of other things better tbh.) The Italian has canon gay :D The Russian is really fun (though, bootleg quality video and no subs) and the Austrian is super cute. (BN: version with no subs but also without text that takes up half the screen xD) Mexican version (I think a few of the songs are missing…) There are def other ones but finding video/audio for them can be really hard. Like there’s only an audio boot of the London one. (And good luck with any cast recordings that aren’t the French or Russian ones lol.)
The characterizations (and some plot points) vary between the musical(s) and Shakespeare canon as well as between the various musical productions themselves. Like, musical!Romeo is kind of a party boy who’s been with girls before, apparently, but just has never found the one to really go crazy about (until Juliet, supposedly). In contrast to Shakes!Romeo who is a quiet, moody dork who falls in love hard every time but just can’t seem to get a girl to like him back (until Juliet). Mercutio in the various productions runs the spectrum from spunky, flouncy gay (Hungarian) to lovable little shit (Russian) to really fucking Extra (French revival) to wtf this guy def has issues (Italian). Tybalt also spans the range from goon to Kylo Ren-eque woobie (Hungarian).
And while no one asked, my favorite production is the Hungarian. But it’s also quite unique in its feel and approach to the other ones. The original French is, well, the original, but oddly enough, it’s probably one of my least favorite ones.
Anyway, yea, it’s a lot. But it can be fun too. The fandom is its own story.