Nathan Simmons, Stevey Hunter, Lou Campbell, and Peter Sarty
Stevey Hunter’s play Fat Juliet, produced by Eastern Front Theatre and Shakespeare By the Sea, is coming back to Alderney Landing theatre March 20th to 29th, 2025, and then is headed up to the Highland Arts Theatre in Sydney April 9th to 12th.
The show premiered in November, 2021 at Alderney Landing amid strict Covid-19 restrictions and SBTS and Eastern Front are thrilled to be re-mounting the show with the same cast members. I chatted with Stevey Hunter, who also plays Juliet, Peter Sarty, who plays Romeo, Nathan Simmons who plays Tybalt, and Lou Campbell, who plays Angel, along with director Kat McCormack at Alderney Landing about how excited they are to have the whole gang back together again.
Fat Juliet is a modern retelling of Shakespeare’s classic story, told entirely from Juliet’s point of view. As the title suggests, Juliet also happens to be fat. It is being described as a “sleepover romp” because, as McCormack says, “Last time we did [the show] Tara Thorne sent me some really sweet notes afterwards, including, ‘it was a ROMP’ in all caps. And I thought, ‘that is the highest praise, and exactly what I think we’re setting out to do.’ It’s very playful and it’s very fun, but it also like, oh god, it hits you right in your little teenage insecure heart. I feel like everybody feels bad about themselves at some point in their lives,” she says.
“Everyone has a fat Juliet inside them,” says Hunter. They mention that the stories we are told, especially as young people, often model an unrealistic image of the “perfect love story.” They mention that in Romeo and Juliet we are encouraged to believe that it is only Romeo and Juliet’s feuding parents standing in the way of their happily ever after. “They are also teenagers who are horny and in love. Question mark? How would that actually play out? And what are those thoughts that go on when you’re falling in love for the first time: ‘Am I actually loving myself?’ ‘Am I actually ready for this?’”
“Horny and sheltered too,” McCormack points out, “one of them kind of never leaves their room, especially in this case, but also in the actual Romeo and Juliet; you take out all the other scenes, [Juliet] never leaves her room except to get married or murdered.” She describes the older Romeo as “a man of the world,” and says, “It’s that question of who do you let into your life? Who do you let love you and affect you? And everyone’s messy at the end of the day.” Hunter adds, “It says a lot about society that our ‘greatest’ romance of all time involves a teen boy who is in love with a different girl at the beginning of the play, and then ends up dead with his betrothed at the end of the play. This is what we should aspire to? It’s really strange to not question that.” Hunter and McCormack point out the inherent power dynamic discrepancy between Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare’s play in that Juliet is approaching her fourteenth birthday, while Romeo is usually assumed to be seventeen or eighteen years old. In Fat Juliet Juliet is aged up to sixteen, but Hunter points out that with Romeo being nineteen, they are still in very different places in their lives, especially since Romeo has had previous relationships and Juliet has not. “What does a first love actually feel like and look like, especially if it’s coming from a perspective of a vulnerable sixteen year old who has grown up in a world where she feels like she shouldn’t love herself, or should be changing herself, and isn’t good enough? Which is how I think most of us feel,” says Hunter.
Hunter says that at the root of this play is the reality that as a plus sized actor in theatre school they wrote Juliet off as a character they might conceivably be able to play. “I was like, ‘I will wait 40 years and play the nurse,” they said. “I never related to Juliet,” says McCormack, “because the idea that someone would come up to me and be like, ‘I’m in love with you,’ and then touch me and I’d be comfortable with it… even in my wildest dreams, if my biggest crushes had shown up, I would have been so deeply insecure and sweating profusely. I wouldn’t have been able to accept that kind of love. So it felt like, ‘oh, that must be something that pretty people feel.’ But I actually don’t think that’s real for anyone. I don’t think anyone feels comfortable with themselves at the end of the day.”
In 2021 Fat Juliet’s first public performance was a sold-out student matinee. “The kids were screaming, they were crying. They were so invested in the piece and I thought, ‘this is exactly what we’re going for,” says McCormack; “we’re speaking to you, we’re speaking to ourselves.”
“I really feel like this is what I felt growing up watching Family Channel on Disney,” says Nathan Simmons, “I feel like because kids really do identify… just like growing up, me watching Lizzie McGuire, Hannah Montana, it has that same type of magic.” “I do remember distinctly,” says McCormack, “there’s a Billie Eilish song [in the show], and there were a bunch of girls at a table ahead of me, and the moment the song started, and they were already crying and deeply upset, and one of them turned to their friends and goes, ‘Of course. OF COURSE.’ And I was like, ‘yeah, okay, we hit it.”
McCormack and Hunter stress that part of the reason why this play can be timeless is both because the source material has endured for centuries, but also because they are writing and directing so much to their own inner teenager, and many of these experiences are universal. Simmons agrees saying, “I had this type of toxic crush before… It hurts you like, dang. Like that was me, you know? Like, ‘Juliet, stand up for yourself! Wake up’, you know?”
Hunter mentions the word ‘limerence,’ coined by psychologist Dorothy Tennov from work she did in the 1960s, which emcompasses feelings of romantic love, passionate love, infatuation, lovesickness, and even ‘love madness’, “I think often we confuse limerence with love,” says Hunter, “often teenage love is actually limerence because it’s just like overwhelmed emotions where all of a sudden you’re like, ‘wow, I get so much serotonin from this one person; I’m just going to become addicted to [them]. And my whole self worth relies on how they feel about me’, rather than teaching people how to love in a healthy way.”
Hunter says that’s where the character of Angel, a mixture of Juliet’s nurse and Friar Laurence, played by Lou Campbell, came from. “They are a more mature older friend, and they are the one who has already gone through love and can be more of a mentor to Juliet throughout the show,” Hunter says. “The problem is too that Juliet has been seeing Romeo and Juliets her whole life. You’re only told about these really intense relationships where it is totally obsessive, and in the real world that’s not healthy, but those are the stories we love to tell,” says McCormack.
“I feel like Angel is a really fun character to play because it’s sort of a person that I wish that I could have been to myself when I was younger,” says Campbell. “I think that Angel has a certain wisdom and magic with how the script is written, and I feel like they really bring a grounding energy to Juliet. It’s also interesting that Angel has this advice that [Juliet] doesn’t listen to. I do think it’s realistic. It doesn’t matter if someone tells you, ‘oh, I’ve been in love and it was unhealthy,’ you really do kind of have to go through it yourself. Which is why I think Angel has a lot of space for that and understanding, because as much as you can say, ‘don’t date this shitty guy’, you know they’re gonna date the shitty guy. And then being there for [them] after the fact is what’s more important.” Hunter came out as non-binary while they were writing the play, so they started to see Angel as an older version of themself looking at a younger Stevey, who is like sixteen year old Juliet. “What would this character say? I changed the character to be non-binary to be this cool older pal who has gone through shit and knows themself more and can give that advice to Juliet, who is still learning to love herself for who she is.”
We chatted a lot about the development process for new plays in Nova Scotia specifically, and in Canada as a whole, noting that just being able to remount a new Nova Scotian play in itself is frustratingly rare. “Usually you open a show and you’re like, ‘god, if I just had one more day, we could have done [X]. This happens to me all the time as an actor,” says McCormack, “I feel like there’s a lot more heart and a lot more fun this time around.” Simmons mentions that having the same cast for the remount is special because they can really build upon the foundation they laid in 2021, rather than having to start again from square one.
There is a deep friendship and respect amongst Stevey Hunter, their real-life partner, Peter Sarty, their university classmate Nathan Simmons, and friends Kat McCormack and Lou Campbell, and their love and care for one another has been essential to the work they’ve created together. “It’s a passion project for every single person on the team,” says McCormack.
Hunter first brought the play to McCormack years before she was the Artistic Director of Eastern Front, “Kat was so supportive, and such a good person to be like, ‘I believe in you, let’s make this project happen.’” In fact, Hunter originally had planned for Fat Juliet to be a one person show, but McCormack encouraged them to ‘dream bigger.’ Jenny Munday was the dramaturge at the beginning of the process, and this was a bit of an uphill battle for Hunter because Munday ‘hated Shakespeare.’ “She really didn’t understand the play. She didn’t really like it. She didn’t know what I was doing,” says Hunter. They say that this forced them to really ask themself what they were trying to say and do. “We had a final script workshop, during Covid, and I felt like I’d finally accomplished something when Jenny was like, ‘I see what you’ve done. This show makes sense to me,’ I had kind of turned her around on what Shakespeare can be in a way; that was really thrilling.”
Hunter and Sarty are both alumni of the Fountain School of the Performing Arts, and both went on to become members of the celebrated Haligonian improv troupe Hello City. They have recently relocated to Toronto, but it’s clear that Halifax still has a special place in their hearts.
“It’s so much more fun to come in with this level of confidence… we’re just playing and having fun,” says Hunter, “I don’t have to protect my ego or be overly protective of whatever I’m doing. I can just trust the process and have all these people who I can rely on, some of the best actors in my life, in Canada, in the whole world…”
“It takes a village to do this. It takes a community to put a play together,” says Sarty, “and that’s a recurring theme throughout the play and through this whole process that ultimately Juliet needs to learn to love herself, and find that love, self love, and not get totally sucked into needing the love of other people, but the one way she can do that is through the love of Tybalt and the the love from Angel, and having that community and that support. And it’s beautiful that we can have that reflected in the rehearsal room, and the community we’ve built here. Coming back in 2025 and… feeling even more comfortable, not only with the piece, but with each other, and with the process, that’s been such a gift for Stevey and myself. Coming back to Halifax to do this project again is coming back to this beautiful community here in Halifax and Dartmouth, and feeling so loved and supported, and people doing incredible things to make us feel welcome here again. It’s so important for us all as human beings to love ourselves first and foremost, but it’s a heck of a lot easier to do that when you’re surrounded by people who love you unconditionally, love you in all different versions of yourself… you just feel safe to do some really great, and really fun work.”
Fat Juliet opens at Alderney Landing Theatre (2 Ochterloney Street, Dartmouth) on March 20th and runs there until the 29th. Tickets range in price from $20.00 to $40.00 on a PWYC scale. If pricing is still a barrier for you email Kat at Kat@EasternFrontTheatre.com. Tickets can be puchased online here. The show runs Wednesday to Saturday at 7:30pm with 1:00pm matinees on Saturday and Sunday. The play runs for approximately 90 minutes and is General Admission.
Accessibility Notes from Eastern Front Theatre:
COVID
Masks are available on site and encouraged/appreciated but not required. Seating is by general admission and social distancing may not be possible.
Transit Access
The Halifax Transit Dartmouth Ferry arrives directly at Alderney Landing, and Alderney Gate is serviced by Halifax Transit buses #5, 6+, 53, 54, 55, 62, 158, 159, 161, 165, 168+.
Physical Access
The Theatre is on the second level of Alderney Landing, accessible by passenger elevator and stairs. Parking is available onsite, with curbside dropoff and automatic doors at the main entrance to the building. Alderney Landing is connected to Alderney Gate by pedway, accessible by elevator, escalator and stairs.
Seating
Fixed stadium seats fold down and are 16.5 inches deep and 20 inches wide from the inside of each (shared) armrest. Front row seating is on the same level as the entrance and can be reserved in advance by emailing info@EasternFrontTheatre.com. There are stairs leading to the rest of the rows, 7 inches high and 17 inches deep. There is no handrail. Armless chairs are available upon request and will be placed in the front row, they are 16 inches deep and 15.5 inches wide. For assistance, or to request priority seating before the house is opened, please check in with EFT Staff or Volunteers.
Bathrooms
There are two all gender bathrooms in the rotunda lobby, one with toilet stalls only, and one with toilet stalls and urinals. Both bathrooms are equipped with various hygiene products.
Environmental Sensitivities
We aim to provide a scent-free environment, and make every effort to use products that are scent-free where possible (including alcohol-based hand sanitizer). We encourage all patrons to be mindful of the effects of strong scents, and ask that patrons avoid wearing or using scented personal products while onsite.
If you have any questions about the accessibility measures in place, please email us at info@easternfronttheatre.com.
Fat Juliet runs at the Highland Arts Theatre in Sydney, Nova Scotia (40 Bentinck Street) from April 9th to 13th at 7:30pm and April 13th at 2:00pm. Tickets are $17.00 for those 23 and under, and $29.00 for those older than 23. You can purchase tickets online here, or at the Box Office at 40 Bentinck Street, or by calling 902.565.3637.
