Romeo + Juliet

Autumn 2025, Tigerstadsteatret and the Sofienberg Project present an entirely new version of Shakespeare’s timeless love tragedy Romeo and Juliet. A story about identity and love, but also about class struggle, crime, religion, social control and violence. The drama takes place in the grand church building in the heart of Sofienberg Park – a space that has recently reopened as a cultural venue for children and young people.

The production combines slam poetry, street art, ballroom, and epic organ beats. This project brings a classical work into our own time, giving it fresh artistic relevance by reflecting the challenges young people face – in their own language.

I won’t even pretend to be modest: I’m ridiculously proud of this project. Hilde Brinchmann and Samir Madad have twisted and turned Shakespeare inside out and written an insanely bold, revitalised Romeo and Juliet for today’s Oslo youth. There’s so much poetry, so much humour, and such clever use of rhyme, words and phrasing that I’m genuinely flabbergasted. And at the same time, such heartbreaking rawness as it all moves towards the inevitable ending. Text of the year? I honestly think so.

Sindre Slorafoss and Jasmine Amalie Chenine are simply extraordinary as Romeo and Julie. What they do on stage during those brisk 90 minutes will take your breath away. The same goes for Hedda, Numa, Hina, Jacob, Ingrid, Andreas, Ian, Jawad, Samir and Toivo – what a cast, and what a gallery of characters! Every one of them is so incredibly talented; all the roles are unique and alive – I could easily have written a paragraph about each of them. And the dancers – I’m lost for words. Iris, Ella, Isak, Sebastian, Michael and Hamda – my jaw is on the floor. 

Signe Gerda Landfald has once again outdone herself with an all-encompassing stage design that transforms Sofienberg Church into a dystopian cyberpunk Oslo a few decades into the future – brilliantly supported by Rolf Christian Egseth’s epic lighting design and Helena Andersson’s ever-fantastic costume and make-up design. Choreographer Amisha Kumra has given the production an intensity and energy it simply wouldn’t have had otherwise – and as DJ she’s also provided some outrageously cool dance tracks. Fight choreographers Kristoffer Jørgensen and Helene Martinsen have the actors pulling off moves that look downright dangerous to a delicate soul like me. And would you believe it – we even have a group of pupils from the nearby Hersleb High School who’ve sewn costumes and designed set pieces that play a central part in the performance. So we’re not just making theatre for young people – they’re part of the creative team too!

And at the centre of it all stands the BrinchMachine herself, directing – somehow managing to hold all these threads together in a production as complex as this one, where so many creative forces meet for the first time and create pure, unfiltered magic in a theatre house that’s never actually been a theatre house.

In case it wasn’t obvious: I composed the music (and sound design) for this beautiful madness. It’s turned into some sort of cyberpunk–synth–fusion–organ score, centred around a tender love theme that, right now, feels like one of the most solid and meaningful things I’ve written. A huge thank you to the wonderful Petter Kragstad, who plays the organ live during the performances with such skill and calm that my shoulders instantly drop. And big thanks to technicians Kristoffer Andreas Johnsen and Kai Punktum, who’ve worked like heroes to make it all come together (it was by no means a given that we’d manage to mic up a church organ, send it through the whole space and blend it with pre-recorded synth tracks – but thanks to you, it works!).

An enormous thank you to The Norwegian Composers’ Fund for supporting the project and my role in it, to my publisher GILT for always looking after me so I can focus on writing music, and of course to the Sofienberg Project for letting us come and play in your space – and last but absolutely not least, Hilde and Tigerstadsteatret for wanting to play with me! ❤

A very special thank you to Lina, who’s had to take extra care of our little boy this past month (luckily he still remembers who I am). ❤