NORTH SIDE STORY

Terschelling sets the stage for the outdoor spectacle NORTH SIDE STORY! This action musical and modern, YoungGangsters-style take on Romeo and Juliet exposes the tensions between old and new residents, between pride and transition, meat and veggie, lager and kombucha. Packed with colourful characters, raw spectacle, and the occasional slapstick brawl.

Freely inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and the musical film West Side Story, Jibbe Willems has written a libretto filled with romantic exchanges, dramatic entanglements, and sung confrontations. YoungGangsters perform and sing this contemporary take on the two classics. In a working-class neighbourhood where wealthy yuppies are seen as intruders, a love blossoms that transcends the conflict between the different communities. He is a contractor’s son who, by necessity but quite happily, still lives with his parents. She is an ambitious, idealistic residential researcher living in a brand-new, sky-high-priced apartment. In a sparkling mix of poetry and humour, heightened fiction and recognisable reality, YoungGangsters show how the new lovers must hold their own in a world of polarisation and prejudice, conservatism and the urge for change.