Swipe Right For Tragedy 🥀

For our latest Humanities project, we took on Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet—but with a twist. The driving question was: “How do we use parody to bring the themes of Romeo & Juliet to a modern audience?” Instead of a traditional approach, we turned it into a modern-day parody, complete with Snapchat, hockey sticks, and even a Timbit Toss 🍩!

Accidentally Taking the Lead

My group: Sara, Gino, and me, and somehow, I ended up as the DRI. And by “somehow,” I mean I was voluntold by my teacher since I wouldn’t be there for the actual performance (I’m flying to Australia today!). Looking back, I wish I had just volunteered myself—especially since one of my goals this year is to take on leadership roles and push myself outside of my comfort zone. Lesson learned ✅.

Turning Shakespeare into a 2025 Comedy 📱

Before we could start writing, we had to understand the original play. Shakespearean-is that a word- English was not easy to read, but once we got past that, we focused on the themes and characters that we wanted to modernize. Then, each group adapted an Act into a parody.

Our version? Think of it as Romeo & Juliet meets modern dating culture. We swapped feuding families for a Canada vs. America rivalry, added dating app humour, and threw in some Canadian stereotypes (because obviously, there had to be hockey references and a Tim Hortons mention). My group’s goal was to make sure our adaptation still had the same themes—love, fate, and conflict—while making it funny and relatable.

Challenges & Takeaways

One of the hardest parts was making sure the parody still followed the original plot. It was easy to add jokes, but we had to make sure the storyline still made sense. As the DRI, I also had to keep my group on track and organized, even though I wouldn’t be there for the final performance.

Another big challenge for me was the quizzes on the original play. I really struggled with them because I’m not great in a test environment, and it definitely showed. Even though I understood Romeo & Juliet better when discussing it in class, putting that knowledge into a timed quiz was stressful. This is something I want to work on—finding ways to better prepare for test situations so I don’t feel as overwhelmed.

I also realized that taking on leadership means stepping up before someone else tells you to. I should have volunteered to be the DRI instead of waiting for my teacher to assign me, because that would have been a better reflection of my personal goals.

Final Thoughts

Even though I won’t get to see the final performance, I’m really proud of what we created. This project taught me a lot about adapting classic writing, taking leadership, and finding ways to make Shakespeare entertaining for a modern audience. Next time, I’ll make sure to volunteer.

Who knows? Maybe Swipe Right for Tragedy will go down in history as the greatest Shakespearean-Canadian-American parody of all time. Or at the very least, it’ll get a few laughs.

Also good luck everyone for the performance hope it goes okay…🙏

Here was our Act 5 script: