In 2016, the British Council’s interactive web project Mix The Play – Romeo and Juliet invited visitors to remix a filmed scene by choosing its actors, setting, performance style, and soundtrack. Those choices produced 48 combinations—and showed how a familiar Shakespeare scene could take on different tones without changing its source text.
How the 48 versions were created
The combinations came from four actors, three styles, two locations, and two background scores: 4 × 3 × 2 × 2 = 48. Viewers chose from the available options to build a version of the scene.
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| Choice | Options reported in 2016 |
|---|---|
| Actors | Kriti Pant or Kalki Koechlin as Juliet; Adil Hussain or Tushar Pandey as Romeo. |
| Styles | Traditional or period; “cultural divide”; modern. |
| Locations | A stage at the Little Theatre Group in Mandi House, New Delhi; a bungalow on Tolstoy Marg. |
| Soundtracks | Two background scores, composed by Simon Baker. |
The scene was directed by theatre director Roysten Abel. The project also let visitors generate a poster carrying directorial credit and share their version on social media. These details and the combination count were reported by Chanpreet Khurana in Scroll.in on 1 December 2016.
What changed between the styles and settings?
Three approaches to the scene
The traditional or period treatment kept the production within a familiar historical frame. The “cultural divide” treatment offered another interpretive lens. In the modern version, Romeo was recast as a corporate professional and Juliet as an artist; work and career demands became part of the conflict between them.
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- Genre: Drama
- Number of Discs: 1
- Number of Tracks: 0
- Playback Duration: 138
- Rating: PG
Two locations, two pairings, and different emotional readings
The stage and bungalow supplied distinct visual contexts for the same scene. The actor pairing also affected its emotional emphasis. Khurana’s report observed that one modern pairing made Juliet’s upset at Romeo’s attention to a laptop especially visible, while another brought out her frustration with his work and phone messages. Those are observations about the filmed versions, not the result of a controlled comparison.
For Abel, the point was the range of possibilities: “It could be a matter of curiosity for people to see how many possibilities are there of doing a scene,” he told Scroll.in. The mix-and-match format made performance choices—not just the words of the play—visible as sources of meaning.
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When and why the project launched
The British Council launched Mix The Play – Romeo and Juliet in Delhi on 7 November 2016 as part of its Shakespeare Lives programme. Alan Gemmell, then head of the British Council in India, described its aim as digital engagement: “Mix The Play is part of our digital engagement to connect with people online,” he told Scroll.in.
The same report estimated that about 15,000 visitors came to the page during its first week, and said most spent 8–10 minutes on the site, attributing that figure to Gemmell. These are contemporaneous reported estimates, not independently audited measurements or current traffic statistics.
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Is Mix The Play still available?
The 2016 account establishes what the web application offered when it launched, but does not establish whether the site works today. It also does not verify present-day device requirements or provide current instructions for accessing the experience. The project is best understood as a documented example of digital audience engagement from 2016, rather than as a service whose current availability is confirmed.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the remix reveals about adaptation
Mix The Play treated adaptation as a set of concrete choices. A shift in setting could change the scene’s visual world; casting could alter the way a reaction registered; music and style could steer its mood. The modern treatment made the lovers’ conflict legible through recognizable pressures of work, attention, and career. Viewers were not merely watching one director’s interpretation—they were assembling a version and comparing its effect with other possible combinations.
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For readers who want to compare the remix idea with Shakespeare’s original, the useful companion is the play itself. The 2016 report does not identify or recommend a particular edition.
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