Max Martin isn’t a household name – unless you live in a household with a serious pop music aficionado. But the Swedish songwriter and producer has been a dominant force in that field for a few decades now.

In fact, he’s written more No. 1 singles than anyone in music history, save Paul McCartney. Since 1998, Martin has put 27 songs atop the charts, helping create the sound that’s made stars of Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande.

So call it a fun coincidence that Perry was playing Minneapolis’ Target Center on Tuesday night while a musical full of Martin’s songs (including a few made famous by Perry) was setting up shop a few blocks away at the Orpheum Theatre. I can’t speak to Perry’s performance, but I can say this: The North American touring production of “& Juliet” might be the apotheosis of the jukebox musical, the most successful effort yet of that theatrical subgenre, which uses familiar music to tell a fresh story.

While “Mamma Mia” and “Moulin Rouge!” did fine things with the idea, they’re nowhere near as imaginative and inspiring as “& Juliet.” And this touring production is terrific, full of eye-popping full-cast dance numbers rooted in nightclub moves of the ‘90s and ‘00s and featuring some magnificent voices that I daresay eclipse those of these songs’ original purveyors.

And it helps that it’s very funny. David West Read has written a script that’s a kind of meta historical fantasy: We watch as a very 21st-century version of William Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hathaway, debate the merits of “Romeo and Juliet,” which she regards as dissatisfying because of Juliet’s lack of agency in that quintessential romantic tragedy.

So together they fashion a sequel that unfolds before our eyes and ears, each writer upping the other with new scenarios and characters, including Hathaway inserting herself into the story as a friend of Juliet. And Martin’s songs (mostly) fit the action well, from the playwriting pair arguing over the show’s direction with the help of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” to Rachel Simone Webb’s Juliet making an affecting ballad of Spears’ “Baby One More Time” to a showstopping take on Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” directed at a recently revived Romeo.

The driving force at the center of almost all the show’s best numbers is Webb’s voice, which is a marvelous instrument for this music, equally capable of delivering touching tenderness or a velvety wail of triumphant transcendence. But Teal Wicks’ Anne is the quirky catalyst for this offbeat tale – spiriting Juliet and friends away to Paris to be tossed into the middle of a romantic triangle or two – and Wicks makes her magnetic in a lovably dorky kind of way.

She’s a strong singer, as are Kathryn Allison as Juliet’s nurse and guardian, Angelique, and Nick Drake as May, our heroine’s nonbinary sidekick and possible romantic rival.

Director Luke Sheppard and choreographer Jennifer Weber have inspired the cast to embrace the material with energy and enthusiasm, and the vision is complemented splendidly by Soutra Gilmour’s versatile set design, Paloma Young’s costumes, and the animations and projections of Andrzej Goulding.

They help make “& Juliet” a supremely well-executed bit of frothy fun that also holds some inspiring messages about empowerment and finding your own path.

‘& Juliet’

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Orpheum Theatre, 910 Hennepin Ave., Mpls.

Tickets: $337-$53, available at hennepinarts.org

Capsule: Contemporary pop meets the Elizabethan era to fun and funny effect.

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By BRUCE SHIPKOWSKI

Some 350,000 commuters who work in New Jersey and New York City could soon be scrambling for other ways to reach their destinations if New Jersey Transit engineers walk off the job early Friday.

NJ Transit — the nation’s third largest transit system — operates buses and rail in the state, providing nearly 1 million weekday trips, including into New York City. A walkout would halt all NJ Transit commuter trains, which provide heavily used public transit routes between New York City’s Penn Station on one side of the Hudson River and communities in northern New Jersey on the other as well as the Newark airport, which has grappled with unrelated delays of its own recently.

Wages and working conditions have been the main sticking points of the negotiations between the agency and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. The union claims its members earn an average salary of $113,000 a year and says an agreement could be reached if agency CEO Kris Kolluri agrees to an average yearly salary of $170,000.

NJ Transit leadership, though, disputes the union’s data, saying the engineers have average total earnings of $135,000 annually, with the highest earners exceeding $200,000.

“I cannot keep giving money left and right to solve a problem,” Kolluri recently said. “It all comes down to, who is going to pay for this? Money does not grow on trees.”

Tom Haas, the union’s general chairman, has said NJ Transit has adopted a “take it or leave it” approach to salaries during the negotiations.

“We have sought nothing more than equal pay for equal work, only to be continuously rebuffed by New Jersey Transit,” Haas said during a news conference Friday. ”New Jersey Transit engineers want to keep the trains moving, but the simple fact is that trains do not run without engineers.”

If the walkout does happen, it would be the state’s first transit strike in more than 40 years.

Strike contingency plans

If the engineers do walk off the job, the agency plans to increase bus service, saying it would add “very limited” capacity to existing New York commuter bus routes in close proximity to rail stations and will contract with private carriers to operate bus service from key regional park-and-ride locations during weekday peak periods.

However, the agency notes that the buses would not be able to handle close to the same number of passengers — only about 20% of current rail customers — so it is has urged people who can work from home to do so if there is a strike.

The potential strike is already causing some disruptions. On Monday, NJ Transit said it will not operate train or bus service to MetLife Stadium for Shakira concerts scheduled for Thursday and Friday, and said it’s not clear yet if it will be providing service for Beyonce fans planning to attend her shows scheduled at MetLife from May 22 to 29.

Commuter options if there is a strike

If a walkout does occur, NJ Transit has said the chartered buses will run from four satellite lots across the state to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan or to PATH train stations in north Jersey, starting Monday. The PATH system is operated by a subsidiary of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and its services would not be affected by the potential strike.

As many as 1,000 passengers are on a full train each day, and roughly 70,000 commuters take the trains each day. NJ Transit says each chartered bus could carry only about 100 passengers, and no buses would run on the first day of a potential strike.

Officials expect some train customers will switch to existing NJ Transit bus routes or use the chartered carriers. Others may choose to drive into New York City, where they would have to pay congestion pricing fees.

Negotiations ongoing

The potential walkout comes a month after union members overwhelmingly rejected a labor agreement with management. Both sides had earlier said the tentative agreement included a “reasonable wage increase” for union members as well as the resolution of a long-standing grievance.

Kolluri has said the offer would have raised the average annual pay of full-time engineers to $172,000 from $135,000, but union leaders say those figures were inflated.

Since that proposal was rejected, the two sides have traded jabs over the labor dispute, which goes back to 2019, when the engineers’ contract expired. Union leaders say train engineers have gone without a raise over the past five years and are just seeking pay parity with engineers who work for other rail agencies.

The parties met Monday with a federal mediation board in Washington to discuss the dispute, but both sides and the board have declined to comment on whether any progress was made or if more talks have been scheduled.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, says all options are on the table if a strike occurs, including declaring a state of emergency. The governor, though, remains optimistic an agreement can be reached.

Minnesota United wingback Joseph Rosales will serve a three-match suspension over an alleged slur toward a Vancouver player in April, MLS said Wednesday.

MLS said it was a violation of the league’s Joint Non-Discrimination Policy and Rosales’ reinstatement following the suspension is contingent upon his participation in a restorative practices program.

Rosales will miss two MLS matches: at Houston on Wednesday and St. Louis City on Saturday as well as the U.S. Open Cup match against St. Louis on May 21.

Rosales had a contentious exchange with Whitecaps attacker Emmanuel Sabbi late in the Loons’ 3-1 loss at Allianz Field on April 27. Rosales has since denied he said a racial comment, including directly to Loons Chief Soccer Officer Khaled El-Ahmad.

Loons head coach Eric Ramsay backed Rosales after Tuesday’s training session.

“These situations, in general, are really tricky because I don’t think anyone is ever going to be able to say in concrete either way as to what happened,” Ramsay said. “Of course, Joe is in our camp here and … I’ve known him for a year, everyone else has known him for that amount of time and longer. Everyone trusts him, likes him, has zero question marks against him. I can only put myself in that bracket and do my best to really support Joe around what is a tricky set of circumstances.”

Since the incident, Ramsay has taken Rosales out of the starting lineup in the last two matches, while subbing him into both second halves.

“The fact that I’ve been able to take him out of the team and give him a little bit of space has been with that in mind, to make sure he doesn’t feel any unnecessary pressure,” Ramsay said.

Anthony Markanich started the last two matches at left wing back, scoring a goal apiece against Austin FC and Inter Miami. But he injured his ankle in the 4-1 win over Inter Miami on Saturday and subbed out at halftime. He will miss the Houston match, but Ramsay said Markanich will be in a candidate to play Saturday.

Kieren Chandler is in line for his MLS debut against Houston on Wednesday night. The club signed the 19-year-old to a short-term loan from MNUFC2 on Wednesday.

The Loons drafted Chandler 43rd overall in the 2025 draft, and the University of Connecticut product played 90 minutes in the 1-0 win over Louisville City in the U.S. Open Cup round of 31 on May 7. He leads the Loons second team with three assists in  387 minutes over five matches this spring.

“He is a really interesting player,” Ramsay said. “I would say has a lot of really similar qualities to the left back at Vancouver (19-year-old Tate Johnson) who has hit the ground running from the college system.

“Someone I would have a lot of faith in putting into an MLS game,” Ramsay continued. “I know players really value what he brings, a level of tenacity and competitiveness but also a real calmness on the ball and a real quality on the ball.”

By JOSH FUNK

A hotline between military and civilian air traffic controllers in Washington, D.C., that hasn’t worked for more than three years may have contributed to another near miss shortly after the Army resumed flying helicopters in the area for the first time since January’s deadly midair collision between a passenger jet and a Black Hawk helicopter. Sen. Ted Cruz said a hearing Wednesday.

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The Federal Aviation Administration official in charge of air traffic controllers, Frank McIntosh, confirmed that the agency didn’t even know the hotline hadn’t been working since March 2022 until after the latest near miss. He said civilian controllers did still have other means of communicating with their military counterparts through landlines, but the FAA is insisting the hotline be fixed before helicopter flights resume around Ronald Reagan National Airport.

Defense department officials didn’t immediately respond to questions Wednesday about the near miss earlier this month and the steps it is taking to ensure helicopter flights in the area are safe. The FAA didn’t immediately answer follow-up questions after the hearing about how that hotline was supposed to be used.

“The developments at DCA (Reagan airport) in its airspace are extremely concerning,” Cruz said. “This committee remains laser focused on monitoring a safe return to operations at DCA and making sure all users in the airspace are operating responsibly.”

The Army suspended all helicopter flights around Reagan airport after the latest near miss, but McIntosh said the FAA was close to ordering the Army to stop flying because of the safety concerns before it did so voluntarily.

“We did have discussions if that was an option that we wanted to pursue,” McIntosh told the Senate Commerce Committee at the hearing.

January’s crash between an American Airlines jet and an Army helicopter killed 67 people — making it the deadliest plane crash on U.S. soil since 2001. The National Transportation Safety Board has said there were an alarming 85 near misses around Reagan in the three years before the crash that should have prompted action.

Since the crash, the FAA has tried to ensure that military helicopters never share the same airspace as planes, but controllers had to order two planes to abort their landings on May 1 because of an Army helicopter circling near the Pentagon.

In addition to that incident, a commercial flight taking off from Reagan airport had to take evasive action after coming within a few hundred feet of four military jets heading to a flyover at Arlington National Cemetery. McIntosh blamed that incident on a miscommunication between FAA air traffic controllers at a regional facility and the tower at Reagan that he said had been addressed.