USA TODAY International Edition
Pop crossovers hit big on Broadway
Broadway is looking a lot more like our Spotify playlists.
Although jukebox musicals have been a staple of the New York theater scene for years, popular music is infiltrating the Great White Way like never before this fall. Top- 40 hits from Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Adele highlight the splashy stage adaptation of “Moulin Rouge!,” and you’ll never listen to Rihanna’s “Work” the same again after “Slave Play,” a button- pushing satire about race relations. Life stories of The Temptations (“Ain’t Too Proud”) and Carole King (“Beautiful”) each mine their respective catalogs, and Sara Bareilles’ soon- closing “Waitress” has one of the most delightful original scores to hit Broadway in recent memory.
A bevy of rock- inspired shows are also waiting in the wings, including next spring’s “Girl from the North Country,” a Depression- era Bob Dylan musical. Here’s what you need to know about three of these new and upcoming offerings: “David Byrne’s American Utopia,” “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical,” and “Jagged Little Pill,” featuring the music of Alanis Morissette.
‘ Jagged Little Pill’
Preview performances start Nov. 3 at New York’s Broadhurst Theatre ( 235 W. 44th St.), opening night Dec. 5.
Diablo Cody remembers the first time she heard “Jagged Little Pill.”
The Oscar- winning screenwriter of razor- sharp comedies including “Juno,” “Young Adult” and “Jennifer’s Body” was 16 when Morissette released her seminal 1995 album, which won five Grammy Awards – including album of the year – and has sold more than 33 million copies worldwide.
“I was a suburban Catholic girl who had been waiting to connect with someone like Alanis Morissette, and I just remember cranking those songs all summer,” Cody says.
So she naturally leaped at the chance to write a musical inspired by the album, incorporating such hits as “Hand in My Pocket,” “Ironic,” “Head Over Feet” and, of course, “You Oughta Know.”
Directed by Diane Paulus (“Hair”) and inspired in part by provocative poprock musicals “Dear Evan Hansen” and “Next to Normal,” the show centers on a fictional family in Connecticut that puts on a perfect facade but secretly grapples with tough issues such as addiction, sexual assault and gender identity.
“They’re topics you don’t frequently see dealt with in musicals,” Cody says. “We live in a culture now where artists are a lot more confessional, but that was not the case ( when “Jagged” was released), which is why people were so shocked and electrified by ‘ You Oughta Know.’ She was singing about stuff in that song that was so personal, and she was really exposing herself.”
Cody says Morissette has been “an incredible fairy godmother” throughout the creation of the musical, which earned rave reviews during its out- oftown tryout last year in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“I was always like, ‘ Even if it doesn’t work on any other level, if Alanis Morissette is like, ‘ Yes, this is the “Jagged Little Pill” musical I’ve always dreamed of,’ then I will have succeeded,” Cody says.
‘ Tina: The Tina Turner Musical’
Now in previews at New York’s LuntFontanne Theater ( 205 W. 46th St.), opening night Nov. 7.
For playwright Katori Hall (“The Mountaintop”), Tina Turner is one of the family.
Like the Queen of Rock ’ n’ Roll, “we’re from Tennessee, so Tina feels like a sister to us, to the point where my eldest sister is actually named Tina – that’s how much my mom loves her,” Hall says.
Hall was able to bring that personal connection to Turner’s catalog when she joined the creative team for “Tina,” a musical based on the legendary artist’s life. The show, which comes to Broadway after premiering in London’s West End last year, traces the singer’s story from childhood to her late 40s, when she made a career comeback after weathering a tempestuous relationship with first husband, Ike Turner.
The musical doesn’t shy away from darker chapters of Turner’s life involving racism, domestic abuse and a suicide attempt in 1968 when she was hospitalized after swallowing more than 50 sleeping pills.
“Tina wanted us to be honest about what she went through,” Hall says. “She was like, ‘ I don’t want no Disney version of my life’ – and I don’t think you could do that even if you tried. So it was very important to me to infuse the ( script) with a lot of cultural specificity, social and political context, and to demonstrate how hard it was for a poor black woman who grew up picking cotton to become one of the biggest rock icons in the world.”
The show features many rousing, triumphant moments for the superstar ( portrayed onstage by Tony Award nominee Adrienne Warren). Along with Turner staples “Proud Mary,” “Private Dancer” and “What’s Love Got to Do With It?,” the musical culminates in a crowd- pleasing rendition of “The Best,” set at a record- setting 1988 concert when she performed for 180,000 people in Rio de Janeiro.
“It’s Tina at the top of her own personal kind of mountaintop, and it turns into a concert for people who are in the audience,” Hall says. “People jump out of their seats at the end of the show, because they’ve been moved by her journey and her spirit in a way that I’ve never seen before.”
‘ David Byrne’s American Utopia’
Now playing at New York’s Hudson Theatre ( 141 W. 44th St.) through Jan. 19, 2020.
Can a 100- minute concert completely restore your faith in humanity?
It can come pretty darn close, as a joyous trip to “David Byrne’s American Utopia” recently affirmed for us. The whimsical and frequently moving event is an extension of Byrne’s sold- out world tour of the same name, pulling from both his 2018 “American Utopia” solo album and his extensive catalog as frontman of the Talking Heads, with classics such as “This Must Be the Place,” “Once in a Lifetime” and “Burning Down the House.”
Byrne, still spry at 67, is joined onstage by 11 musicians from around the world, all of whom are barefoot and dressed in slouchy gray suits. Unlike a typical rock concert, all the musicians dance with Byrne throughout the roughly 20- song set, playing instruments as they jump, spin and stride across the bare, starkly lit stage.
“All the stuff you see at a rock ’ n’ roll show – drum platforms, video screens, cords – he wanted to erase,” says choreographer Annie- B Parson, who previously choreographed Byrne’s Imelda Marcos musical “Here Lies Love.”
Despite its high- concept staging and title, “American Utopia” follows no specific narrative. Instead, there are interludes in which Bryne addresses the audience directly.
It’s about “how he connects to being a citizen in this particular moment, so you want people to walk away feeling inspired,” Parson says.
“But we also want people to walk away with a sense of, ‘ Wow, this is a really different way to move and present music.’”