Motown, Janis and Carole Oh My!

Walking down the streets of New York City aka the mecca that is the theatre district you can’t help but notice that a number of the bright shining marquees have the names of some of the most well known artists and music genres with the word “musical” attached to it blaring right in front of you. From Janis Joplin to Carole King to the Motown music period it seems as if Broadway is now the hot spot for musicals based off of music icons.

            This isn’t the first time that a popular trend like this has hit the great white way. Back in the late nineties and early 2000’s Disney was the king of New York-no pun intended churning out massive hit after hit from Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and Aida. A few years ago it seemed like every new musical was based off a movie from Legally Blonde, to Shrek to The Addams Family all opening in the later years of the last decade and two years ago Broadway was getting religious with revivals of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar and new musical Leap of Faith all opening. Now the hot trend is musicals telling the stories of iconic artists.

This is not the only time that this type of show has taken a bow on Broadway.  The Tony-winning hit Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons opened in 2005 but that was eight years ago why is musical type so popular now? Theatre historian and producer Jennifer Ashley Tepper says that there are a few reasons. “First of all, while there have been many musicals in the past that use an icon’s music to tell their story, Jersey Boys, in 2005, made the genre successful in a new way. After every juggernaut musical come many musicals that play on the same trend in order to try to find the same success. Secondly, one of the reasons people go to musicals is to hear music they love. A lot of the time they don’t trust that they will love music they are hearing for the first time, so it’s an incentive when ticket buyers know they will hear the songbook of a writer they already like.”

            While these shows are interesting to producers and creative team members as it gives them the ability to form and shape the story they want to tell around a certain artists or genre of music and how the music fits in as Tepper points out “working on a show like Beautiful or A Night With Janis Joplin requires research into real-life events and a concept for how to integrate those with the artist’s music.”  However, they are also incredibly popular with audiences. Jersey Boys has broken many ticket sale records and it’s almost impossible to get a ticket to Motown. But why do people want to come see these shows if they can just listen to artists music on their Macs and watch vintage performances on YouTube or an E! True Hollywood Story? Tepper says, “audience members want to learn more about people who really existed, when they already know that they enjoy their music.”  

            It seems as if that this particular jukebox musical subgenre has become one of the most attempted but one of the most growing and popular forms of musical. Tepper says that this subgenre “has come to be interpreted by many as the most genuine, artistically ambitious one. Jukebox musicals have become so popular because more and more audiences want to hear songs they already know at the theatre.”

            Currently on Broadway, besides Jersey Boys there are three new jukebox musicals playing, You can go back to the time of Berry Gordy and the creation of Motown music in Motown, the 60’s with Beautiful: The Carole King Musical or with Janis in A Night With Janis Joplin. They all tell compelling true stories through music that make you wanna get up and dance which is where the heart and soul lies in this new wave of musicals that are taking Broadway by storm.