The Jukebox Musical: An Interpretive History 9780367648930, 9780367648923, 9781003126829

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The Jukebox Musical

This is a comprehensive guide to the unique genre of the jukebox musical, delving into its history to explain why these musicals have quickly become beloved for multiple generations of theatergoers and practitioners. Providing a concise exploration of the three main categories of the jukebox musical—biographical, genre-specific, and artist catalog—this text is perfect for those wishing to learn more about this relatively recent and unique genre of theater. It identifies the dramaturgical needs that arise in these productions and explains how certain works become critical darlings or fan favorites. How much information needs to be conveyed through song and how much can be left up to interpretation by the audience? What kinds of changes occur when a repertoire of songs is reimagined for the stage? In addition to these insightful explorations, it also reveals how creative teams tackle the unique challenge of weaving together plot and song in order to convey meaning, emotion, excitement, and beauty in these increasingly popular forms of theater. The Jukebox Musical: An Interpretive History is written for students, performers, and musical theater enthusiasts alike: this is the ideal introduction to one of the twenty-first century’s most popular and successful stage genres. Dr. Kevin Byrne is a Lecturer at Texas State University in the Department of Theatre and Dance. His monograph, Minstrel Traditions: Mediated Blackface in the Jazz Age, was published by Routledge in 2020. Emily Fuchs graduated from the University of Arizona’s School of Theatre, Film, and Television and is currently studying the intersection of popular culture and news reporting. As a dramaturg, they have assisted in developing new work, devising productions, and assisting as a researcher for theater company seasons.

The Jukebox Musical An Interpretive History

Kevin Byrne and Emily Fuchs

Cover image: Lara Mulcahy as Rosie and Jennifer Vuletic as Tanya in the 2009 Sydney production of Mamma Mia!, Getty Image/Sergio Dionisio/Stringer First published 2022 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 Kevin Byrne and Emily Fuchs The right of Kevin Byrne and Emily Fuchs to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 9780367648930 (hbk) ISBN: 9780367648923 (pbk) ISBN: 9781003126829 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/b22939 Typeset in Bembo by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

To James and Miranda, my super troupers –K.B. To Mom –E.F.

Contents

Acknowledgmentsviii PART I

Historical and Dramaturgical1 1 Five, Six, Seven, Eight!: An Introduction3 2 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Jukebox Musical 

21

3 Preludes and Predecessors: Vaudeville, Rock Musicals, and Megamusicals 

39

4 Mamma Mia! and the Establishment of a Form 

59

PART II

Types of Jukebox Musicals 

77

5  Exploring a Discography: Artist Catalog Jukebox Musicals 

79

6  A Life in Lyrics: Biographical Jukebox Musicals 

99

7  Reminiscing about the Classics: Era- and Genre-Specific Musicals 

117

Index136

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the wonderful artists and scholars who advised and encouraged us during the writing of this book, starting with Zoë Forbes, Steph Hines, Laura Hussey, and Ben Piggott at Taylor & Francis. Special thanks to the anonymous reviewer at Taylor & Francis for their edits and feedback. Dr. Donatella Galella shared critical advice during the proposal phase. Chloe Loos assisted us through her humor and patience. Dennis O’Connor provided needed explanations of musical genres. John Muszynski discussed titles and scripts. Abigail Dunscomb sat through Cats. George Cederquist gave detailed notes. Laura Fuchs and Dr. Denise Meeks read through drafts and gave moral support. Mike Mulcahy listened. Kaitlin Hopkins pointed the way to new material and archives. Stephanie Towery and the librarians at Texas State University’s Alkek Library found some last-minute articles. Jennifer Vuletic and Lara Mulcahy graciously allowed us to use their images on the cover. And Dr. Ana Martínez helped throughout the entire process in more ways than can be cataloged. This volume would not have been possible without all of you. The Graduate & Professional Student Council Research and Project (ReaP) Grant from the University of Arizona helped fund the cover photo.

Part I

Historical and Dramaturgical

1 Five, Six, Seven, Eight! An Introduction

In 1999, on the eve of its debut in London, Mamma Mia!’s producer Judith Craymer gave an interview in which she described the dramatic stakes of her new show: “No one is pretending to make a serious, epic musical here …. There’s a tongue-in-cheek campiness about it that is part of the charm we want to retain.”1 Twenty years later, with jukebox musicals dominating the Broadway landscape, New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley opened an article on the state of theater by bluntly, and half-seriously, declaring, “Put the blame on Abba.”2 These two quotes, at the ends of the jukebox musical’s journey into a commanding performance genre, typify the playfully antagonistic feelings about this type of musical theater. They encapsulate how creators, critics, and audiences respond to it, what emotions it evokes, and the feelings involved: energetic, joyful, exasperated, unable to take seriously, unable to take itself seriously. Even those who enjoy the form, rather than be able to talk about it affectionately, usually begin on the defensive. These opening quotes are actually remarkably similar, despite their seeming antithetical positions. They capture the spirit of the jukebox musical by being in on the joke of it, that the best defense is to go belly up and plead a naïve innocence. Craymer strikes a calculated position by referencing camp and deliberately making the show seem unimportant. She deflects criticism by lambasting the style itself. But this is not the only, or even best, way to talk about catalog musicals. There is sophistication as well as joy to be found in the form. That is what this book aims to explore. Musical theater purists reflexively dismiss the jukebox musical as a combination of pieces that shouldn’t be together: an unnatural hybrid, a Frankenstein’s Monster of stitched parts, or the turducken of the live performance world. This book challenges that particular negative stereotype. Jukebox musicals can and do have clunky elements but, in kind, there is potential for rich and entertaining experience. It is easy to glance at Once upon a One More Time, a #metoo DOI: 10.4324/b22939-2

4  Historical and Dramaturgical

Cinderella story with Britney Spears’s songs,3 and see a mercenary and opportunistic entertainment that skims the flotsam of pop culture. But at their most complex, they can alchemically combine plot, character, and libretto with the already existing music. It can hold its own as a work of entertainment and be analyzed through a series of criteria that have developed alongside the form itself. Jukebox musicals may be a knockabout offshoot of a middlebrow musical genre, but it has separated itself enough to be appreciated on their own terms. After several decades of financial and critical success, no reviewer or theatergoer can dismiss them outright. This book explains that trajectory toward legitimacy. It also aims to teach the reader about the shows to better appreciate their craftsmanship and—dare we say it—artistry. To return to the quotes at the top of the chapter: on the eve of Mamma Mia!’s opening, Craymer suggests a low-key approach to enjoying the show. And Brantley returns to that perspective twenty years later as a sideways rebuke, not to that show specifically or Craymer’s cavalier attitude toward basic dramaturgy, but to the dozens and dozens of productions that were developed in the wake of Mamma Mia! What this volume aims to do is both acknowledge this as the dominant perspective for creating and reviewing a jukebox show while also peeling back the layers of more cavalier enjoyment to discover the intricate decisions and structural commonalities of the genre. The subtitle of this book is “An Interpretive History,” which means that we will be both studying and discussing the past of the form and how individual shows have added up to a movement. But, by not taking as creed the way that they have been written about, we are providing a new interpretation of these shows and how they can be staged. We examine jukeboxes from three interlocking and overlapping perspectives: categorical, historical, and dramaturgical. These are used to give a true measure of the jukebox musical and how it can best be appreciated as a new and evolving form of popular entertainment. A categorical perspective itemizes the defining characteristics of the jukebox musical as well as the reasons for why they are so important. A historical perspective brings into the conversation earlier kinds of live entertainment that informed the creation and execution of it in production: from earlier musicals to rock concerts to, farther back, vaudeville. Another factor in a historical analysis of this genre is the culture at large that led to it becoming so immensely popular, how Mamma Mia! kick-started a trend that has continued unabated. A dramaturgical perspective to analyzing jukebox musicals is to identify the various parts and pieces that make a show like this, and how the pieces all work together to create something that, hopefully, is entertaining and memorable for an audience. These are the decisions made by the creators in developing the show, from the composition of the book to the orchestration of the songs to the curation of the tunes. These are in addition to those creative decisions made in production, from blocking to costumes to props. These three perspectives are essential for an understanding of the jukebox format and its potentialities. This introductory chapter, then, is the grounding for the interpretive history that follows. It explains why a musical of Abba songs set on a Greek island

Five, Six, Seven, Eight! 5

actually makes a lot of sense, despite on the surface having nothing whatsoever to do with each other. Or why a musical trip through the life of Carole King is emotionally stirring. Or why an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, in which the title characters survive, can be combined with Katy Perry and the Backstreet Boys to undermine stereotypes of both gender and sexuality. (It’s true! It works!) Fascinating analysis can be mined from these sources, as well as a number of other jukebox musicals. The rest of this chapter looks at what defines a categorical, historical, and dramaturgical approach, with a sprinkling of interesting case studies used throughout as examples.

Categorical Before delving into the specifics of what constitutes a jukebox musical, sometimes called a catalog musical, it is helpful to know what a genre is and why such designations are useful as a tool of analysis. To study a genre, and even subgenres as we do here, is to group works of art around a common series of characteristics, similar to a scientific taxonomy. But, in the arts, we look at the adjectival, observable elements as well as the manner in which they are conveyed, and the intended purpose for an audience, and how they elicit a response. This gives scholars a way of gathering evidence for comparison to also track a genre’s development over time. Genre studies requires an agglomeration of agreed-upon characteristics. This means that there is not a single element that is necessary or required for something to be considered a catalog show but rather a small constellation of things that revolve around each other. A number of histories of musical theater reduce jukeboxes to just the use of preexisting songs. Though obviously important and central, to do so is ultimately more confusing than illuminating when discussing the phenomena, because such a yes/no binary too rigorously includes some things while excluding others. This single characteristic is frequently used as a way to dismissively ignore them as being less true, authentic, or good. The problems of such a categorization are the lumping together of a set of shows and then an easy dismissal of everything within the category. In this volume, we explain the five core characteristics of the form in a way that also supports the overall organization of the book around the jukebox musical’s three most dominant subcategories: the artist catalog musical, the biographical musical, and the era-specific musical. There is much more to the genre than just the use of preexisting tunes. There are constraints around what can be done within the jukebox musical but there are also exciting variations that push the envelope. The jukebox musical’s core characteristics connect a number of works under the umbrella term while also excluding several that we believe have erroneously been grouped with it. First off: yes, it must exclusively or nearly exclusively use a preexisting song catalog that was originally produced and released in a recorded format such as record, tape, CD, or MP3. Songs as part of an album is experienced differently than music which originated in or for a live event of any kind, from a musical to an opera or symphony. The act of creation within a recording

6  Historical and Dramaturgical

studio setting is different than the stage. The idea that a song will first be heard (and mostly be heard) through speakers as opposed to in person, is different as well. The phenomena of its creation and reception hinge on an understanding of its mediation. We draw upon Philip Auslander’s seminal Liveness: Performance in a Mediated Culture for a definition of mediation as well as the relationship between live and recorded platforms of engagement. Looking at the long view of music recordings since the beginning of the twentieth century, Auslander writes, “one consequence of the reification of music in recordings is the century-old separation of the musical experience from liveness and, particularly, the aural experience of music from its visual experience.”4 In this, he separates live and visual aspects of in-person performance from the aural and recorded aspects of media, particularly in relation to song, music, and concerts. But there is an added wrinkle to this trajectory that is essential to the impact of a jukebox. In Auslander’s schema, the cultural product begins as a live event and then is mediatized. As he states in his conclusion, “To the extent that live performances now emulate mediatized representations, they have become second-hand recreations of themselves as refracted through mediatization.”5 And, given the prominence, power, and categorical necessity of existing music, we can place the jukebox musical at the far end of this particular historical and cultural trajectory. It not only replicates mediatization’s stylistic effects, but it is also dependent upon it for its very existence and reason for being. The upending of this phenomenological or ontological hierarchy has lasting effects across story, staging, and reception. This bedrock component then creates the conditions for a second characteristic of the jukebox musical, something both incredibly obvious and yet needs to be mentioned. The songs are sung by characters, ones with fictionalized dialogue, backstories, and interactions with other singing characters. The choice to sing and what is being expressed through the song are both meant to convey something about that person or group of individuals. We hum along with the melody or tap our feet to the beat, and we are learning more about what these fictional characters are like. When Killer Queen in We Will Rock You sings “Another One Bites the Dust,” we are learning about her ruthlessness as an authoritarian demagogue. As this is true for invented characters in musicals with new plots, it is equally true in bio-musicals which are based on the lives of real singers and songwriters. Killer Queen and Carole King are equally invented characters in their respective musicals. The song needs to be thought of in a narrative trajectory of the singer. In Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, her reinvigorated faith is signaled through the character singing “I Believe in Jesus.” Summer’s emerging religious fervor is encapsulated in the song itself. A song that expresses deep emotion within the confines of the tune itself can become sutured to story, narrative, and theme. A third element is that these songs are sung by characters in a narrative, an overarching plot with a consistent story, relationships that mature and evolve, and a thematic spine that addresses larger issues beyond what is contained in either the plot or any individual song. There is a resonance of story and song

Five, Six, Seven, Eight! 7

when, for instance, Ray Davies of the Kinks performs “Too Much on My Mind” while bedridden after suffering a breakdown. The song is given an added poignancy because of Ray’s fragile mental state, but the musical amplifies the pathos by crossing between Ray’s song and his wife, Rasa, singing “I’m Tired of Waiting for You” to express her alienation and disappointment.6 That a Kinks tune is being sung back to its author in this way is complex and dark, and the moment strikes at how such a choice in a jukebox show can “provide a quick, bold stroke of characterization.” 7 The whole must be more than the parts. This characteristic also helps to exclude works like the Billy Joel–inspired Movin’ Out, which is a dance performance, the Beatles tribute concert Rain that serves the greatest hits of the Fab Four through costume changes but no plot to speak of, and Thriller Live!, which recreates onstage the look of Michael Jackson’s music videos. A fourth characteristic, that the work begins as a stage musical and exists primarily as such, impacts the structure of the show and how the songs and plot beats are organized and dramatized. If the show is intended for the live stage, it generally follows a format with specific rules, expectations, and limitations to accommodate for, such as a fixed number of locations and a compact cast of characters. This excludes musical films that have preexisting pop, such as the Beatlesinspired Across the Universe. We need to include this criterion, which builds upon the others, because without it, the definition of a jukebox musical can get overly vague and confusing. This book spends a good deal of space discussing Mamma Mia!, which was turned into a film, but it won’t be analyzing Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, the cinematic sequel to the film. We also won’t be discussing the 2001 movie Moulin Rouge, which has a pastiche of contemporary tunes within its turn-of-the twentieth-century Parisian setting. But, happily enough, it was then turned into a musical! We will look at the later stage version, because the music originated before the film, as preexisting pop. The limiting of location and character, which is done for both dramaturgical and financial reasons, compresses the story and focuses the audience’s attention on things that are essential to live musical theater’s tone and feeling. This weighs heavily on how a jukebox show is received. A fifth and final characteristic relates to the creation of the songs themselves. To qualify as a jukebox, the songs should not be originally intended for a musical in any medium. So, goodbye Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. Both were originally released as concept albums by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, but with the notion that they would help promote an eventual stage production. Because this intention was present from the inception, it cannot be considered a jukebox musical; the songs, music, and orchestration were already too clearly tied to the musical form. Putting “Everything’s Alright” or “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” in a live show doesn’t require the logistical and dramaturgical juggling that is part of a catalog show. This criterion also excludes stage versions of movie musicals, from the live Singin’ in the Rain to the adaptations of so many Disney animated movies such as The Lion King and Frozen. All of these had original music written for them that was already integral to character and plot. The same can also be

8  Historical and Dramaturgical

said for the stage version of the movie Once. The film features folk and pop music that, within the drama, is being written by its two central characters who also fall in love. Once is arguably more of a movie-with-music rather than a movie musical, but the stage version certainly doesn’t qualify as a jukebox musical. This fifth characteristic is more exclusionary than inclusive, in that it cuts a number of weird middle-ground possibilities rather than stating definitively what these musicals are, but it does allow for a clearer understanding of the genre’s workings. With these five characteristics in place, we can loop back to the first and most impactful of them to fully embrace how the decision to build a narrative around prerecorded songs can then reverberate into all of the other areas of production. Because, to put it simply, it radically affects the storytelling of the show. In a jukebox musical, the songs come from a catalog by a single artist or group who creates and writes the music and lyrics for an album. The songs are contained and have distinct mini-narratives all on their own, and in their original conception require no outside knowledge to gain the emotional power of the story within it. Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” is a pretty effective breakup song in and of itself, without having to be wrapped in the story of Jagged Little Pill. The tension these mini-narratives create when embedded within a unifying plot of a jukebox musical is a central concern for this volume. The five criteria may come across as redundant, or it may seem that we’re splitting hairs, but in reality these are distinct enough from each other that only through their complete interaction may the fullness of the jukebox musical form be captured and experienced. Take, for example, the use of “Forever Young” as the closing number in Girl from the North Country, a Bob Dylan catalog musical. It is sung by Elizabeth, the haunted proprietress of the boarding house that serves as the setting of the play. After learning that the bank has foreclosed on the property and her children are leaving, she begins to sing. The lyrics are striking and elegiac, a prayer directed to someone else, hoping that they follow a path of goodness and truth through the world. Given the lyrics and musical tone, it seems reasonable that it would be early in the show and sung to another character. Putting it at the end of the show and having the “you” that’s being addressed remain ambiguous while the characters all depart their separate ways, is bold and downbeat. The lyrics do not reflect anything specific about the plot or characters nor do they explain the psychological state of Elizabeth as she teeters on the cusp of change. But the connections become very potent and moving nonetheless, for the emotional pull that it has over the show’s conclusion. To summarize, the five core elements of jukebox musicals are: • • • • •

The use of already recoded, preexisting, songs The songs are sung by fictional characters, and even biographical musicals have fictional characters The songs are within, and connected to, an overarching narrative The production is designed for live performance The songs were originally composed for a genre other than a musical

Five, Six, Seven, Eight! 9

These characteristics are always present and are interwoven with each other in how they give a shape and structure to the shows. Traditional musicals, dance pieces, nonmusical performances, films, and other media can have one or two of these characteristics but the contours of the jukebox encapsulate all five. These parameters allow for a variety of shows to be created while also functioning definitively, even proudly, as catalog shows. These separate categories must be carefully articulated, combined, and played off each other. As a genre, jukebox musicals do not merely plunk pop songs, pell-mell, into a story, as some of the more vitriolic detractors say. There is more than a little finesse required to, say, have the ingénue character in All Shook Up—with a plot based loosely on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and the songs of Elvis—sing “Blue Suede Shoes” in male drag while wooing her lothario love interest. The calibration of song, character, and narrative is extremely tricky to convincingly pull off. Jukebox musicals are created with regularity, are being enjoyed around the world, and continue to be very lucrative. The numbers are staggering, really. Take, for example, Mamma Mia!: the urtext for this genre, the platonic ideal that all others are chasing, and a show that will be given close consideration in a later chapter. In its first decade, the stage show was seen by 32 million people in over 200 cities and made 2 billion dollars.8 Its success even inspired a spin-off show called Mamma Mia! The Party.9 This immersive jukebox musical is set on the fictional island from the original show and is full of Abba songs but it is not related to the plot of the original nor does it center on those characters. The audience is given food and dances as a new story unfolds around them. Mamma Mia! The Party began in Stockholm and spread to other cities. The phrase “Mamma Mia!” is the connecting thread; it moved beyond being the name of a musical and became a brand. Several catalog musicals were created around the time of Mamma Mia! and the number has increased rapidly. These shows have traditionally started in New York or London, though nowadays they might also be found in Tokyo or Mexico City. And the most successful of them tour around the world; professional productions are even found in international waters as the entertainment on cruise ships. There are also incalculable productions at colleges, high schools, and in community settings. The biggest ones have found other audiences through their film versions. Monetary success is buttressed by award recognition, such as the Tony Awards or their British equivalent, the Oliviers. Such critical success is usually reserved for actors, costume designers, and set designers, as the plot and narrative are usually ignored by tastemakers. Box office, popularity, and cultural response illustrate the impact of these shows within the live entertainment realm. Though we sometimes mention money, economics will remain, mostly, a backdrop. This book is an interpretive history and not a business analysis, though financial and creative decisions cannot be separated. Given the characteristics of jukebox musicals as outlined here, along with the influence of shows that achieve intense popularity, and also considering that the costs of mounting a show like

10  Historical and Dramaturgical

this runs into millions, the choices that are made in creating, directing, designing, and marketing are neither common sense nor slapdash. Rather, many careful, high-stakes decisions are made with these musicals, thousands of them, that all contribute to the mood, tone, and ultimate message.

Historical Though our focus is on a textual analysis and interpretation, we will briefly be discussing the trajectory of musical theater history from the nineteenth century to the present, and what links jukeboxes to that history. How these histories have been written, and by extension how musical theater, in general, is understood, are distinctly biased against jukebox musicals. Such histories, of which there are legions, express a love for the “golden era” of musicals, the mid-twentieth century run of integrated book musicals such as Guys and Dolls and Fiddler on the Roof. These histories view the past forty or so years as a “decline” in both the artistic excellence and cultural impact of the format. Lloyd Webber is held up for especial disdain for his crassly commercialized and lugubrious megamusicals that dominated the theatrical landscape in the 1980s and 1990s. Jukebox musicals are then tossed in a bag with Cats, the easier to drown them all in a river. The sentiment of these histories can be summed up by the concluding chapter of Mark Grant’s The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical, titled “The Age of McMusicals: Vaudeville Redux.” He calls jukebox musicals “visualized record players” that are “uncompelling and unmemorable.”10 In a similar vein, newspaper reviewers have piled on them, compounding the message of the historians that the musical’s greatest days are in the past. In an exasperated moment of pique that gained some traction online, New York Times theater critic Jesse Green, in his review of Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, called biographical jukeboxes “the cockroach of Broadway” that “keep coming no matter how hard they get stomped on by critics.”11 Grant admits his crankiness up front and Green has more recently admitted to enjoying some jukebox shows, but the attitude is a summation of many critics’ and historians’ perspectives. So much so, more recent productions have to, in some way, answer for the sins of the past. This perspective is convincingly challenged by catalog musicals at their most sophisticated. And we will do that, in part, by looking at the earlier kinds of live, scripted, musical performance that have the strongest direct connections to the jukeboxes and from whence they are descendants. Of the different musical genres, vaudeville, rock musicals, and megamusicals have shared characteristics with catalog shows; a decidedly jumbled parentage. We would like to briefly mention some of the aspects of them here, as Chapter 3 will detail what these forms contribute to an understanding of the jukebox’s inner workings. The vaudeville show was an extremely popular live entertainment in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It had a mixture of different programming and acts that were bundled together into a full evening of fun and diversion. The show might include comedians, magicians, or animal acts,

Five, Six, Seven, Eight! 11

and they always featured songs that were the pop music of the day: tin pan alley ditties, ragtime, minstrel tunes, and others. Seemingly random selections taken from an existing pool of popular music is what connects vaudeville to the jukebox musical. It was expected that the audience was already familiar with the songs and would actively participate by singing along with the vocalist and band. The shows were meant to appease as wide an audience as possible. In describing the phenomenon, Andrew Erdman writes that vaudeville “spawned a kind of entertainment that was electric in its appeal, easily spread, and the perfect fare for amusement-hungry new urbanites” of the day.12 The music was from preexisting sources in many cases, but a vaudeville program was carefully calibrated to elicit specific emotions of joy, wonder, or sentiment at specific moments and in modulation with the others. Like jukebox musicals, there is both a similar motivating factor, to involve existing popular music, and result, to please an audience. Jukeboxes also draw from more recent musical movements. Prominent in the 1970s and 1980s, rock musicals are wholly original shows that have a rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic. They are more than just a rock attitude and subject matter but also use electric instrumentation, a rock beat, and lyrical signatures derived from a three-minute radio single. Elizabeth Wollman’s history of the rock musical stretches from Hair in the 1970s up to Hedwig and the Angry Inch in 1998. The form is littered with small oddball shows and expensive failures, but the hit shows prompted composers and producers to make them for decades, only to be largely overshadowed by the pure jukebox musical. The connections to catalog musicals are evident in the predominance of pop music, and also in how the fusing of rock and musical theater can be destabilizing. As Wollman writes, “Reception of even the most well-received rock musicals… almost always reveals recurring imbalances: a successful staged production offering a blend of rock and musical theater aesthetics usually wins the favor of either the rock or the musical theater realm, but rarely both camps at once.”13 Instead of original musical theater tunes which copy the trappings of rock, jukebox musicals’ reliance on prerecorded tunes intensifies this imbalance, making the problem of coherent dramatic structure significantly trickier. Jukeboxes have frequently been compared to the megamusicals and are considered a direct offshoot. The works of Lloyd Webber and Rice, and Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, include an intense theatricality of sumptuous costumes and sets full of elaborate stage gimmicks, melodramatic plots of lost love and lingering death, and a propulsive rock beat. The megamusical has fans and detractors who can argue over many of its qualities and characteristics, save one: excess. The stories are big, the emotions are huge, the music is full of hooks. The musical-theater-on-steroids label is affixed to this classification of show, which has some truth to it despite being reductive. Les Misérables, to cite one prominent example, distills a 1500-page Victor Hugo novel into a three-hour extravaganza of nineteenth-century French life after the revolution. The music is totalizing; it never stops as it traces decades of feuding and intergenerational entanglements.

12  Historical and Dramaturgical

In The Megamusical, Jessica Sternfeld defines the form as “usually sung-through” with “an epic, historically situated, but timeless plot staged on a fancy set.”14 Given this definition, there seems to be little which connects megamusicals to jukeboxes. The whole of French society is a far cry from the life of Buddy Holly or the tribulations of Cher, after all. There has been an unfortunate tendency to view catalog musicals as an extension of the megamusical, even though there is little either structurally or narratively that connects them together, other than that they both employ a rock meter and style. The more nimble and frothy jukebox shows escape much that is weighty about them—remember the Craymer quote from the top of the chapter that explicitly separates Mamma Mia! from musicals heavy with pathos. These significant differences, and what it means to an appreciation of jukeboxes, will be discussed in Chapter 4. A final category of musical that is placed in conversation with the jukebox musical, one alluded to at the beginning of this section in reference to the “golden era” of the musical theater form, is the integrated musical. The exact parameters of the integrated musical vary from critic to critic, as does the beginning and end of this era of excellence, but the grouping of shows at the height of this aesthetic parabola include Oklahoma, The Music Man, and West Side Story. The integrated musical has, at its core, a feeling of complete synthesis and harmony between all of the elements within it. It has an artistic team that strives to create a blending of book, music, lyrics, choreography, set, and sometimes even star performer.15 They attempt with singular purpose to seamlessly combine the story beats, character arcs, dance moves, and musical motifs. Needless to say, the integrated musical is seen not as a spiritual ancestor of the jukebox musical but rather its antithesis. It has all the hallmarks of auteurist genius that catalog shows lack. As producer Jack Viertel writes in The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows are Built, “Rock somehow seemed antithetical to the narrative traditions of the musical play—many of the pop hits seemed content-free— so why bother?”16 In our interpretive history, we aim to shake up this particular binary as well as the jukebox musical’s dismissal for failing to match the ideals of the integrated show. In fact, a radical evaluation of the genre would posit that one shouldn’t use the integrated musical criteria at all. The forms are so removed from each other that such analysis is rendered meaningless. (Instead of being an evaluation of two like artworks that hew closely together, comparing a jukebox musical to an integrated musical is more akin to saying a sculpture is no good because it’s not a painting.) Rather let us follow a different set of standards, ones grounded in a categorical definition of a jukebox show. The existing scholarship about jukeboxes is frequently dismissive, though there are notable exceptions that are both celebratory and critical. As the form has developed, there have been other voices and perspectives which have percolated to the surface in journals, newspapers, and books. In a piece for the New Yorker titled “Let’s Rock: In Defense of Jukebox Musicals,” Sarah Larson acknowledges that they can be “a living, breathing pop-music wax museum,” but goes on to state, “Done well, jukebox musicals, which are by nature about

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popular music, can have great music and dramatic insight, too.”17 Larson cites the scene in Jersey Boys when the individual personalities and sounds cohere into during a recording of “Sherry.” Larson’s article is crucial in how it ties the biographical musical’s structure to its content; that it can convincingly conjure “the aha of musical creation, when a song comes alive.”18 (It is also a fixture in fictionalized jukeboxes too, as when Drew briefly becomes a rock star in Rock of Ages through his own music.) Hearing Carole in Beautiful compose and sing “Some Kind of Wonderful” after discovering she’s pregnant gives added resonance to the song. The conditions of the composition then echo across the sentiments of the lyrics and their upbeat, doo-wop orchestration. This is a poignant number near the top of the show, but the layerings are contained within the biographical details and direct connections between subject and song. There are additional layers, and sometimes subversive ways, that jukebox shows can trade upon the audience’s knowledge of the original recordings of songs. As John Severn notes in Shakespeare as Jukebox Musical, “the form lends itself to political work, particularly in terms of identity politics and a valorization of diversity” by layering new meanings atop familiar songs and well-known plots.19 (His analysis is echoed in several scholarly articles about Mamma Mia! that analyze how it uses the Abba playbook while undercutting the misogyny of the songs.20) From a historical perspective, the consideration of songcraft and theatricality is important as well, so is the unique ability of the jukebox musical of having songs read in several ways simultaneously. Take, for example, the paired numbers “Automatic Rainy Day” and “Vacation” from Head over Heels, a show set during the Renaissance about the confusing paths of love with music from the Go-Go’s. Nothing connects the two songs together. “Vacation” is the title track of their 1982 album and “Automatic Rainy Day” is on their 2001 album God Bless the Go-Go’s, so nineteen years separate when they were recorded. Though one is a breakup track and the other expresses romantic longing, little suggests a progression between them in terms of character growth or dramatic conflict. But, in actuality, it follows the hurtful separation of two women in love and then their reconciliation. In the show, Princess Pamela argues with her handmaid, Mopsa, after they both realize their affection for each other. “Rainy” becomes an angry duet and, in a later scene, Mopsa longs to return while singing “Vacation.” “Rainy” and “Vacation” were originally written for female vocals, have first-person narrations, and unidentified objects of affection. By giving them a definitive point of view as the songs struggle to convey an emerging lesbian desire, the music adds a level of “political work” as Severn says, particularly through a validation of homosexual identity. The transformation of the songs in Head over Heels opens up new readings and possibilities. A sophisticated and critical perspective on these works has recently arrived, with a number of scholars offering nuanced analyses. This position is well articulated by David Savran, who writes about the appeal of nostalgia for the jukebox musical’s construction. Nostalgia is a powerful emotional force in popular culture. It draws up a well of tender and warm memories, and does so by sanding

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off the confusions and complexities of past events. It makes audiences reminisce blissfully about the way things were and feel better about the way things are. It is a seductive feeling that catalog shows are very capable of evoking and exploiting. In discussing the draw of Mamma Mia!, Savran writes, The power of nostalgia suggests to me that the jukebox musical produces a different kind of star: you—for it provides a certain narcissistic gratification by evoking memories of ‘Dancing Queen’ or ‘Money, Money, Money’ and in the process making your own past a part of the performance.21 This tension holds true across the vast majority of catalog shows. The entanglement of an individual audience member’s memories with the shared, communal nostalgia of a whole audience gives these shows something singularly celebratory and lulling. The works draw audiences back in a manner that is both remembrance and forgetting. The most successful of the jukebox musicals have long runs and, amazingly, an international scope. This is unlike the global appeal of a megamusical, which relies on spectacle and powerful orchestrations to overcome regional tastes. Rather, jukeboxes are international because of nostalgia for the songs. And though the feeling of nostalgia is different for generations and countries, there is an affable, ineffable quality of jukebox musicals that transcends location or language that stems from the song catalogs. In an interview about the multiple Mamma Mia!s around the world, playwright Catherine Johnson noted that she changes the script “to reflect the country in which it is playing.” But, fascinatingly, the creators received pushback when translating the songs. In the same interview, director Phyllida Lloyd noted, “The Germans and the Dutch were saying: ‘You can’t change these songs, we know them in English, translating them will ruin it,’” though they did ultimately decide to translate the lyrics because “we wanted local audiences to feel the show was expressly written for them, so that they felt they owned it.”22 Nostalgia of the music itself has become an anticipated enjoyment factor for so many jukebox shows. A quick note on terminology and where the label “jukebox musical” comes from. An etymology of the phrase suggests that, even from its earliest written usages, it was tied to a nostalgic tug. For what even is a jukebox, other than an outmoded technology reminiscent of soda shops and 45s? That this quaint piece of audio equipment has become the metaphor of the genre is quite telling; the act of gathering seemingly random pop musical selections together within a narrative is named after the machine that houses them. Drop in a dime: B4 is “Heartbreak Hotel” and H11 is “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” The metaphor has an allure, as does the coining of the phrase. An early, and possibly first, use comes from the 1995 review of Swinging on a Star by Ben Brantley—yes, the man who eventually pinned the blame on Abba. Criticizing this show featuring the music of Johnny Burke, he writes that it is “yet another jukebox musical …, this time built around the works of a lyricist whose name is unknown to most people

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under 50.”23 From the first, the phrase was considered a dismissive appraisal. And it is key that the shows Brantley mentions in the article are Swinging on a Star and Smokey Joe’s Café. Each is a nostalgic parade of blues and jazz tunes with almost no plot at all. It makes sense that this would be the conditions under which the phrase arose.24

Dramaturgical This chapter has discussed the categorical and historical aspects of the jukebox musical: how it is defined, where it comes from, and how it has been critically assessed up until now. The third perspective of our interpretive history is a dramaturgical look at the form. The term “dramaturgy” can be confusing, as it describes both a person working on a production (the dramaturg) and also the action of researching a show while in rehearsal. As Katalyn Trencsényi writes, dramaturgical meaning “is created by the recognition and arrangement of patterns … in the context of the performance as a dynamic and durational whole.”25 Dramaturgy is about asking the right questions and offering creative solutions during the process of production. And, as this volume is intended to understand the jukebox musical and categorizing its qualities while also identifying its ills, we are acting as rigorous dramaturgs ourselves. We are also empowering the reader to learn how to ask the right questions of a jukebox show: why a song is used in a particular moment, how the music relates to the plot, or how an audience is going to respond to a character singing a well-known rock anthem. The dramaturg’s art is in appreciating a catalog musical’s structure, pacing, characterization, messaging, and audience. With all of the considerations, tensions, and competing ideas within one of these shows, given what is expected and required of it, a dramaturg has a lot of work cut out for them. This is succinctly outlined by Brian D. Valencia in his essay “A Method for  Musical Theatre Dramaturgy.” Building upon basic dramaturgical principles for all theaters, he dives into the specific complications of the form, how “music and song often impose unique structural and thematic demands on a dramatic text.”26 One of the key observations that Valencia makes is how lopsided the theatrics of musical theater are toward the songs over the book. “Highlighted via instrumental accompaniment, the piling up of singing voices into unison and harmonic textures, measured repetition of musical and lyrical phrases, changes in lighting, and large-scale synchronized movement, dance, and other spectacular effects,” he notes, “the songs point to themselves as moments of keen theatrical interest against the somewhat flatter armature of the book that holds them in place.”27 That already imbalanced pairing is then further exaggerated when considering the jukebox musical. One way to appreciate a catalog musical’s dramaturgical structure is to focus on how information is relayed through the plot and song, and what kinds of information is given to the audience through the way songs are performed. There are two main types of performance modes in musical theater: diegetic and

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non-diegetic. When music performed is defined as diegetic, it signals that the music within the scene is heard in real time by the characters in the space, not just the audience. Non-diegetic performances are contextually “outside” of the musical and may not be heard by other characters onstage; this is also described as “breaking out into song.” The audience is inside the character’s head. Diegetic and non-diegetic performances may be interspersed throughout a jukebox show. Different contexts allow for either type of performance style. Diegetic performances, those that occur within the physical world of the musical, can be contextualized as live performances, like concerts and recording studio sessions. Non-diegetic songs most often occur during moments of extreme emotional intensity or the need for exposition. Both kinds of performance styles can be found in jukebox musicals. Like integrated musicals, plot and song must work together. If a musical’s libretto is weak, the jukebox musical may begin to feel more like a tribute concert than a piece of theater, with spoken dialogue acting as a stepping stone from one song to the next without compelling or logical movement. This can happen when a character’s dialogue only describes an event in which a song is happening, or does not display actions and consequences that link the scene, song, and character together in a way that appears organic to the audience. This can also contribute to the problem of shoehorning content and plot together. A few questions that can assist in analyzing character actions are: • • •

Why is this action/song placed right here, right now, within the show? What is the consequence of this action/song? What is the driving force behind this action/song?

A story needs to explain the world of the show, so the character’s actions seem genuine, or known, even if its reality operates differently than our own experiences. In utilizing a musical mode of storytelling, especially through non-diegetic performances, the music of a show can enhance emotional tone, experiment with music styles, and efficiently portray a character’s progression of thought. Let’s examine some patterns that arise when surveying the landscape of the genre. Despite the seeming rigidity of the jukebox musical’s characteristics, there is an amazing amount of variety which reflects the strength both of its formula and potential for a lucrative box office. Biographical musicals are the most numerous; ones have been written about Gloria and Emilio Estefan, Ray Charles, and many others. Building upon the ideas in the Larsen and Savran articles, there are a number of strengths to the genre that are particularly potent with the biographical jukeboxes that amplify each other, from the catalog of hits, nostalgia factor, and inevitable scene of the band discovering what will be its signature sound. Nearly every musical genre has been represented onstage, from hair metal to country to disco, but certain eras and styles dominate. Both the 1920s and the 1970s–1980s are heavily represented, as are jazz and rock. Catalog musicals with original stories and narratives are drawn to a wide variety of tales,

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from historical to domestic to futuristic. In a number of these narratives, “real” music is seen as a savior from something false and phony. From a dramaturgical perspective, what this means is that they have a heavy emphasis on nostalgia to reach the audience’s emotions. The well of nostalgia can be drawn from too often, though. This reliance can be a crutch as much as a benefit, as will be explained in this volume. Understanding and identifying the cogs and wheels of a production is essential to a dramaturgical analysis, as is the way that these pieces fit together or even if they do. So dramaturgs are always asking what makes a show engaging, makes it more than the sum of its parts. There are a number of core dramaturgical considerations endemic to the form, a number of qualities to consider which illuminate the specifics of jukebox musicals. These considerations echo the categorical and historical sections of this introduction and are connected to the appropriate use of preexisting songs; the likelihood of drawing a compelling story out of an artist’s biography and discography; and the use of, or struggle against, nostalgia that seems baked into the process. This makes for fascinating and compelling research and analysis to accompany a jukebox’s spectacle, frippery, and good groves.

Overview This book is divided into two parts and seven chapters, all of which will give the reader a full and nuanced portrait of the jukebox show. Part I covers the form’s historical and dramaturgical aspects so the reader can better parse the components of any catalog show as well as understand the machinations of its creators, even when it seems to go no further than, “We need to put the hit song somewhere!” Chapter 2 analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the jukebox musical, the freedoms and constraints that come from basing a new live performance event in preexisting recordings. Both the positives and negatives need to be acknowledged as they do with any performance genre, but the gap between possibility and limitation is particularly wide with a jukebox. Chapter 3 looks at the form’s immediate antecedents, specifically vaudeville, rock musicals, and megamusicals. There are possibilities for surprising connections and thoughtful resonances in jukebox shows because the genre’s constrictions force new kinds of innovation. Chapter 4 looks at the genre’s foundational shows that established the template of how the genre is constructed, with a particular emphasis on Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys. Part II separates the three types of jukebox musical to better understand their nuances and differences: artist catalog, biographical, and era- and genre-specific. There tend to be clear demarcations between each of them, and throughout Part II they will be discussed in comparison with each other. It is ironic that, in a musical genre that so often is accused of stealing from its betters, these three subcategories are quite distinct from each other. The fact that they cleanly fall into categorizations is very much linked to the use of prerecorded music within the narrative setting; that is, adhering to one category over another prevents

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both structural and dramaturgical muddles. The book draws upon a wealth of examples, from plots to songs to set designs. The history here is not a strict chronology nor is it an exhaustive list, instead it explains the jukebox’s shapes and contours and the reasons for it. Following Mamma Mia!, artist catalog musicals have a fictional plot that is tied to a single band’s music, and the story and staging capture the mood of that artist and their well-known songs. The look and feel of David Bowie’s Lazarus, with its austere metallic grey and spaceman ennui, is very different from the pastels and floral prints of Jimmy Buffett’s Escape to Margaritaville. The biographical chapter reflects upon everything from 1989’s Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story up through 2019’s Tina: The Tina Turner Musical and discusses the methods of conveying artistic and musical moments of inspiration that audience members like the New Yorker’s Sara Larson find so alluring. Era- and genre-specific shows also have a fictional story and an aesthetic that matches the dominant nostalgic feeling of the times. The songs are always taken from a bracketed set of years that are aligned generationally: 1920s tin pan alley for Bullets over Broadway and grunge pop for Cruel Intentions: The 90s Musical. These shows are often set during the years in which the music was recorded, and are given an extra nostalgic jolt as a result. We are performing dramaturgical work here, but this isn’t a book just for dramaturgs. This book can be helpful for anyone working on a production of a jukebox musical who wants to understand its underlying complexity. Such an awareness can help a director, designer, or actor embrace the choices they have to make. Any musical takes its conceptual cues from the songs, and jukebox musicals are especially tricky in how the songs are placed and used in a show. A director can use this book to discover the structure and shape of a show, finding the surprise and joy in it, uncovering what makes this genre crackle with energy. Choreographers can use the book to figure out what to do with this type of music, along with the orchestrations and arrangements. Pop music is paced very differently, and moves a body very differently, than other styles. Designers can uncover something fresh in creating light plots, costume arrangements, and set pieces by using the many tensions inherent in the genre to make something unique and unencumbered from representational or realistic looks. There is such potential at the root of the form, especially when jettisoning the worst nostalgic tendencies. (Pity the poor design team that worked on the original production of Bat Out of Hell: The Musical. They had to copy the look of Meat Loaf ’s album covers: flames, leather, and a motorcycle mounted with a cow skull.) We want the creative team on a jukebox show to be empowered to discover what is possible and realize what need not be done. We end our interpretive history with a glance at the jukebox’s possibilities. The format was not created with a specific set of rules already in place; it continues to combine ideas that work and abandons others that become extraneous. It can be a frustrating feedback loop: critics dismiss jukebox shows as beneath their serious interest and then producers of the next one say that the critics are right, in an effort to deflect from bad press! They further a notion that, no, don’t

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take us seriously, don’t think too much, just enjoy. We want to dispel these preconceptions. To return to the Craymer and Brantley quotes from the top of the chapter, both savvy producers and astute critics can fall into the trap of their own making when discussing a jukebox. Either they’re seriously telling you not to take the shows seriously or they are playfully telling you that the shows ought to be ignored. The Jukebox Musical: An Interpretive History wants to shake up these conceptualizations, for the benefit of the genre and its audiences.

Notes 1 Quoted in Tim Lusher, “Campiness—That’s the Name of the Game,” Evening Standard (London), March 26, 1999. 2 Ben Brantley, “New Ways of Building a Jukebox Musical,” New York Times, September 15, 2019. 3 Peter Marks, “Et Tu, Britney? Shakespeare to Host Musical,” Washington Post, May 26, 2021. 4 Philip Auslander, Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge Press, 2008), 85. 5 Ibid., 183. 6 John Fleming, Davies and Penhall’s Sunny Afternoon (London: Routledge Press, 2017), 49. 7 Ibid., 26. 8 David Benedict, Adam Dawtrey, and Chris Jones, “Abba’s ‘Mamma’ Means Business: It’s the Show that Gives Jukebox Musicals a Good Name,” Variety, April 6, 2009. 9 Michael Paulson, “‘Mamma Mia!’ Finds New Life,” New York Times, April 15, 2015. 10 Mark Grant, The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004), 312. John Kenrick calls them “cookie-cutter” while Nathan Hurwitz writes that enjoying them requires “neither thought nor action.” Ethan Mordden called Mamma Mia! a “piece of stupid junk” in 2004, but had a more complex approach in his later history of musical theatre. See John Kenrick, Musical Theatre: A History (New York: Continuum Books, 2008), 373; Nathan Hurwitz, A History of the American Musical Theatre: No Business Like It (London: Routledge Press, 2014); Ethan Mordden, The Happiest Corpse I’ve Ever Seen: The Last Twenty-Five Years of the Broadway Musical (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 226; and Ethan Mordden, Anything Goes: A History of the American Musical Theatre (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 11 Jesse Green, review of Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, by Coleman Domingo, Robert Cary, and Des McAnuff, directed by Des McAnuff, New York Times, April 23, 2018. 12 Andrew Erdman, Blue Vaudeville: Sex, Morals, and the Mass Marketing of Amusement, 1895–1915 ( Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2004), 20. 13 Elizabeth Wollman, The Theatre Will Rock: A History of the Rock Musical, from Hair to Hedwig (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 31. 14 Jessica Sternfeld, The Megamusical (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 3. 15 The casting of Ethel Merman as the original Mama Rose in Gypsy is a prominent example of this. 16 Jack Viertel, The Secret Life of the American Musical: How Broadway Shows Are Built (New York: Sarah Crichton Books, 2017), 11. 17 Sarah Larson, “Let’s Rock: In Defense of Jukebox Musicals,” New Yorker, July 22, 2014. 18 Ibid. 19 John Severn, Shakespeare as Jukebox Musical (London: Routledge, 2018), 2.

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20 See Elaine Aston, “Work, Family, Romance and the Utopian Sensibilities of the Chick Megamusical Mamma Mia!” in Good Night Out for the Girls: Popular Feminisms in Contemporary Theatre and Performance, by Elaine Aston and Geraldine Harris (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and Malcom Womack, “‘Thank You for the Music’: Catherine Johnson’s Feminist Revoicings in Mamma Mia!” Studies in Musical Theatre 3:2 (2009). 21 David Savran, “Class and Culture,” in The Oxford Handbook of the American Musical, ed. Raymond Knapp, Mitchell Morris, and Stacy Wolf (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 248. 22 Charles Sunderland, “Mamma Mia! We’re Multi-Millionaires,” Daily Telegragh (London), March 27, 2004. 23 Ben Brantley, “Tribute to a Jazz-Age Lyricist,” review of Swinging on a Star, New York Times, October 23, 1995. 24 See, for example, Charles Adamson, “Defining the Jukebox Musical through a Historical Approach: From The Beggar’s Opera to Nice Work if You Can Get It,” DFA diss., Texas Tech University, 2013. 25 Katalyn Trencsényi, Dramaturgy in the Making: A User’s Guide for Theatre Practitioners (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), xxi. 26 Brian D. Valencia, “A Method for Musical Theatre Dramaturgy,” in The Routledge Companion to Dramaturgy, ed. Magda Romanska (London: Routledge, 2015), 342. 27 Ibid., 344.

2 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Jukebox Musical

Noted as “a genre that is regarded by some as the great blight of Broadway” by Ben Brantley in 2020,1 jukebox musicals were commonly deemed to be of lesser quality than a traditionally integrated musical, especially during their inception. Critiqued as frivolous or less artistically sophisticated, they were often brushed aside. But, audiences loved them. Jukebox musicals gained traction with growing fan bases due to catchy and familiar songs and featured high-caliber musicians. In this chapter, we will discuss some of the main dramaturgical strengths and key dramaturgical weaknesses within the jukebox musical form. The main characteristic is the usage of prerecorded work, originally for the distribution and consumption in music markets instead of theatrical performances. Many songs and albums are not written and composed to fit a theatrical narrative arc (unless the work is composed within a concept album), but jukebox musical stories use songs that contribute to the narrative progression of the production. At times, however, a weak plot is forgivable when diehard fans just want to listen to a particular artist or genre! The dramaturgical premise, or baseline, of a jukebox musical places existing music within a greater story arc, often contriving a new plot or adaptation from a much older literary work. The catalog musical utilizes the stories and aural aesthetic of these songs to move the narrative—established mainly through spoken dialogue—in the same style and mode as traditionally integrated musicals with wholly original content. However, this is not to say that creating a jukebox musical is easier than writing a completely original musical. For an original musical, a creative team can formulate lyrics, music composition, and script such that each word and note work in tandem at every moment in order to further the plot and themes the team wants to present. Many dramaturgical questions stem from whether or not the story helps provide context for the songs featured in the production, or if the songs will have more power and “take hold” of the musical and control the narrative. DOI: 10.4324/b22939-3

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This chapter discusses the foundational methods of analyzing jukeboxes through structural analysis and the unique strengths and obstacles that can be encountered during creation. A jukebox musical can cover a range of styles, eras, and artists, depending on how the story is told. Biographical musicals cover an artist’s life and career, with the artist being the main protagonist, such as The Cher Show and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. These musicals can also feature and focus on the life and career of groups such as the Four Seasons in Jersey Boys. Genre-specific musicals feature music that has been categorized into the same form, style, or subject matter and often originates from the same time period, as musical trends and artistic movements often move and change over time. For instance, rock ‘n’ roll from the 1940s and 1950s sounds much different than the rock of the 1970s and 1980s. Lastly, artist catalog musicals feature music from one artist or group, such as Abba in Mamma Mia!, Meat Loaf in Bat Out of Hell, or Alanis Morrisette in Jagged Little Pill. Jukebox musicals pose a unique challenge, where songs from popular artists must meld with a script to create an entirely new story. Like traditional musicals, the inspiration for a jukebox musical can come from many places, such as a particular literary work, style of music, or a specific artist or group. However, they cannot mesh song, plot, and story in the same way as a traditionally integrated musical can—the narratives found in catalog musicals have to originate in part from the music that had been integrated into the plot of the musical. This is not an easy feat! Whether the plot of a jukebox musical follows an Aristotelian five-act structure, a three-act structure, or a multi-part hero’s journey,2 they often feature the same musical trademarks and dramaturgical milestones as traditionally integrated musicals. These moments include the Act One “I Want” song, the rising action of a romantic duet, and the final call to arms at the climax. However, the creative team must fuse an existing song to the plot in ways that reveal this parallel structure. Any type of story can be told as a jukebox: love stories, adventurous comedies, literary adaptations, pensive allegories, and biographical histories. Part of the unique pleasure of a jukebox musical is finding out how a story with recognizable music fits together in a new way, uncovering new meaning or bringing more energy and nostalgia to the audience when the first notes of a song are played. It’s a surprise, it’s a fresh take. On the opposite side of the coin, audiences also love archetypal stories: rooting for the underdog, watching a story of good versus evil, witnessing a hero step into their power, seeing the villain meet their demise, thrilling as the young lovers have a happy ending. Stories are how theater was created in the first place, thousands of years ago. Stories were performed to explain how the world works, why we cannot cheat death, or how we should live our lives. In addition to a moral, stories can be fun! Entertainment can be an escape; it is a way to reconnect with ourselves and others through a shared experience. It provides opportunities for empathy. When something occurs onstage, it can resonate with audiences, who then connect with each other through lived experiences. While it’s commonly frowned upon

Strengths and Weaknesses 23

to sing along in the theater, a crowd singing along at a concert provides a shared experience of joy and catharsis. A dance party with friends creates a similar environment, where people can let loose in joy and relaxation, or sing to sad music after a period of stress (crying can be cathartic too!). Songs bring back nostalgic memories of places and people and times in our lives that were good or bad. This combination of nostalgia, joy, entertainment, and empathy are a perfect environment for the jukebox musical. The catalog musical can be fun, frivolous, and a welcome distraction for audience members. They can also be provocative, confrontational, and highlight serious contemporary topics. Just like traditionally integrated musicals, both ends of the content spectrum are valid and necessary. Combining well-known artists with both kinds of content can help further the plot and highlight the artist’s ideological arguments from their music, honoring both content and form. There is a strong guarantee that the music featured within a jukebox show is a familiar intellectual property that many individuals could recognize, even if individuals don’t consider themselves to be theater people or who listen to integrated musical cast albums.

Mini-Narratives and Shoehorning Original songs written for albums have a specific argument and a storyline, a complete mini-narrative told through verses, choruses, and lyrical bridges. A mini-narrative typically consists of a song’s story and ideological argument or moral lesson. Most songs, even when they are featured in a concept album, tell a complete story or narrative, with a beginning, middle, and end. This could be composed of a love story, a ballad about heroes, a wild Saturday night, or even sitting on a beach with a drink in hand. Though lounging in a deck chair lacks the inherent drama of a love story, any number of catchy songs have left their feet planted in the sand and instead convey a mood, feeling, emotion, condition, or state of mind. These are employed differently in jukebox musicals than tunes with narrative, and are often easily inserted at a moment when the main character needs to express joy, grief, or anxiety. A grand challenge for jukebox musical writers is to fit these mini-narratives into an overarching plot, with each song contributing to a cohesive story. When original songs are placed into them, the previously published lyrics and the musical’s brand-new script must work together in order to effectively forward the plot. How these songs and their standalone arguments are enmeshed with the plot, and how the plot is written to support these songs, determines dramaturgical flow and cohesiveness of the musical as a whole. A jukebox musical’s book reveals to the audience information not included in a song, but songs must also be placed within the musical’s structure to seamlessly further the story. Additionally, catalog shows have to consider the artist’s ideology, such as those of anti-war, feminism, or social issues like discrimination and gender bias. This creates certain parameters that can help in the production of the musical and

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assist in the integration of plot and song, and can help enhance emotional clarity within the plot that is strengthened and highlighted by the music in the scene. While the story of the musical can be conveyed through song, jukebox musicals are often guilty of writing a plot around this specific skeletal outline of music, notably called “shoehorning.” Like the square peg in the round hole, the plot created to provide dramaturgical context for the next song in the musical can appear forced or contrived, or simply does not match. When an included song does not assist the plot in a way that forwards narrative arc or emotional progression of character or theme, audiences may be confused, albeit energized. Writers of the musical’s script can be heavy-handed when creating links between script and score, such as naming characters based on song lyrics, or creating situations that suddenly create the perfect scene for a song. Having too strong of an association between plot and song can also deviate from the song’s original meaning and may disrupt the audience’s investment in the world of the play, which is commonly referred to as a suspension of disbelief. This is a concept that has been around for centuries and, at its core, means the contract that exists unspoken between a play and the people watching it. They know that the events unfolding in front of them aren’t real, but accept the illusion so that they can experience genuine emotions and responses. This contract may also be extrapolated to the action alongside the song. The beautiful fashion show of iconic Bob Mackey costumes in The Cher Show, paired with the background music of “Ain’t Nobody’s Business if I Do” in Act One, highlights the famous red-carpet fashions of the pop singer, Cher, but, the scene in which this sequence is presented temporarily stops the action from moving forward, giving a pause which enhances theme. However, the iconic costumes are a great moment of “Easter eggs”—details fans would easily recognize—and can provide a fun romp fore into the glitz and glamour of the sequined gowns, bodysuits, and headdresses that made necks crane, heads turn and jaws drop, and paparazzi snap when Cher wore them to events. Although energizing, the audience is now forced to “zoom out” of the plot as Cher’s costumes parade by, which creates a break in chronological order. The audience must extrapolate the meanings of the pageant wordlessly, to learn that her clothing choices display her and collaboration with Mackey over the years helped foster her personal artistic freedom when she was artistically and financially controlled by Sonny Bono. Another example of heavy-handedness that awkwardly betrayed the suspension of disbelief is The Times They Are a-Changin’, featuring the music of Bob Dylan and created, directed, and choreographed by Twyla Tharp3. The Times They Are a-Changin’ was given mostly negative reviews and closed after only thirty-five previews and twenty-eight full performances. The primary criticism of the musical was the way the action and song were integrated to further the plot, with literal interpretation superseding Dylan’s often metaphorical and poetic lyrics. Tharp presented dancers tumbling atop exercise balls as Coyote, the musical’s protagonist, sings “Like a Rolling Stone,” then they transform to galloping around when Coyote sings about horses, clowns, jugglers, and tricks.

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This usage of clowns, for example, could be a metaphor. While a clown primarily notes a particular performance style, a silly or ineffectual person can also be described as a clown—they don’t have to participate in the actual art of clowning, and this usage can often be perceived as an insult or diminutive term. Dylan utilized stories to assist the listener in feeling intense emotions, but an overly literal interpretation strips away most, if not all, of this feeling. While literal usage can help set the scene, hapless overuse causes audience disengagement. This hints at one of the larger tensions in the creation and reception of a jukebox musical, one that is explored through multiple examples in this book, between fidelity to the original music, and structuring characters and plot around it. This is further highlighted by comparing The Times They Are a-Changin’ to the more recent Bob Dylan musical, Conor McPherson’s Girl from the North Country. The context for “Like a Rolling Stone” in Girl from the North Country, as well as its performance style, highlights a sense of fear and emotional turmoil the characters face in the height of the depression while feeling trapped in loveless relationships. McPherson sets Girl in 1930s Duluth, Minnesota, the same location and era in which Bob Dylan was born. There are no clowns or literal rolling stones. The mystery of Dylan’s music is not always deciphered, leaving audiences to sit with the emotions and tone of the dialogue and songs, taking in the aura and feeling, but also placing the meaning somewhere beyond concrete definition. For musicals with looser plots and more mysterious mini-narratives, such as the melding of songs into the plot of Girl, the reliance on the mystery allows for a snug fit without shoehorning because Dylan’s poetic lyrics are universal to the human experience, yet some have criticized the plot as a string of disjointed stories. Vinson Cunningham’s review of Girl from the North Country in the New Yorker describes the framework of the production: “This tension between the narrative at the surface and the psycho-biographical just beneath is on display … McPherson attempts to surround several of Dylan’s tunes with a frame vague enough to contain their poetry and broad enough to relate their social truths.” Cunningham also notes that the framework has some drawbacks. Due to the liminal, mysterious relationships the songs have to the narrative, Cunningham notes: Still, the songs sit uneasily next to the story. There’s a wonderful moment when a mysterious former fighter—clearly a shadow of Rubin Carter— leads a foot-stomping version of “Hurricane” shortly after a sudden flexing of his powers. But more often the fragmented plot, offered by a teeming, sketched-out ensemble of woeful souls, seems like a series of vignettes meant to hold you over until the music starts again. “Girl” often feels less like a musical than like a very sorrowful revue.4 Cunningham’s description of the double-edged nature of this framework reveals another instance where songs don’t always fully progress the story in a

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step-by-step manner. The songs performed within Girl occupy a role to uplift emotional tone more often than they do plot. While this creates an intimate space for the mysteries of the story, the separation of song and scene creates a space which pauses the direct flow of the narrative. Let’s take another look at The Times They Are a-Changin’. It was critically regarded that a literal interpretation of Bob Dylan’s songs had ripped the emotional core from the catalog, misconstruing the allegorical and metaphorical intentions of the music. This undermined the ideologies of Dylan’s work as a whole, reframing his ideas about the United States into a love triangle set in a circus. Variety critic David Rooney notes “Dylan comes with a daunting load of iconic baggage attached. The singer-songwriter has been a figurehead for countercultural America, for the Civil Rights and anti-war movements, for the spirit of protest and unrest. “It was through being overly obvious that audiences and critics were confused, because: “Harnessing all that and a stylistically restless five-­ decade career in popular music to a silly story about a circus owner, his son and the animal trainer they both love feels like a random trivialization—regardless of the numerous references in Dylan’s lyrics to circuses, carnivals and clowns.”5 The difficulties in marrying song and story arise because a writing team is interpreting a set of songs and integrating them within a new script, consequently adding a second layer of interpretation. If the musical is adjusted through the workshop process, participants in the workshop offer their own interpretations of the work in order to provide clarifying feedback to the creative team. When the musical is performed for public audiences, the work is then subjected to hundreds, perhaps thousands of differing interpretations of the work and what it means. However, The Times They Are a-Changin’ is one of the most glaring examples of interpretation ending in negative critic reviews and box office failings. Rock of Ages mingles song and story quite casually. Here, the real drama, or even surprise, is not how the characters behave but rather how the songs of a catalog are woven into the story. This is accomplished in sometimes obvious ways, as when “Oh Sherrie” makes its eleventh-hour appearance, but sometimes is handled more cleverly. Setting it in a rock club and populating the cast with musicians means that the show can easily insert songs into the story. There are a number of diegetic moments when the plot pauses so someone can sing. But, perhaps surprisingly, some of the most effective numbers are non-diegetic tunes that express a character’s motivations or emotional state. Sherrie leaving home for L.A. to the tune of “Sister Christian” is an efficient and stirring moment. The flimsiness of the plot and characterizations is advantageous to song placement as well, because any narrative contrivance can be bent in service of a song’s lyrics and message. When aging rock star Stacee Jaxx is being interviewed by a music journalist about his career, the scene perfectly sets up the character to launch into “Wanted: Dead or Alive” as a weary boast of his fame and an indication of his personality. Heavy-handedness aside, not all song insertions are guilty of writer shoehorning! Some even fit well in tandem to literally set the stage to insert historical context for the artist’s story. For example, if two songs are deemed to fit together

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in content and musicality, a mash-up can occur, such as the “1650 Broadway Medley” in Beautiful, which introduces the writing environment of the professional songwriting studio where Carole King gets her start. This technique is fairly straightforward, unlike the difficulties encountered when writers attempt to incorporate songs necessary to advance a complex artistic idea and still attempt to maintain a cohesive plot. The latter is often a pockmarked work, simultaneously showing both meaningful cohesion and grave imperfection. There is also a middle ground where plot and songs can tie together, albeit as a three-legged race. Because the music featured within these works was originally constructed for a mediated format, recomposition for the stage garners many changes, subtle and drastic. Mash-ups and “megamixes” allow for more representation of an artist’s work while also highlighting parallel actions occurring in one scene. Even in terms of dramaturgical meaning-making, grouping characters to sing two different songs can distinguish stances and conflict within a musical itself, and even reveal simultaneous action that works toward different ends. For example, the mix of “We Built this City/Too Much Time on My Hands” in Rock of Ages reveals the protestations of those in city government and the early sense of futility for the patrons of the fictional Bourbon Room in the course of a few minutes. This combined song takes two different scenes happening in tandem: the confirmation of Hertz and Franz being allowed to develop the Sunset Strip of Los Angeles, therefore putting the Bourbon Room in a direct path of destruction and demise, and the realization that the Bourbon Room is in need of salvation. The musical choices need to follow a reasonable path to prove that the dive bar is a cultural necessity by formulating the hiring of Stacee Jaxx to perform at The Bourbon Room for a final concert. With these two combined songs, it is revealed that the protagonist and antagonist are working together at the same time, in equal measure to reach their prospective goals. It speeds up the action, as we don’t see these things happening right after another but rather at the same time. When a song is reimagined to be performed by a character who is different from the original artist, it creates a new point of view that can add and change the meaning of the original song, but still avoid obvious shoehorning by creatively subverting expectations. This can include having a character sing a song originally performed by an artist of another gender—such as a woman singing a song originally written and performed by a man, or vice versa, or transgender and gender-nonconforming characters singing a song originally performed by a cisgender woman or man. This can be especially important in changing old meanings or creating new ones when there is a particular story associated with a specific song, with power originally held and controlled by a man, or a story sung by a woman. There is a change in perspective when alterations in who is singing occur, but this change can work. Rock of Ages is not as sophisticated as Mamma Mia! in its ability to subvert original meanings and reframe them into a new story without extreme shoehorning. The closest thing to such subversion is when club owner Dennis, and his assistant Lonny profess their love for each other and launch into “Can’t Fight

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this Feeling” as a duet. Turning it into a gay love anthem does pierce the song’s (and the genre’s) hetero braggadocio, but the scene’s humor ultimately undercuts anything approaching progressive messaging. By making it silly that these two men are singing the song to each other, it implicitly endorses the belief that it would be silly for any two men to sing it together. In considering the tensions that must be balanced throughout the show—from appeasing the rights holders to assuaging the audience members—and given how this by necessity generates a musical with an intense irreverence, it also follows that the end of the musical is unsatisfying. It concludes with a narrative shrug, as Lonny takes over his narrator duties again to detail the characters’ fates. Stacee Jaxx is exiled through a tasteless pedophilia scandal that’s played for laughs. Drew and Sherrie find domestic, suburban bliss, and the cast launches into “Don’t Stop Believin’” as a finale. This is an ideal number on which to bring the curtain down, as Rock of Ages has sustained itself as a near-perfect vehicle for nostalgia for its audience. It ends proclaiming that they (and us) still rock and that they (and us) will never stop believing. This sends the audience out of the show without thinking too much or too deeply about what the story meant or how the songs were packaged. We have presented some criticisms of Rock of Ages here, but regardless of such concerns, the show’s construction is very sturdy, in order to be dressed in such goofy costumes. As the jukebox form has continued to evolve in the years since Rock of Ages, it is fascinating to notice how other era-specific shows, such as Bullets over Broadway, Moulin Rouge!, and & Juliet, have grappled with similar structural and dramaturgical concerns. There can be some comparison of a jukebox musical to a fully original integrated musical, but ultimately, the jukebox musical is a different genre than the traditionally integrated musical. That is not to say that the catalog musical should be given a pass for dramaturgical inconsistencies that can be overlooked and excused simply because the music is not original to the story. The genre is strong enough to learn from predecessors and grows more powerful with experimentation. It has the potential to be seen as artistically relevant as traditional musicals with original music. Musical theater is a mode of storytelling, which makes a jukebox musical different from a concert, tribute, or musical revue. The plot, conveyed through the script, is the vessel that contains the individual songs, and both aspects must work together in order to tell the story. The main accusation of shoehorning is when the plot is disorganized, the character arcs are unmotivated, or the themes clash with the tone of a song. Audiences like to be surprised and they dislike being patronized. Villains can be morally ambiguous, plot twists can occur in the eleventh hour, protagonists can encounter seemingly insurmountable obstacles. However, there needs to be evidence to back up why a character does what they do. It could be for money, fulfillment, world peace, or a myriad of other reasons. If a peaceful character acts violently with no repercussions or explanation afterward, their violence becomes jarring and out of character. A character’s goals and desires can change, such as Sophie’s character growth in Mamma Mia!, but this growth comes with explanation. Her desire for genetic

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answers becomes unimportant compared to the love she feels from all three men, and her new goal for self-growth and her relationship with her fiancé, Sky, to grow stronger supersedes the perceived security from a marriage and definitive knowledge of her paternity. The script, a metaphorical pendulum, can inform the audience about characters and their dynamics as they move through the situational conflicts throughout the musical so much so that the script works too hard: it explains every kind of detail in the song’s lyrics, almost begging the audience to believe each logical jump from plot to song break. But you in the audience are much smarter than that! The audience must be able to understand the story, but not every detail needs to be explained. Through blocking, context cues, and even the interpretation of metaphor and character by characters onstage, the details in the lyrics of each song can be given a clever and artistic interpretation. A song can and should parallel the themes that the musical portrays. Songs can include actions that forward the plot or momentarily pause the action to delve into characters’ state of emotional intensity. More important is how a song is presented and who gets to hear it. In a biographical jukebox musical, the audience hears the protagonist singing and interacting with others but also gets to hear their private musings through song lyrics. This intimacy gives the audience a secret understanding of the character’s thoughts, unbeknownst to the others. The audience cannot avoid the experience of a suspension of disbelief. This person is authentic and singing to us from the heart. This combination of song presentation is what makes a biographical catalog musical special for an audience who may have never witnessed the artist in real time. Such intimacy is crafted into all bio-musicals, from those around Buddy Holly and Hank Williams to the more recent ones on Tina Turner and Donna Summer. An interesting and innovative wrinkle on the formula, Sherie Rene Scott’s Everyday Rapture, is an autobiographical jukebox musical. In the largely one-person show, Scott plays herself and recounts her journey from a cloistered Mennonite community in Kansas to the world of New York musical theater. Through intimate and specific details, Scott articulates the tensions between an upbringing of religious effacement and the ecstasy of singing and performing. What makes Everyday Rapture such an interesting spin on the genre is that the focus is not on the artist as singer and songwriter but instead on the artist as performer. As such, the musical numbers in the show are remarkably eclectic, ranging from pop ballads to Broadway standards to television ditties. In the context of this show, U2’s “Elevation” becomes a song of self-doubt and dogmatic confusion. As a bridge toward acceptance and a new life, Sherie turns to the songs of Fred Rogers and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. The show honors the original sentiments of “It’s Such a Good Feeling” and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” while adding the depth of one woman’s response to those messages. One reviewer noted the balance of “self-exposure and theatrical artifice” in the show and Scott’s performance,6 and this calibration is effective through the use of prerecorded music and the mini-narratives of the chosen songs.

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The Narrative Potential of Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Numbers The introductory chapter noted how diegetic and non-diegetic songs, a staple in all musicals, are key to jukebox shows as well. Given the use of multiple mini-narratives as discussed here, there are some common ways that the two types of numbers are employed in jukebox musicals, and when utilized correctly they can amplify the genre’s qualities. For biographical musicals, a diegetic performance is almost always used at least once, as there are moments in the musical in which the protagonist—the musician in which the musical features—is performing in a concert or recording an album in a studio. For biographical musicals whose cast of characters feature skilled musicians and those who dream of excelling in the craft, diegetic performances are where it makes contextual sense for characters to play instruments or sing. Diegetic moments can consist of the artist sitting at a home piano composing the number, or singing along to their music or performing a concert for thousands of fans. Plot and emotional insight can still be told through these moments, depending on the background or stakes the moment has for the character. A diegetic song is a character playing the piano, such as a young Carole King presenting “It Might as Well Rain until September” to music producer Don Kirshner at his studio. This music is performed for Donnie in the scene, who is able to hear the music alongside the audience. “It Might as Well Rain until September” is the song that could make or break a young Carole’s career at that moment, as her interview and audition for a busy Donnie Kirshner is the only chance she has to work at his studio.7 These performances can further plot, provide exposition, or strengthen connections between characters. Placement within the plot can further the story as well as heighten emotional intensity, with performances signaling a change in a character’s life path, a successfully reached goal, or the reflection of action occurring off of the story’s stage. Recognition of the song creates a poignant moment and adds another layer of interpretation for fans of a specific musical artist. The audience finally hears what they came to see, and this helps to punctuate the storyline. Although non-diegetic performances often defy logic and established modes of behavior, they add to plot progression by making the audience aware of character motivations. In the context of a musical, this is commonplace! Characters break into song with no need for explanation. While this doesn’t follow real-life human behavior (a full solo song and dance number in public might give you some odd looks rather than a backup ensemble), non-diegetic performance has become an easily recognizable and accepted way to tell a story within a musical. Breaking out into song characterizes a musical unlike a musical revue or vaudeville show, which has historically involved short skits and talent acts that do not have a plot. Non-diegetic singing in the midst of a musical signals that these songs are presented in an extraordinary context—they are almost like dialogue asides or soliloquies.8 However, the context for these performances can come

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from a moment of catharsis or the need to express intense emotion. There is a suspension of reality—time is momentarily suspended and the songs can have as much secrecy from the “outside world” of the play as needed. Non-diegetic performances feel like an alternate reality, even in the midst of the dramatized production. These can be love duets like “S.O.S.” in Mamma Mia!, finales like “Don’t Stop Believin’” in Rock of Ages, and eleventh-hour numbers like “No” in Jagged Little Pill. For example, Frankie’s poem recitation of Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” in Jagged Little Pill is a song performed diegetically, but with some interesting twists.9 The scene begins with high school protagonist Frankie presenting a poem to her English class, which becomes the song “Ironic.” The character and the setting give the song a teen angst vibe, heightened by the reactions from the other students and how it becomes Frankie’s meet-cute with new student, Phoenix. The context also allows Morissette and book writer Diablo Cody to add a layer of metatextual commentary. The original song was frequently derided for not actually or accurately illustrating the literary technique of irony. In the musical, such criticisms are placed in the mouths of Frankie’s whiney and self-satisfied peers, who say “Hold up, wait a second, that’s actually not ironic?” and “That’s not irony, that’s just, like, shitty.” Cody writes that she tread lightly with the scene’s playfulness, but that Morissette “gave the show’s team her full blessing to poke gentle, yet loving, fun at the song.”10 This number uses the framework of a diegetic performance to add levels of character and commentary. “I Got You Babe” as sung multiple times in The Cher Show has been rendered with complex dramaturgical layers over the course of the story. The performance of the song categorizes and contributes to the rising action of the plot, with Sonny and Cher’s career as a duo finally taking off. The performance also solidifies the youngest incarnation’s name, Babe, which can be seen as a derivative of the word “baby” as well as a term of endearment and sign of attraction. Audience members who know the path of Cher’s career can look upon this scene with endearment. However, this performance also foreshadows what is to come in Sonny and Cher’s professional and personal relationship, as audiences eventually come to learn that their ties will disintegrate. But will the audience accept this new rendition?. This is another example of reiterating one of the many themes of the story through song, and the recognizability of the song connects the audience to the story and begins to close the musical. This adds to the suspension of disbelief, especially with fast-paced scene changes and allows the audience to remain grounded in the story when they have a familiar song to hold onto. Musical theater audiences are invited into the world of the story, to empathize with characters, root for the hero, and be curious about the turn of events— despite the fictionalized world being created night after night. Actors get in and out of hundreds of costumes, wigs, and different kinds of makeup designed by a production team that contributes to achieving a shared reality for their characters. The tension surrounding the suspension of disbelief can make or break a show. If there are elements that seem too fantastical or too out of character for

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the world that has been created for the audience, the belief is broken. If characters can suddenly surmount obstacles and break patterns that seemed to be unbreakable through something out of character, audiences mistrust the world of the show and treat it with disdain. It is also important to remember that, especially for biographical jukebox musicals, character portrayals may have been subject to collaboration with the actual musician, thus altering the facts and narrowing the truth of the story to a positive or heroic outcome. Even for diegetic performances, the context of an actual musical performance provides a segue into the music. In many biographical catalog musicals, diegetic performances occur within the plot. Because the show is about musicians, it makes sense for them to be performing music as part of the narrative. Across the history of the jukebox musical form, the ratio of diegetic and non-diegetic performances can vary. How these performances occur in tandem, can provide thematic insight and key the audience into important emotional points. The Marvelous Wonderettes consists of only diegetic numbers.11 As will be discussed in Chapter 6, future chapter, the musical is presented like a live concert at their senior prom, with the audience addressed directly as if they are the Wonderettes’ current and former classmates, a familiar pretext. It is a clever conceit.

Musical Catalog The music for jukebox musicals is typically well-known and the bands already have a strong fan base. This popularity helps draw in audiences and exemplifies the notion of honoring and highlighting a musician’s work in a new way. A show using the music of an artist with recognizable content can draw audiences. Even for people who aren’t superfans of a particular artist, there is a good chance that they have heard some of their most famous songs on the radio or through other media. For a jukebox with an original plot and characters, having a tagline in the musical’s advertising material that immediately links the work to the artist provides a hook to draw people in. The title of the musical can give some context, as these are often based on song or album titles, such as Jagged Little Pill or Mamma Mia! Creating a catalog show with an established artist can secure ticket sales, as fans of an artist, with the financial means to attend performances, will have their interest piqued. Well-known songs provide toe-tapping moments and invitations for the audience to sing along, dance to the music, and rise during the finale. However, this brings up a conundrum. Because the music and recognizability of the artist’s work is what provides a major draw for patrons to see the musical, overall cohesion and enjoyment can be a good test to determine the strength of the plot, especially to audiences who do not know the integrated songs as well and others. If you’re driving down the street listening to the radio and your favorite song comes on, it’s likely you’ll know the lyrics, mini-narrative, and musical composition of every verse, bridge, and chorus. Because the music included in a jukebox musical is previously known intellectual property, there can be a sense of recognition for audience members. This

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nostalgia is a contributing factor for drawing audiences in to see a show. Even if a prospective patron doesn’t identify as a theater person, they are likely to find common ground with the musical if they’re familiar with the tunes. For avid fans of live performance, a new musical in town will be a fun night out. If a frequent theatergoer happens to already be a fan of the artist, that provides an even bigger draw! The genre of music in a jukebox musical dictates the general feel of the show. If the music in the production is rock ‘n’ roll, it is likely that the production design will have a similar visual aesthetic to the culture or era surrounding that specific genre. Rock of Ages looks strikingly similar to Bat Out of Hell, both have costumes and a setting that emulate a grungy, glam rock landscape. These are very different from a musical such as Escape to Margaritaville, which features the beachy and relaxed music of Jimmy Buffett.12 A rock band bears a different sound than an acoustic guitar and a steel drum, and subsequently the production design of each show has a different feel. In addition, the music of Jimmy Buffett is tropical, beachy, and relaxing in content, while the glam rock in Rock of Ages and Bat Out of Hell are loud, rebellious, and purposefully in-your-face. It wouldn’t make artistic sense for a jukebox musical to feature grungy and rebellious teenage protagonists playing the ukulele and singing about flip-flops and margaritas! Audiences recognize the music and buy tickets with the expectation they will be receiving a larger plotline that bears the expected content and tone of the mini-narratives put forward in the music advertised. If jukebox musical audiences were only composed of fans of a specific artist, the medium would likely not have the wide reach and growing popularity that it does today. Mamma Mia! features the songs of Abba, a Swedish group that was initially active from 1972 to 1983. The group has an intense global fan base and many popular songs. However, their music isn’t played on stations for modern pop, often heard on radio stations that primarily play disco or older pop music. The group’s discography will still play on the radio and can be featured in films (the 1994 films Muriel’s Wedding and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert have soundtracks of almost exclusively Abba tunes), but will not be heard as current pop music in public spaces. This changes the likelihood of how many young people will find older music, in general, as nostalgic or resonant with their own life. This does not mean that older music slips into obscurity as the decades pass (look at the Beatles, Elvis, and Frank Sinatra!), only that the media through which the music is played has changed. If a group has been around for decades, different kinds of media or technology will affect the relationship an audience member has to the music based on their exposure to it, whether through the internet, social media platforms, or niche radio stations. There may be a need for a more active and in-depth search for older music through record shops, streaming services and the internet, which all facilitate an important discovery and consumption. Hard copy record sales helped sustain careers before the digital age, and vinyl records are making a comeback in popularity and accessibility. Currently, musicians release albums as digital downloads, CDs, uploads to streaming websites, and vinyl for fans to purchase and interact. However, a jukebox musical can serve as an educational opportunity

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during an audience’s exposure to the musical itself, whether through the historical plot context, or use of original performance styles (Motown and Beautiful had original 1950s and 1960s choreography, a building block for numerous dancers!). This doesn’t mean that the jukebox musical won’t be enjoyable or full of energy and artistic skill, but, when the songs aren’t as easily recognized, it means there will be more pressure put upon the story writers of the production in order to stand alone as a singular work. There may not be as many “Easter eggs,” or hidden details, for audiences to recognize if they are not familiar with the artist’s life and discography. All audiences, not just superfans, must be able to follow the story for a jukebox show to succeed. The story must resonate within several emotional registers of its audience, as catharsis, nostalgia, and pure enjoyment, even if the music is not intimately familiar. This may be accomplished through several techniques.

Soundalikes and Authentic Portrayals For jukeboxes, the original songs dictate the orchestration, of course, and these stylistic choices then affect the instruments utilized as accompaniment, as well as the kind of voices that sing the lyrics. For musicals that feature modern rock or pop music, part of the production concept can include a vocal style that copies the original singer. However, classically trained musical theater singers operate in a specific vocal style as the basis for their musical interpretations. For catalog musicals with rock music as their core, the vocal fry and growling style found in heavier music is subdued when arranged for the Broadway stage, voice, and audience. This tradeoff is important, as long-term vocal health and stamina reasonably takes precedence. In addition, it may soften the style for audience members who are more used to pop or Broadway stylings. But for all musicals, protecting performer health and maintaining a production concept are not mutually exclusive. For many artist catalog or era- and genre-specific musicals, the style of music hopes to convey the essence of the featured artists, while the combination of costume, set, acting, and accompaniment conveys the aesthetic and style of the musical as a whole. Cher is not easy to emulate! Characters in these shows can be parodies of famous musicians or stereotypes of the time, such the dramatic, philandering Stacee Jaxx in Rock of Ages acting as a parody of sleazy rock stars. Some, like the Marvelous Wonderettes or Donna and the Dynamos in Mamma Mia!, are distant recreations of the pop groups whose music is featured in the shows. While they are not parodies or exact replicas, they serve as a method of communication between the artist and audience, the conduit being the actual musicians who wrote and performed the music that actors are performing onstage. In biographical musicals, the necessity for accuracy in performances holds more weight than an artist catalog or genre-specific musical, as the main protagonist of a biographical musical is the artist from which the music originates. The evolution of their life story is often the focus, relaying the backstory and

Strengths and Weaknesses 35

experiences the artist has encountered throughout their career. Because of this, biographical jukebox musicals are not parodies. It’s nearly impossible to have an exact clone of Cher, Carole King, or Tina Turner but the portrayal needs to be genuine and truthful. Actors can have similar voices, and with the right voice and technique, can healthfully recreate a famous vocal styling. With makeup, costumes, and wigs, actors can be made to look like famous figures; this performance straddles the line between recreation and parody. Stephanie J. Block, who introduced the role of Star in The Cher Show, came across many surprises in trying to find her “Cher voice” or the most accurate and empathetic impersonation of the pop star. She even rehearsed her spoken lines at home while wearing teeth whitening strips! In an interview, Block noted that performing the show was “taxing, just in a different way … in the sense of the expectation from the audience … it’s heavy, her fans are serious, they are loyal. Every night when I pop up, you never quite know what you’re going to expect.”13 She initially hesitated playing Cher, due to a bad experience as Liza Minelli in the jukebox musical The Boy from Oz.14 Also, there was the added pressure of performing in front of Cher during rehearsals. However, Block described her heartfelt conversations with the pop icon: I just said: “I admire you greatly, I’ve studied you for now a year, but I want to let you know that I am an actress playing a part. I haven’t studied you my whole life, I’m not looking for anything from you, I’m not looking to fly into stardom ‘cause I am playing you, or to ride your coattails, I’m a mom and a wife, and I’ve been hired to play this role” … I’m sure people expect a lot of things from [Cher], and I wasn’t one of them, I was just happy to be doing what I was doing, and I really wanted her to feel safe, and to feel like I’m not looking to take from her at all, I’m hoping to help lift up and love her in my own way and the portrayal that we’re trying to give at the Neil Simon Theatre. That was it.15 Creating an empathetic, truthful portrayal of a real person is powerful and necessary in order to honor the artist’s life and legacy. Audiences will be able to sense an authentic portrayal even while suspending their disbelief. Block knew she had a difficult role, not only physically, but emotionally. For Block, allowing herself to bring her talents as an actor and as an individual to The Cher Show allowed her to portray Cher more empathetically, taking some of the pressure away from her performance, allowing her to process the show in a healthy way.

A Discussion of Copyright When producing artist catalog and biographical musicals, there is a unique challenge with regards to a limited discography with which to work. This may be viewed as a weakness when formulating a believable plot. If an artist or group had a shorter career, there are only so many songs a creative team can draw upon.

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Unless there is a distinct concept or goal to incorporate songs from another contemporary artist into the artist catalog or biographical musical (such as the music of Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann in Beautiful), a team will solely work within the artist’s discography. These parameters are what distinguish a catalog or biographical musical from a genre specific musical. Depending on the amount of music a team has in order to create their musical, they can incorporate the music in any way they want, and there is no set number of songs, or a designated minimum or maximum within a musical work. Consideration of copyright law is a must! Nostalgia is a dominant factor in the creation, marketing, and reception of a jukebox musical. Music, especially from past decades, can have a distinct “cultural cachè,” which can draw audiences. Consequently, this can help provide a draw for audiences, and ground the work in a feeling of familiarity while also allowing for unique content and artistic experience. Someone who is very familiar with the music of Carole King, Cher, or Alanis Morissette, will understand and expect both a certain kind of sound and the specific artist’s signature to be addressed over the course of the musical’s action. When considering buying a ticket, a potential audience member’s uncertainty can be dissolved by knowing what kind of music is included in the musical work, but this puts the onus on creators to come through! But including premade music as an integral part of the work brings logistical and legal challenges to creating a jukebox musical.16 A production team has to acquire the rights to perform each song. This can become expensive, and the music production company or estate which holds the rights may be reluctant to grant permission for the use of the repertoire. On some occasions, an artist will give full permission for a writing team to use their music, as Bob Dylan did for Girl from the North Country.17 Creative teams have also turned to the public domain. Public domain works do not mean that artistic materials are no longer associated with their original creator, but signifies that it can be used without direct access through a publishing company or the artist’s estate. Gershwin’s composition Rhapsody in Blue, and many early silent films have been and can now be utilized freely in other works without explicit permission. For example, Bob Carlton easily adapted the Shakespeare’s The Tempest into the jukebox musical Return to the Forbidden Planet, because the original basis for the musical’s story is in the public domain, available to be printed and shared freely.18 However, the derived works based on these plays are well within the copyright protection time span, and therefore not in the public domain. Music can be in the public domain if copyrights have expired, lapsed into the public domain over time, or the artist has specifically entered the music into the public domain, such as publishing their music under a creative commons license. Sometimes, there were never copyright licenses to begin with! Cheri Steinkellner’s Hello! My Baby utilizes ragtime and jazz standards from the early 1900s that were already in the public domain, and the musical consisted of an original plot which did not need to be adapted.19 For jukeboxes, showcasing a musician and their work is a primary reason for the productions themselves. While this is not a negative aspect, there are

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certainly cases where the plot is contrived to quickly jump to the next song. Additionally, it is important to remember that, especially for biographical jukebox musicals, character portrayals may have been subject to collaboration with the actual musician, thus altering the facts and narrowing the truth of the story to a positive or heroic outcome. The task for the spectator is to glean and decipher the meaning of the included songs within the musical. This is only accomplished by audience reaction to the playwright’s integration of song and script. Did it actually work? Because these songs have their own mini-narrative, both the story of the song and the plot of the musical need to address the artist and their arguments, the characters created by the playwright, and the story of the musical. There is a great amount of collaboration for members of a creative team to formulate a musical, with each sector working together to formulate a mise-enscène that supports the story. There are several questions that hinge on the success or failure of a catalog musical. Strengths and weaknesses are revealed by asking if the use of pre-written songs deters creators from a spirit of collaboration and do jukebox shows go against the parameters of a great work of art because of this seemingly inorganic development? What do audiences expect to see and hear, and did the presentation achieve the suspension of disbelief and fulfill, or even surpass, their experience? This chapter has cataloged and examined the major tensions and outright contradictions to be found in jukebox. The form has a number of key strengths that help in the formation of the musical and generate interest, such as the existing knowledge and enjoyment of the songs that audience members bring to the theater. There are several weaknesses that are baked into them as well, such as the pressure to incorporate beloved numbers and to somehow honor the intention of the original. But an awareness of those challenges can drive innovation as well, as when the mini-narratives within songs are placed in dramatic counterpoint to specific characters or the overall narrative of the show. A dramaturgical awareness helps to find the opportunities of staging and design within a text. The next chapter shifts from a dramaturgical analysis to a more historical perspective on the jukebox show. It looks at the earlier forms of musical entertainments that are most related to and relevant for jukebox musicals. Drawing such connections places the form within a larger cultural context. Catalog shows did not appear out of nowhere, nor are they the great blight that some critics believe them to be. If it’s a stain on Broadway, it’s one that’s been around for a century. It’s not something that can be scrubbed off. Placing jukebox musicals within a continuum opens up more possibility and challenges for understanding and producing them.

Notes 1 Ben Brantley, review of Girl from the North Country, New York Times, March 5, 2020. 2 Stuart Voytilla, Myth and the Movies: Discovering the Mythic Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films (Studio City, CA: Michael Weise Productions, 1999).

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3 Playbill Vault. “The Times They Are a-Changin’ Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.” Playbill. Accessed August 11, 2021. https://www.playbill.com/production/ the-times-they-are-a-changin-brooks-atkinson-theatre-vault-0000007984 4 Vinson Cunningham, “‘Girl from the North Country’ Brings Bob Dylan to the Stage,” New Yorker, October 8, 2018. 5 David Rooney, review of The Times They are a-Changin’, Variety, October 26, 2006. 6 David Rooney, review of Everyday Rapture, Variety, May 3, 2009. 7 Douglas McGrath, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (New York: Music Theatre International, 2013). 8 In film studies, non-diegetic sounds are things like underscoring and music under the dialogue of a scene. The characters cannot hear the music while they’re in the midst of the action. 9 Diablo Cody, Jagged Little Pill (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2020), 90. 10 Ibid., 95. 11 Roger Bean, The Marvelous Wonderettes (Los Angeles: Steele Spring Stage Rights, 1999). 12 Greg Garcia and Mike O’Malley, Escape to Margaritaville (New York: Broadway Licensing, 2017). 13 “Stephanie J. Block of The Cher Show,” Show People with Paul Wontorek, Broadway. com, April 17, 2019. 14 Suzy Evans, “How Stephanie J. Block Became Cher with a Little Help from the Star Herself.” The Hollywood Reporter, December 17, 2018. 15 “Stephanie J. Block of The Cher Show,” Show People with Paul Wontorek. 16 Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17) and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code. 17 Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and Terry Teachout, “Three on The Aisle: Conor McPherson and His Ghosts,” American Theatre, March 5, 2020. 18 Bob Carlton, Return to the Forbidden Planet (New York: Samuel French, 1994). 19 Cheri Steinkellner, Hello! My Baby (New York: Music Theatre International, 2011).

3 Preludes and Predecessors Vaudeville, Rock Musicals, and Megamusicals

Xanadu: The Musical is a campy, self-deprecating 2007 jukebox based on an early 1980s film of the same name. At the climax, Zeus confronts the Muses of Olympus about the dire lack of creativity in the human realm. He laments, “The theatre? They’ll just take some stinkeroo movie or some songwriter’s catalog, throw it on a stage and call it a show.” His daughter Kira boldly responds: Then I shall take the improbably popular art forms in each moment of time: the stage adaptation of the inferior cinematic offering, the musical of the box that is Juke, and I shall use them to remind mankind that there is something greater than wealth or fame, and that is the human experience rendered comprehensible through art.1 The moment is both a dismissal and a defense of the jukebox musical. So, what made the jukebox musical? This chapter examines the main predecessors to the form within popular musical theater. As is clear from the previous chapter on strengths and weaknesses, there are a number of ways that catalog musicals can work within the parameters of the genre and make something unique, memorable, and enjoyable. In chronological order, these are vaudeville from the early twentieth century, the rock musical of the 1960s and 1970s, and the megamusical of the 1980s and 1990s. These are linked to each other, but none of them would ever be mistaken for each other. Vaudeville and megamusicals, for example, are vastly different in the way they treat character and music. And yet, there are patterns to be seen in the pacing, subject matter, and songs within these genres. A number of jukebox shows are born from and utilize this rich web of material. As always in this book, the intention is to present the information dramaturgically, to enrich the history and depth of the genre and to offer inspiration DOI: 10.4324/b22939-4

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to artists and creators working on productions of these musicals. Catalog shows could certainly benefit, we feel, from exploiting their vaudevillian past, to increase their pacing and more artfully address audience response. The five categorizations for the jukebox musical will factor into the discussions here as well: the use of preexisting song catalogs, the songs performed by fictional characters, the characters placed inside an overarching narrative, the live stage musical, and that the songs were written for a medium other than the stage. None of the three forms discussed in this chapter have all of them, but a number demonstrate one or two. Historians and critics have drawn comparisons between vaudeville, rock musicals, megamusicals, and jukeboxes, usually as a way of disparaging one or more of them. That is, they write about the disposability and unartfulness of vaudeville and then discuss a commonality to a particular jukebox show; by implication, they are dismissing the jukebox show based on the artistic criteria associated with the former. Catalog shows have similarities of dramaturgy, audience appeal, and business model to all these forms. Each are, by and large, aggressively commercial enterprises looking to be as broadly appealing as possible. Each are their own recognized genres, formed over time and in response to social and economic factors. Also, each has a clear historical trajectory: a time when they rose to prominence and wide cultural recognition and then subsequently suffered drops in their popularity as well, falling out of artistic favor with the theatergoing public they were supposed to entertain. Like its predecessors, the jukebox musical speaks in a number of ways to its moment’s fashion and feeling. It remains to be seen which of the shows have the staying power of Phantom of the Opera and which will dwindle into obscurity alongside The Pirate Queen. This chapter examines the three predecessors in turn, exploring connections to jukebox musicals and using specific examples to give a vivid and hopefully inspiring account of what they are made of.

Vaudeville At first glance, a jukebox musical may not have much in common with a mid-nineteenth century style of theater full of opera singers and juggling acts. Actually, though, a great deal connects them. First and foremost, both give their audiences direct and immediate pleasure through playful openness and spontaneity. The structure and pace of vaudeville and jukebox musicals modulate emotional moods as deemed necessary to regulate the comedy and melodrama of the piece. Most directly, vaudeville was an earlier performance style that relied heavily on pop music already familiar to the audience. Because of this, as will be noted below, wonderful things can be drawn from vaudeville to give added verve to the production of a catalog show. The vaudeville show was a loose collection of skits and songs placed together not by any specific plot or character but rather as a balance of different acts. The word “balance” often describes a well-curated evening of vaudeville, as the intention was not to tip the scales too heavily in any direction. There was variety

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between music, comedy, and spectacle such as magicians or trained animals. The musical acts featured variety, too: sentimental weepers, rousing patriotic ballads, and humorous novelty tunes. The vaudeville industry was big business from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, dominating the entertainment landscape across the United States as well as abroad. The decline was swift, hastened by the arrival of several new entertainment media: film, then radio, then talking pictures. These provided the same types of thrills and audience engagement as variety shows but for much less money to produce and distribute. But the sense of balance and audience engagement connects vaudeville to jukebox musicals along with the use of existing music from popular culture. They also convey a directness of their pleasures. What was the appeal of vaudeville for an audience? Playwright Edwin Milton Royle wrote, “The vaudeville theatre belongs to the era of the department store and the short story. It may be a kind of lunch-counter art, but then art is so vague and lunch is so real.”2 This quote accurately places vaudeville in the midst of early twentieth-century life, and is also marked by its defensiveness. It echoes the quote from producer Judith Craymer that began this book, the one where she decrees that Mamma Mia! should not be judged alongside serious or high culture. Royle rightly stresses the differing stakes for a population that craves entertainment as a tangible, nourishing thing. This valid appeal should remain in consideration when judging jukebox musicals, or when producing and mounting a production. Certainly, a number of commercially minded jukeboxes, such as the revue show Beehive: The 60s Musical, have a cynical, patronizing, and mercenary attitude toward their audiences, but a number of these shows, in their best moments, are attempting to create genuine feelings. Effective shows have a structure and pacing that matches the balance sought for in vaudeville, and they have the contemporary references, metatheatrical winking, and incorporation of technology to match the current mediatized age. The musical & Juliet captures this brilliantly. Instead of department stores, short stories, and lunch counters, we are in an era of online shopping, social media, and drive-thrus. The jukebox musical matches this speed and interconnectedness. As historian Andrew Erdman notes, “Vaudeville developed as a hierarchically arranged, centrally controlled, large-scale commercial entity .... It was the beginning of standardized entertainment on a mass scale, scarcely seen before.”3 We are going to look at structure and content, song types, and how the shows address similar thematic ideas. The vaudeville show’s structure calibrated a number of emotional states and metrics. In the realm of jukebox musicals, there is also a mixing of sentiment, comedy, and spectacle that also incorporates music and songs which the audience is expected to already know. Such audience familiarity is part of the ballast and nourishment of a jukebox show. In both a vaudeville show and a catalog musical, appeals to love and companionship are frequently couched in irony and ironic distance, with the songs acting as a primary way for presenting sentiment while also undercutting anything as embarrassing as actual feelings. As Susan Glenn notes throughout her

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groundbreaking study of women in vaudeville, many of the top female comedians performed irreverent and excessive novelty songs that were either comedic or parodic of existing sentimental love songs of the day.4 This humor is similar to jukebox musicals. In vaudeville, the songs are written to make fun of the underlying feelings and emotions in other songs; in jukeboxes, the songs are positioned and sung ironically. The number “Tommy’s Holiday Camp” from The Who’s Tommy is a good example. The song appears late in the show, as the title character’s family is trying to make money off of his newfound fame. It is orchestrated in the style of a music hall or tin pan alley tune from the early twentieth century, in that it has an upbeat tempo and uses elements of a brass band. The vaudevillian sound matches the fake hucksterism of the lyrics, the false promises that the singer is selling. To showcase a jukebox musical that wants to have its feelings and eat them too, we turn to the 2012–2016 show Disaster! The metatheatrical elements here are piled on top of each other, beginning with the overall conceit of the show. It is a catalog show full of hit songs from the 1970s that is also a parody of disaster films from that time, most directly The Poseidon Adventure (party guests trapped in a capsized cruise ship), The Towering Inferno (party guests trapped in a burning high-rise), and the Airport series. These movies have a finely calibrated balance of sentiment, comedy, and spectacle. In Disaster! a floating casino is beset by an earthquake, tidal wave, explosions, and killer piranhas. The show’s parodic comedy is clear, beginning with the title and its exclamation point. It presents sentimentality while making fun of it by manipulating known songs and generic situations to undercut each other. There are two moments that best help explain how this works. Early in the show, the audience is introduced to Shirley and Maury, a couple celebrating thirty-five years of marriage. These stock characters, who are in some way so obviously doomed, sing “Still the One” by Orleans. The combination of an overly simplistic introduction along with the song’s focus on having fun feeds the audience Maury and Shirley’s sentimental love while also undermining the feeling. Another example from later in Disaster! helps to solidify these techniques. Marianne, the career-minded journalist investigating the boat’s shoddy construction, runs into her ex-boyfriend and feels conflicted about their recent breakup. Later, she drunkenly confesses her feelings to an innocent moppet. In contrast, the scene also includes Helen Reddy’s feminist ballad “I am Woman.” In the song, the feelings and slogans are genuine, and are intended as uplift. In Disaster!, by contrast, this female empowerment is drastically undercut by the comedy of the scene, the parodic stock characters, and the drunken Marianne belting it out. The musical dilutes the message and sentiment of the song while still reminding the audience of its tunefulness. The humor of jukebox shows also emphasizes situational comedy and broad exaggeration. Is it necessary to poke fun at 1970s disaster movies, which were hopelessly outdated when the musical arrived and already bordered on self-parody? The works of Michael Bay (Armageddon, Transformers) and Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, 2012) would be more current to the time of the

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show’s creation. But the combination of easy laughs and funk disco tunes was too irresistible for the creators, as during the opening ensemble number set to “Hot Stuff,” with the stuff being looked for including lava, women, and a warm dinner buffet, and the scene when a character tosses pieces of his wife’s body overboard while crooning Lionel Richie and the Commodores’ “Three Times a Lady.” The vaudeville stage had a similar focus and emphasis on situational humor, usually of a battle-of-the-sexes variety, and an interesting if direct way of segueing into song. In vaudeville, the music was familiar to audiences through sheet music and live events, granting them access and prior knowledge through other formats. For example, Sidney Perrin’s 1902 ragtime hit “Dat’s De Way to Spell ‘Chicken’” was originally written for an operetta and then became a hit in sheet music sales and also on the vaudeville stage. Success in each of these areas created attention in the others, as it was even recorded on cylinder in 1902 and 1903. This became a hit in the US and a familiar number in many vaudeville circuits.5 The other way of stoking audience expectation and familiarity was through a performer’s signature songs. Bert Williams was one of the vaudeville era’s most famous entertainers. He acted in both musical theater and variety shows for his entire career. He first sang his biggest hit, “Nobody,” in 1904. He made several recordings of it was well. “Nobody” became so synonymous with him and his onstage persona that he had to keep singing it long after he wanted to quit.6 The connections to jukebox musicals as a live and popular art are clear: one needs to deliver the hits. And many catalog musicals, nearly all of them, have dramaturgically awkward moments where the narrative grinds to a halt so a character can belt out a hit tune. A bio-musical about the Kinks has to include “Lola,” even if it doesn’t fit the chronology of the story. And Cruel Intentions: The 90s Musical ends with the ensemble singing the Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony,” because it just has to. Vaudeville songs were intentionally disposable and of the moment. “Even more than skits and joke-telling,” writes Glenn, “song was considered a particularly effective mode of communicating topical humor on the popular stage.” 7 The music was unconcerned with longevity or deep meaning; rather, they catered to the audience’s immediate concerns. For example, vaudeville and variety show music of the Prohibition frequently poked fun at the era’s restrictions and even cheekily recommended subverting the law, in songs like “When the Moon Shines on the Moonshine,” “One Swaller One Dollar,” and “I’ll See You in C-U-B-A.” (The last of these celebrated Americans taking an alco-holiday down to the nearby island nation.) Numbers in jukeboxes are paired and placed similarly. More important than narrative coherence, the music and lyrics have a calculating sense of balance as their driving force—not too many comedy songs, sentimental tunes, or power ballads. One of each, spaced out correctly, is the rule, as is the belief that the audience wants to hear familiar songs that speak directly to them. The musical One Hit Wonder needs to play familiar songs and put them in emotional modulation. The gimmick of this show is just spectacular: a musical about a fictional one-hit-wonder band full of songs by actual one-hit-wonder

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bands from the 1980s and 1990s. It is a remarkably odd show that practically announces its disposability starting with the title. Tonally, One Hit Wonder is all over the place and has no balance to it. Nothing joins the songs together—not artist, era, or genre—other than the fact that each was written by a band that produced only one notable song. The extreme focus on hits of many varieties means that every song in the show has an earworm quality to it. The musical veers widely in tone, from Ricky Martin’s salsa-inflected “Livin’ La Vida Loca” to Ugly Kid Joe’s grunge rock “Everything about You.” There is even time for “Thank You for Being a Friend,” the theme song of The Golden Girls. The musical’s structure and tone attempt to paper over these tonal shifts by gleefully borrowing from the romantic comedy formula, as a way of giving the audience license not to take it seriously. The story follows Rick and Ashley, who were in a band as kids but broke up and went separate ways in adulthood. He still pursues rock ‘n’ roll stardom and she is an accountant. When their old song unexpectedly goes viral, they are forced back together and romance upends their lifestyles. The musical’s plot and dialogue are as basic and perfunctory as the lyrics to the Merrymen’s “Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot.” The plot itself is mostly a delivery system for the music and musical numbers. Unlike the usual exuberance found in jukebox musicals, One Hit Wonder shares vaudeville’s mood of conservative nostalgia, as evidenced by a number of key factors of musical selection and dramatization. The target audience for this show is clear by looking at the range of hits chosen. All of them are from the 1980s and 1990s, despite the fact that, given the gimmick of the show, it could have dipped back into the 1960s and 1970s. By sticking with 1980s pop and 1990s grunge, the show creators are hoping to snare an age demographic that remembers the music with a fond longing. The other way it signals its nostalgia is through the way it dramatizes technology and social media. This is best summed up in the character Mercy Faith, a contemporary pop starlet and former child TV star modeled on Ariana Grande. Mercy is introduced taking selfies, posting photos, and inventing hashtags. Mercy and social media are narratively tied—literally, though her ubiquitous phone, and thematically as well. Her easily parodied social media obsession is equated with a general cluelessness. Following its protagonist, the show itself is hostile toward her; this position is meant to tickle and placate an audience base that grew up in the days before smartphones. The show contradicts itself, though. The plot is put into motion because Rick uploads his music to YouTube, thus validating the taste of the crowd. One Hit Wonder wants to have it both ways and any contractions are swept aside as the leads sing A-ha’s “Take On Me.” One thing common to the musical theater genres covered in this chapter is dramatizations of live events and singing.8 There is the rock band in Hedwig and the Angry Inch and the Paris Opera in Phantom of the Opera, and all involve characters who sing and play instruments or are professional entertainers who perform numbers divorced from plot or character development. The vaudeville show never attempted an overarching narrative and was freed from plot. Jukebox

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musicals have a stronger tie to vaudeville through tunes that have their own mini-narratives. Rock musicals and megamusicals must include metatheatrical elements, diegetic numbers, or characters whose passion is singing and playing music. In a classically structured show, the tunes are somehow woven into the plot, the characters, and their motivations—the “talent show” scene in Miss Saigon, the band in Hedwig, and others. And one of the benefits and potentials of a catalog show, one of the dramaturgical aspects that can be exploited quite effectively in productions, is that unfettered-ness. It doesn’t have to justify in any elaborate way the songs and dancing and can directly tap into that energy. The moment in so many jukebox musicals, when the plot stops so someone can belt out a hit song, is not an anomaly but a full recognition of its potential.

Rock Musicals The uneasy fusion of rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic with book musical structure is at the core of rock musicals, whereas jukebox shows privilege the former at the expense of the latter. A rigorous understanding of the generic commonalities, both the immediately recognizable and those beyond the obvious, can be a boon to a jukebox show in production. Elizabeth Wollman, in The Theater Will Rock: A History of the Rock Musical, from Hair to Hedwig, describes the core definition of a rock musical in ways that reflect upon and resonate with the jukebox musical. She notes that Hair “offered a blend of inventiveness on one hand, and tradition on the other” and that its “chief influences came from the experimental realm, but it was also influenced by past Broadway musicals.”9 Shows such as Hair, Godspell, The Rocky Horror Show, and Dreamgirls have rock music instrumentation and song construction, while being wedded to plots and characters full of a rock ‘n’ roll posturing while thumbing their noses at mainstream society. The plots of these shows are often infused with the fantastical, tying them in multiple ways to jukebox shows such as Return to the Forbidden Planet and Bat Out of Hell. The cleanest difference, of course, is that the songs of rock musicals are originals and were written for the shows themselves. They may include direct address and other meta-musical elements like singing and playing onstage, as in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but their fidelity to one lyricist and composer gives them a uniformity of tone that jukebox shows and vaudeville do not have or want. This gives them the potential to grab some of the rock musical’s subversive aspects for use in production. The structural connections that rock musicals have with jukeboxes are clear in one of the most well-known of them, Little Shop of Horrors. This initially modest production, based on an obscure 1960s science fiction movie about a carnivorous space plant and the unwitting salesman who helps it, ended up on Broadway, with a respected film version, and touring, regional, and community productions in tow. Like a number of rock musicals, Little Shop traffics in nostalgia. As Wollman notes of both Little Shop and Dreamgirls, “at least some of their appeal was also clearly based in nostalgia for popular music styles of

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the not-so-recent past.”10 This mood is clear in Little Shop’s setting as well as its Motown-esque music. The hokey plot—which is, actually, really dark once you strip off the cartoonish elements—and hummable music allows the creators to rely less on psychologically motivated characters and more on stock types such as the nebbish and lovelorn shopworker and the naïf coworker he pines after. That these characters become chum for a murderous space plant doesn’t detract from their two-dimensionality. The opening number is sung by a female trio modeled in style and vocal range on the Black girl groups of the 1960s. The characters’ names, Chiffon, Crystal, and Ronette, are clear evocations of groups with the names of, well, the Chiffons, the Crystals, and the Ronettes. They describe life on “Skid Row” in the opening song, setting the mood and tone of the piece. The number effectively exudes a nostalgic glow. The music is catchy and the lyrics parody many of the 1960s female trios. The number and the scene also subtly indicates the grimness of the story, which has murder, abuse, and a downbeat ending. Little Shop is a great example of a rock musical, not only because the songs rely on an existing pop music framework but also because the whole show has a rock sensibility. Its irreverence matches the corny plot; this connects to the jukebox musicals which also have unrealistic or fantastical events. But let’s draw some direct parallels between Little Shop’s opening scene and catalog shows that rely on musical stylings to introduce a mood that is also tied to plot and theme. For multiple business reasons—“baby boomer” attitudes, crossover appeal, song recognition, etc.—a bumper crop of catalog shows are grounded in rhythm and blues, shoo-wop, and doo-wop. They play a prominent role at the very start of Leader of the Pack: The Ellie Greenwich Musical, The Marvelous Wonderettes, and Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations. The opening of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical even includes a “Broadway Medley” which pulls snippets of melody and lyric from “Splish Splash,” “Love Potion Number Nine,” “Yackety Yack,” “Stupid Cupid,” and others.11 These evoke a sound and musical style that is meant as shorthand to instantly transport the audience back in time and stir nostalgia-tinged memories. As way of illustration: the opening to Leader of the Pack unartfully jumps back in time but it strikes at the core of what catalog shows are attempting with such an opener. The chorus enters and performs “a ‘specialty’ dance indicative of the ‘present day.’” The opening monologue to the audience implores the audience to “hold onto that for a while. We’ll come back to it later. Right now we’re going to take a trip back to the sixties.”12 The orchestration them segues into “Be My Baby.” The message of this skip from contemporary dance to beehive-wearing 1960s singers clearly embraces nostalgia. The nameless dancing chorus is a surrogate for both youth and the current moment, and must be pushed aside for the music, feeling, and identity of a bygone era. For a comparison of messaging in rock musicals and jukeboxes, let’s look at songs with an explicit anti-war stance: Hair’s “Three-Five-Zero-Zero” and American Idiot’s “Favorite Son.” Both shows strongly condemn the military-industrial complex that warps the minds of soldiers impressed into service. Both

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dramatize how it impacts them and their communities. Musicals in general have a canny ability to viscerally convey and condemn jingoism through music and instrumentation in addition to story and character. In both musicals, the anti-war songs themselves are musically anomalous. They are more harsh and jarring than the overall groovy/punk aesthetic of their respective shows, often by turning up the volume as well as using grating guitars and pounding percussion. Hair’s plot, such as it is, centers on a young man deciding whether or not to burn his draft card and, upon enlisting, is killed. A good portion of act two is an extended drug trip that enacts surreal and violent encounters between historical figures. The intensity of the scenarios culminates in “Three-Five-Zero-Zero,” which describes bombings and slaughter in Vietnam. The musical stylings are fascinating; the song cycles between funeral dirge, then electric rock, and then vaudeville. The tin pan alley sound is achieved through the surprise arrival of banjos, which follow the electric guitars. These hard rock and banjo sounds are symbolic of the cruelty of military training and the outdated thinking of the older generation. Both also stand opposed to the positive vibes and laidback rhythms of the musical’s songs of celebration like “Aquarius” and “Let the Sun Shine In.” For these reasons—the integration of theme into plot, the use of musical cues to indicate thematic tensions, and the overall structural connections of “Three-FiveZero-Zero” to the other songs—make Hair a rock musical that draws significant strength from the integrated musical. In comparison, American Idiot shows what a jukebox musical can take from its rock musical forefather and be effective and moving as an independent style. Early in act one, the character Tunny, bored and without prospects, enlists in the military on a whim. He is then injured in combat. He reacts to being on heavy medication by falling in love with his nurse. The show has Tunny sing hallucinatory versions of two Green Day songs, “Before the Lobotomy” and “Extraordinary Girl.” The use of these two numbers mixed together underlines Tunny’s loss and confusion. The moment is genuinely harrowing and specific to the character, in a show that, like Hair, is more about a mood and feeling than a tightly constructed narrative. Hair’s “Three-Five-Zero-Zero” amplifies its rock elements but the song’s bones more carefully follow musical conventions, particularly in the way chorus and solo sections tell one character’s journey. What jukebox musicals can learn from Hair and rock musicals like it, are the ways of using collage and stylized instrumentation to sync up these aspects and narrative and song placement. It has the potential of adding deeply rich layers of meaning to productions. (Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, cleverly interpolates “White Boys” from Hair into a medley, in a way that both celebrates and complicates the original.) Throughout its arc, rock musicals embraced a liberal perspective of US politics and personal identity formation. This is another important element that catalog musicals can inherit from them, even as it has less explicit impact on the structure or instrumentation. The queerness of Hair, Rocky Horror, and Hedwig is part of the music, of course, and it also relates to the shows’ loose structure that breaks from

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established book musical norms.13 The joyous embracing of sexual freedom and experimentation began with Hair’s act one number, “Sodomy.” It is a list song of solo, coupled, and group sex acts, bookended by the drug list song “Hashish” and the anti–Black slur list song “Colored Spade.” The combined effort to shock the audience energizes the opening of the show. In The Rocky Horror Show, the music and lyrics are equally raunchy, with numbers such as “Sweet Transvestite” that not only titillate but genuinely celebrate sexual freedom. But the time Hedwig’s title character is singing about his “Angry Inch” from a botched sex-change operation, rock musicals are moving past offending middle-class sensibilities to songs of acceptance for their characters on their own terms. Jukebox musicals share the convention of gender-bending and queerness with the rock musicals and it is interesting to note how they continue in the earlier shows’ progressive trend toward inclusivity in the world of the show and in ours. Such musicals alter existing, well-known songs in response to a number of dramaturgical factors which drive the message: context, motivation, and metatheatrics. All aid the show in expressing the joyous freedom of the characters’ fluid sexuality and gender identity. Head over Heels is one of several jukebox shows that features characters in drag. These musicals include scenes and numbers that express how the main characters feel and how others respond to their new personas. Head over Heels, featuring music by the Go-Go’s, begins with a charming adaptor’s note that sets the stakes and style for the production while also explaining song placement and characterization: “Head over Heels is not mean. It is not self-aware. It is not snarky .... Sex permeates its content, but it is not a dirty show. It is a show with an open, generous, inclusive heart for heartless times.”14 In it, Musidorius disguises himself as an Amazon warrior named Cleophila to secretly stay close to the princess he loves. The ruse is revealed in the conclusion and he mentions wanting to “keep Cleophila around” after enjoying her strength and confidence. His newly betrothed agrees and then the cast breaks into “We Got the Beat” for the finale. Another area of affinity between jukebox musicals and rock musicals is in their depictions of race, especially Blackness—a stark contrast to the conservative and outright racist depictions of African Americans in vaudeville. The ways that rock and jukeboxes theatricalize and musicalize Blackness is similar to the inclusive ways that they present sexuality and gender; that is, with complexity and agency. Or, at the very least, it is with an acknowledgment of cultural difference and cultural specificity when contrasting Black life with society writ large. A touchstone is the already-mentioned 1960s girl groups, a specific type of racially coded music that pops up often in both genres. “Girl group” music is the postwar musical categorization for Black pop music that drew upon jazz, rock, gospel, and doo-wop, as well as choral harmonization, for its distinct sound. From an economic perspective, this makes sense in how nostalgic audiences can be for this style of music. But the most effective rock and catalog shows don’t rely on the rosy gloss of nostalgia, they complicate it through the interaction of song, character, and plot. The rock musicals that have this sound in them include Little

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Shop of Horrors and Dreamgirls; of the jukebox musicals, at least four bio-musicals feature Black girl groups. This sound has an easy time being adapted for the musical stage. The instrumentation leans into orchestrations, the time signatures are catchy and danceable, and the mini-narratives of the songs tend to focus on heterosexual romantic love or breakup. Dreamgirls, about the rise and fall of the Dreamettes, a fictional 1960s girl group, demonstrates how this sound has been adapted to musicals. The musical has a mix of diegetic and non-diegetic numbers, each reflective of the characters’ goals and obstacles. An example of this from early in the show is “Cadillac Car,” in which promoter Curtis Taylor tries to convince the Dreamettes to go on tour with Jimmy Early. It’s also a song about race, consumerism, and the American dream. The obsession with the Cadillac as status symbol segues into a discussion of the blending of musical styles to make something new. The number is complex and crucial to the overall message of the show, in that it hints at the social pressures that are at the edge of the dramatic conflict between the characters. The cast of Dreamgirls is mostly African American and the story is about Blacks in the music business, but the songs and libretto were written and composed by whites. This is another connection to the catalog shows. Beautiful and Leader of the Pack are bio-musicals about white songwriters who wrote many, many songs that were recorded by Black singing groups. The shows feature those songs performed by the groups themselves. In Beautiful, the Drifters croon “Up on the Roof ” and Little Eva sings and dances “The Loco-Motion.” More than just featuring the songs, the two shows have scenes which dramatize them composing the tunes. The audience of Beautiful watches Carole sell “Some Kind of Wonderful” to the Drifters and Ellie create “Why Do Lovers Break Each Other’s Hearts.” The two scenes are structured almost identically, as musical discovery scenes. Each begins with the songwriter, solo, pitching the number to a producer and, by the end of the scene, the song has morphed into the version recorded by the Black vocal group. In both cases, the music and narrative are triumphs for the white composer. As Carole and Ellie try to sell the numbers, accumulating orchestration from onstage piano to full pit band gives them the sonic equivalent of a high five. In Leader of the Pack, the exchange between Ellie and producer Gus Sharkey begins: (She plays and sings a few lines from “Why Do Lovers Break Each Other’s Hearts”.) GUS:  I love it! ELLIE:  You love it? GUS:  It’s a hit! ELLIE:  It is good, isn’t it? The orchestration takes over when Gus says, “I think the intro ought to go something like this ...”15 In Beautiful, Carole and writing partner Gerry Goffin are playing “Some Kind of Wonderful” first on piano and then with a small band accompaniment. The jubilant producer interjects, “Now that’s a song. And you

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guys can finally get your office here because, you know who I’m going to give that to? The Drifters!” At that moment the full orchestra kicks in.16 Also, these scenes happen in the middle of act one, signaling a rise to fame and wealth for the central character that will later be tested by personal and emotional crises. Knowing that the songs are hits undercuts the tension of the scene, even throws off the pacing, but watching it happen becomes the enjoyment factor for the audience. For all the sophistication of Beautiful in depicting women’s personal and professional struggles in the music industry, which is the musical’s dramatic backbone, Blackness and race are handled without much examination—a missed opportunity, we feel, given the other components of the show and possibilities of the genre. Ain’t Too Proud follows the basic structure of Dreamgirls’s origins-tobreakup arc. But race is an explicit and ever-present component of the narrative that gives the show bite and complicates anticipated songs like “My Girl” and “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me).” For this, credit is due to book writer Dominique Morisseau, who has dramatized Blackness within social and institutional contexts in a number of her plays. Each song is accompanied by an acknowledgment of the group’s struggles against racism. Even when delivered to the audience with little alteration to the recorded version—no queering the tune as in All Shook Up, rather a straightforward soundalike—the numbers reflect the lives of the group. This is a defining element of biographical shows from Jersey Boys to Sunny Afternoon, but this is layered on a story of not just individual drama but conflicts that are explicitly Black and, as such, tied to larger social and political movements. For example, before breaking into “Don’t Look Back,” Temptations founding member Otis Williams says to the audience, “Below the Mason-Dixon, it didn’t matter how many albums you sold, to some folks, you weren’t never going to be nothing more than a ...”17 Doing so reinforces the racial component of the tunes in compelling and dramatic ways. Despite the similarities between rock musicals and jukeboxes, some important differences in their fundamental structures affect the narrative and characterizations. Both in their pedigree and execution, rock musicals are more akin to the integrated musical format. They have a sonic consistency and an ability to use music to express thematic ideas in plot or motivational changes in characters, as befits a fictional narrative built from the ground up. Songs have mini-narratives, particularly the diegetic numbers, but these tunes invariably reflect the drama of the moment. When Hedwig sings “Sugar Daddy” and “Wicked Little Town” for the audience, he is telling his own story. For biographical jukebox musicals, the cart and the horse are switched around: musical numbers from across a group’s discography, possibly written by multiple lyricists and songwriters, are arranged in a way to coincide with events in the band’s history. The horse-andcart confusion is particularly acute in comparing Dreamgirls and Ain’t Too Proud, because Dreamgirls is so clearly indebted to the Motown sound and the creative control exerted over the acts by the record label’s founder, Berry Gordy. It distills an essence of the careers of so many groups on the label—Diana Ross and the

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Supremes, Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Marvellettes—and creates a coherent whole. Ain’t Too Proud, on the other hand, has to adhere to both the facts and events of the group and utilize the existing songs they recorded over a lengthy career. (The producers of the show also cannot paint Gordy in a negative light, lest he deny them the rights to the songs. Curtis Taylor, the Gordy stand-in in Dreamgirls, is much more duplicitous.) In order to convey biographical information, sing a recognizable hit song, and be theatrically dramatic, the show has an enormous amount of exposition, usually delivered straight out to the audience by Otis. At certain moments, these three components sync up nicely, but just as frequently one element seems off and the show stumbles. The need to create a musical around a decades-spanning career is a challenge. Librettists have tried to create clever ways around it, as in the chronological shuffling of The Cher Show. An opposite tactic is employed in Million Dollar Quartet, which is about a recording session involving Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis. It eschews any biographical scope, assuming that the audience is well aware of these people, and just puts these musical celebrities in a studio together for a weekend. Effective jukebox musicals are able to harness some of the components of rock musicals, especially in the freedom of their messaging and rock attitude.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and the Megamusical The general sentiment about megamusicals and the work of Andrew Lloyd Webber is wonderfully captured by this exchange from the jukebox musical Xanadu: KIRA: 

It is a peculiar thing about these mortals. They all know they will die, yet they are determined to create something. The “human spirit” it is termed. It makes me feel ... feel ... oh Erato what is the word for which I search? You know, when something is so grand and so earnest yet ultimately so preposterous that one has to laugh. What does one call that? ERATO:  Andrew Lloyd Webber? KIRA:  There we are! The human spirit gives me great feelings of Andrew Lloyd Webber.18 As a bridge between the discussion of rock musicals and jukebox musicals to a comparison with megamusicals, it is worth spending a moment on the works of Andrew Lloyd Webber. His decades-spanning career has produced massively lucrative and influential shows. As a singular individual in the musical theater landscape, he has drawn from many genres and excelled at a number of them. At the risk of oversimplification, it can be said that Lloyd Webber’s early shows, such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Jesus Christ Superstar, are rock musicals, that he reached megamusical maturity with Evita, Cats, and Phantom of the Opera, and more recently has dabbled with the jukebox format. He has drawn inspiration from the several genres and styles of music discussed in this chapter, and has proven adept at weaving them into his scores when they

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needed a contrasting sound. This has worked for him from the earliest musicals. In Unmasked: A Memoir, he writes in detail about the creation of Joseph, noting, “I wondered what would happen if we built and built Pharaoh’s entrance and he turned out to be Elvis.”19 The idea of throwing a Vegas-era Elvis Presley into a Biblical tale is a type of incongruity that became a hallmark of his work. As he was recording the album version of Superstar, he included a vaudeville-inspired number: “One of the last bits of Superstar to be recorded was ‘King Herod’s Song.’ The simple answer to the question ‘why a vaudeville song?’ is that it felt right .... we badly needed something to puncture and lighten the musical mood. A song that stood out stylistically seemed exactly what the constraints of a record demanded.”20 Just as in Joseph, the bad and morally compromised character is given the stand-alone number that modulates the mood of the rest of the work. This speaks to Lloyd Webber’s careful craftsmanship. In his memoir, Lloyd Webber describes his deep affinity for opera composer Giacomo Puccini.21 His defense of Puccini against the critics and snobs echoes arguments made about the megamusicals and jukeboxes, that he gives the audience what it wants, such as memorable and hummable tunes, and the rest of you can sod off. He writes, “Because Puccini was the commercial backstop of every opera company he had become devalued as a composer.”22 This description echoes Judith Craymer’s statement about Mamma Mia! and how it can be enjoyed without shame or embarrassment. Of course, in defending Puccini and twitching the tail of the critic class, Lloyd Webber is offering a defense of his own work as well, which had received its own share of drubbing ever since Starlight Express first strapped on roller skates. But to present an overview of Lloyd Webber’s connections to the genres under discussion in this chapter, his earliest hits are undoubtedly rock musicals, with funk beats, electric instruments, and catchy rhyme schemes. He even states, “Superstar works best the closer the director embraces its rock album roots.”23 The loose, hippy Christianity of Joseph and Superstar is clearly akin to the searching spirituality of Hair and the gospel-rock of Godspell. By the time he transitions to Evita and Phantom, he creates works that are weighty with spectacle and smothering in orchestrations. This feeling of epic-ness is a defining element of megamusicals. Some of his more recent works have flirted with the essential components of jukebox musicals in their structure and subject matter. Lloyd Webber worked with librettist Ben Elton, who wrote the book of the Queen catalog musical We Will Rock You, on The Beautiful Game, a musical about a Northern Irish soccer club. He partnered with Jim Steinman, who wrote the libretto for Bat Out of Hell: The Meat Loaf Musical, on Whistle Down the Wind, about a runaway convict in Louisiana. And, if more evidence is necessary, Lloyd Webber wrote the music for the stage musical version of the movie School of Rock, about an unambitious guitarist who cons his way into chaperoning prep school kids to a “battle of the bands” competition. He “went back to [his] roots” with the show.24 Though the film is full of rock ‘n’ roll references and needle drops, the musical leans heavily on the replacement work of Lloyd Webber and lyricist Glenn Slater. The songs

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themselves are rote examples of rock music, though the show suffers because it stokes audience expectation for a jukebox show. If you know the film and recall how expertly it employs AC/DC and Led Zeppelin songs, then the music of Lloyd Webber lacks that power. In this chapter, we’ve looked at jukebox musicals and two of its antecedents, vaudeville performance and rock musicals, and noted connections between them as well as the ways in which jukeboxes build upon these earlier genres. And then we criticized Andrew Lloyd Webber, who is mostly immune to such things. The critiques of Lloyd Webber and others will continue in this section devoted to megamusicals. Jessica Sternfeld’s definition in The Megamusical succinctly sums up the structural, musical, and thematic components of the genre, from the sung-through scores, reliance on grand theatrical spectacle, and sweeping historical scope. The emphasis on spectacle and franchisees makes business sense while stunting artistic potential or creative freedoms, as will be explained here. To this definition, we can add some perspective by Elizabeth Wollman, who writes, “The megamusical ... brought musical theater in general a step closer to the mass media, not only in the ways that it is produced, but in terms of its aesthetic makeup.”25 In the evolution of musical theater, megamusicals are placed after the rock musical and before the jukebox musical, as if one begat the other. This makes a certain crude chronological sense but also does a disservice to the catalog show when discussing its strengths, innovations, and potential in production. As we go through and compare megas and jukeboxes in this section, the point is not to draw parallels between them, as was the case in the earlier sections of this chapter, but rather to note how fundamentally different they are, as a way of raising the stature of the jukebox form which has been wrongly maligned for existing in the shadow of the megamusical. The reason to draw out the distinctions in the two genres, is that a number of musical theater historians and critics have lumped them together as a shorthand method for dismissing them both. In the introduction to The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical, Mark Grant writes, “Today’s musicals are replicative rather than generative. They reflect and cannibalize other areas of pop culture—television, movies, techno special effects, rock music, music videos—and with few exceptions do so without developing any independent life as dramatic literature.”26 This list of replicative components groups together rock, mega, and jukebox shows into one damnable pile. And Grant follows through on his analysis, concluding the book by saying that, after rock and megamusicals have salted the earth, “the love affair with the written and spoken work has died,” and “‘jukeboxicals’ have stepped into the breach.”27 This perspective overly generalizes the three types of musical theater and does an especial disservice to the jukebox genre. To separate these styles out, and to confine our criticisms to the megamusicals, we want to make clear distinctions between the construction, pace, and outlook of the two forms. Megamusical are undeniably the most well-known live theatrical performances in the world. In addition to Lloyd Webber’s output, these works include

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Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil’s Les Misérables as well as their Miss Saigon, which centers on the final days of the Vietnam War. Another artist worth mentioning is composer Frank Wildhorn, who has a number of shows that follow the megamusical template. They are book adaptations, with gothic settings and melodramatic storylines as well as full-throated operatic singing and orchestrations. He tackled the split-personality of Jekyll and Hyde, conjured a French Revolution swashbuckler with The Scarlet Pimpernel, and put his own spin on the Dracula myth. As Sternfeld notes, “Wildhorn brought to Broadway a pop music style that made little effort to sound like, or work like, theater music.” Another megamusical of import in the context of this chapter is Chess, because of its connections to Mamma Mia! Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of Abba composed the original music for Chess, and one of the producers was Judith Craymer. Its story of the US and Soviet chess rivalry is contemporary and downbeat, compared to other megamusicals. And, unlike the sensibilities of Wildhorn, Ulvaeus and Andersson “know how theater music works.”28 The theatricality and drama of their Chess music is also present in their pop hits, and this would be key to Mamma Mia! Some of the lesser-known examples of the genre include Martin Guerre, about war and mistaken identity, The Pirate Queen, about an Irish pirate menacing the English fleet during the reign of Elizabeth I, and Dance of the Vampires, a gothic romance among the undead. There can be no definitive “end” to the megamusical, though some of the defining characteristic of the shows, from the lush orchestrations, scenic bombast, and historical romance, fell out of favor starting in the 1990s. Wollman argues that it was the Disney-fication of Times Square and Broadway that signaled the shift away from Lloyd Webber and his ilk. “The megamusical craze ended in New York with the closing of Miss Saigon, though one might argue that the subgenre was merely supplanted by something even bigger, slicker, and more spectacular.”29 At the same time, this movement toward more cartoonish fare also left space open for juxeboxes. The run of the original Broadway production of Miss Saigon ended in January, 2001, less than a year before the arrival of Mamma Mia! The plot structure and characterizations of megamusicals are significantly different from what is found in a jukebox show. The “mega” in megamusicals employs as many theatrical tricks as possible to give the production an epic grandeur. The casts are large and a number of characters have vibrant subplots, most famously in the interwoven fates of the characters in Les Misérables. The megamusicals are also spectacle-driven, not only in iconic moments such as the flying chandelier in Phantom and helicopter landing in Miss Saigon but also in their reliance on stage machinery and large sets that overwhelm and dwarf the already substantially sized cast. Les Misérables’s act two is set on the barricades and Evita has her “you must love me” balcony song. Compare this to the most cataclysmic event in the Jimmy Buffett musical Escape to Margaritaville, the eruption of an island volcano. It happens offstage and is really only an excuse for the cast to sing “Volcano.” The oversized plots and lengthy running times of the megas

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give their audiences the intended feeling of overwhelming grandeur, which can marginalize its female and minority characters. As Stacy Wolf puts it in her critique of Phantom, Big themes, big sets, and big music mask the misogyny embedded in these musicals, which shrink their women musically and physically .... The Phantom of the Opera overwhelms the one featured woman by surrounding her with spectacular scenery, dramatic lighting effects, and sumptuous costumes that dwarf her.30 As has been detailed throughout this study and will be examined closely in later chapters, jukeboxes have a much more relaxed structure of setup—song—transition that flows throughout the show and allows for a return of a liberal ideology and artistic freedom afforded to rock musicals. Another component that continues along with the rigidified structure and plotting of megamusicals is the lack of jokes. Not necessarily humor, as there are comedic tunes in them such as the sly “Master of the House” number from Les Misérables, but jokes or witty banter. Part of this can be explained by the lack of any dialogue or book, as most of these shows are sung-through, but it is also antithetical to the totalizing effect of these shows. (For an example of how bad it can sound to shoehorn jokes into a megamusical, watch the excruciating attempts at gags in Tom Hopper’s film version of Cats.) Jukebox shows, on the other hand, are talky and frequently jokey by design as the music elements of them cannot be sutured together. They must have dialogue of some kind of support a character-­ driven plot, no matter how flimsy. (The closest thing to an exception to this characteristic is The Who’s Tommy, which has almost no dialogue and also not a single moment of levity.) Because this needed characterization cannot be located in the mini-narratives of the existing songs, the shows have a lightness and flexibility. The humor ranges from puns to scatological jokes to situational comedy. The most distinct and immediately recognizable separation between megas and jukeboxes is in the music and orchestrations of both solo turns and ensemble numbers. Megamusicals incorporate rock’s propulsive 4/4 and 3/4 time signatures, which contributes to the belief that megas and jukeboxes are similar. But megamusicals also incorporate large, sweeping, and lush orchestrations, giving the music a Wagnerian bombast that befits a spectacle-driven show on grand themes. The muchness of these orchestrations is found in many of the standout solo moments in these shows: “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” in Evita, “Memory” in Cats, and “On My Own” in Les Misérables. Each of these turns arrives at the emotional and dramatic apex in their shows. Compare these to “Private Dancer” in Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, which comes at a moment as emotionally raw as the ones that catapult Evita, Grizabella, and Éponine to their highest registers. But “Private Dancer” is a pop tune with a stand-alone narrative of a weary and calculating exotic dancer. The musical’s orchestration replicates Tina Turner’s single version, with some notable

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exceptions. On the musical soundtrack, the number is a full minute shorter than the rock version because it does away with interludes and a bluesy guitar solo. The stripped-down musical version puts the emphasis even more intensely on Tina herself and find layers of meaning in a song about a vulnerable yet callous performer that resonates with the singer’s attempts at escaping from Ike Turner’s shadow. The song’s chorus includes lines expressing hostility toward her male clients. In Turner’s album version, she sings in a staccato rhythm, which emphasizes the narrator’s lack of agency and callousness.31 In Adrienne Warren’s interpretation on the musical’s cast album, she takes the same line in another direction by pulling out the vowel sounds, which returns focus to Tina rather than the dancer in the song.32 The effect is palpable and works dramatically. We mention this to emphasize that catalog shows can share in the big emotional beats that are also crucial to megamusicals but also retain a flexibility and originality. These numerous differences within the two types of shows are compounded when assessing shows in their totalities. For comparison, look at the bio-megamusical Evita and the bio-jukebox show On Your Feet!: The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan. The Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice show about Eva Perón has all the characteristics of a megamusical and adds an Argentinian flair to the orchestration with songs written to the tango’s claves-based beat and rhythm, specifically “Don’t Cry for Me” and “Oh What a Circus.” Despite focusing on a ruthless propagandist and having a central character modeled on Che Guevara, it is an aggressively apolitical show. The music, orchestration, and lyrics turn Evita into a mythical figure justified, or at least understandable, in her wants and actions. On Your Feet!, on the other hand, has a liberal point of view and sticks to it. Throughout the show, characters talk about combining white pop music with beats and instrumentations from Cuba and the Caribbean—and that this blending makes the music distinctly American. This idea is central to the dramatic tension of the show, as when the group’s producer won’t let them record songs in English unless they change their names and sound. Emilio responds, “Change my name? It’s not my name to change. It’s my father’s name. It’s my grandfather’s name .... So I’m not too sure where it is you think I live, but this is my home. And you should look very closely at my face. Because whether you know it or not, this is what an American looks like.”33 The perspective of the show is to support and celebrate this multicultural ideal shared by the characters. The differences between jukeboxes and megas are telling, especially for what the jukes have the potential to be, to show, and to share with an audience. Despite a variety of stories in the megamusical genre, there is a consistency that smothers all else like ranch dressing. Jukebox shows engage and interact with the audience is its own way, while also correcting for a number of the conservative and plodding elements present in the megamusicals. What made the jukebox musical? was the question posed at the top of the chapter, which then charted parallels and borrowings from these other musical forms. The allure of the megas faded at the end of the twentieth century, although the canonical workhorses are still generating vast wealth for their producers. In tracing this chronology of styles, with each rising and falling in popularity

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and cultural influence, it becomes clear that the jukebox musical fits the cultural moment of post-megamusical theater—the encapsulated mini-narratives, the metatextual qualities, the gleeful insouciance. The next chapter explains the oft-copied blockbusters Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys in detail, analyzes what made them successful productions, and breaks down the structural and musical elements that have become so influential.

Notes 1 Douglas Carter Beane, Xanadu: The Musical (New York: Music Theatre International, 2007), act 2, p. 71. 2 Quoted in David Nasau, Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 33. 3 Andrew Erdman, Blue Vaudeville: Sex, Morals, and the Mass Marketing of Amusement, 1895–1915 ( Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2004), 7. 4 Susan Glenn, Female Spectacle: The Theatrical Roots of Modern Feminism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 70 and throughout. 5 Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff, Ragged bur Right: Black Traveling Shows, “Coon Songs,” and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz ( Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007), 28–29. 6 Camille Forbes, Introducing Bert Williams: Burnt Cork, Broadway, and the Story of America’s First Black Star (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2008), 251–52. 7 Glenn, Female Spectacle, 42. 8 In this, they have similarities to the integrated book musical and even opera. Emanuele Senici, “Genre,” in The Oxford Handbook to Opera, ed. Helen Greenwald (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 37–38. 9 Elizabeth Wollman, The Theater Will Rock: A History of the Rock Musical, from Hair to Hedwig (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2006), 46. 10 Ibid., 137. 11 “1650 Broadway Melody” on Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, accessed April 8, 2021, Spotify. 12 Anne Beatts, Leader of the Pack: The Ellie Greenwich Musical (New York: Samuel French, 1985), 13. 13 Rock musicals tinkered with structure at the same time as such “concept musicals” like A Chorus Line and Company, all part of an innovative push that arrived at the end of the “golden age” of the integrated musical. 14 James Magruder, Head over Heels (New York: Broadway Licensing, 2018), n.p. 15 Beatts, Leader of the Pack, 24–25. 16 “Some Kind of Wonderful” on Beautiful. 17 “Don’t Look Back/You’re My Everything” on Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, accessed April 8, 2021, Spotify. 18 Beane, act 2, p. 14. 19 Andrew Lloyd Webber, Unmasked: A Memoir (New York: Harper, 2019), 81. 20 Ibid., 131. 21 And, for anyone comparing the score of Lloyd Webber’s Phantom and Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West [Girl of the Golden West], the connection passes from acolyte to plagiarist. 22 Lloyd Webber, Unmasked, 49. 23 Ibid., 182. 24 Ibid., 484. 25 Wollman, The Theater Will Rock, 123. 26 Mark Grant, The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004), 6.

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27 Ibid., 312. 28 Jessica Sternfeld, The Megamusical (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 314, 279. 29 Elizabeth Wollman, “The Megamusical to Hamilton,” in A Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical, ed. Elizabeth Wollman (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), 172. 30 Stacy Wolf, Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 129, 149. 31 Tina Turner, “Private Dancer” on Private Dancer, accessed April 12, 2021, Spotify. 32 Adrienne Warren, “Private Dancer” on Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, accessed April 12, 2021, Spotify. 33 “Mi Tierra” on On Your Feet!: The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan, accessed April 12, 2021, Spotify.

4 Mamma Mia! and the Establishment of a Form

An early scene of the 2005 Elvis Presley–inspired All Shook Up has a metatheatrical joke that pokes fun at the genre it is part of, by literalizing the metaphor onstage. Chad, the show’s Elvis surrogate, saunters into the small 1950s town that serves as the setting and notices a busted jukebox player on Main Street. He is aghast: “A jukebox not workin’? Folks, I’ve seen this before—broken-down jukes, broken-down people, unsatisfied women. Looks like I got here just in time […] to make you people live a little.”1 In just ten years from when critic Ben Brantley derisively popularized the term, referencing jukeboxes became an in-joke and rallying cry for fans. In that span, catalog musicals proliferated quickly and gripped the consciousness of the theatergoing public. The last chapter covered some of the main antecedent musical forms throughout the twentieth century that inspired the structure, energy, and business considerations of the jukeboxes. And, despite shows regularly being created in the 1980s and 1990s, it was at the start of the millennium that the genre conventions solidify and catalog musicals find a comfortable place in the international performance marketplace. An enormous amount can be learned about producing and staging a jukebox musical from investigating the transformations within the format. The chapter looks at three moments of musical theater history: 1992/1993, 1999, and 2005. During 1992/1993, a trio of shows performed on Broadway that could have, but largely did not, influence the jukebox evolution. The solidification of the form happens in 1999 with Mamma Mia!’s opening in London (it arrived two years later in New York).2 That show is the chapter’s fulcrum and is easily the most important show for establishing the genre. Also important is 2005, which saw the debut of several shows, one of which was a massive success: Jersey Boys. The chapter analyzes these three moments in detail and how they established the genre’s parameters of plot, structure, and song use. There will be some divergences and detours as necessary, such as the section that discusses DOI: 10.4324/b22939-5

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director Des McAnuff, who has been a singularly instrumental figure in the history of the jukebox musical. As with most artistic genres, this is not a clean or direct history by any means. The artists weren’t supplied with a checklist; rather, talented people created similar projects and a new genre developed. Many other musical theater pieces were made alongside these productions and in conversation with them: musicals with original songs or musicals based on established intellectual properties such as books and movies. A history of fits and starts is to be expected under such conditions. Many of the productions analyzed in this chapter either debuted or soon arrived on Broadway. Playing the Great White Way gave them an outsized cultural impact that informed the overall conditions under which these shows were designed, written, and marketed. The musicals studied here also display the five characteristics of the jukebox form, each has strengths and weaknesses as described in Chapter 2 (though each has different solutions to those weaknesses), and each wants to entertain a paying audience. No one starts making a catalog musical with the intention of losing money! Understanding why some do and others do not is at the crux of this chapter’s investigations. Mamma Mia! is the jukebox musical without an equal. It created the template to follow, became the show to which all were compared, and vacuumed up a stunning amount of money in the process. The show struck a chord at its particular moment in time and the jukebox musical was established as an exciting genre of live performance and theater. When it was created, the show was a gamble or at best a curio; only in retrospect does it make sense how all the pieces fit together. There are a number of social, political, economic, and technological factors that contributed to its acclaim, but these do not, in any way, diminish its artistry. None of the successful works studied here were just lucky and each found a way to take the pulse of the moment in making crucial decisions. Certainly nostalgia is a key factor, as we’ve discussed throughout this book, but the manner of nostalgia’s deployment is crucial. The first step in understanding how catalog musicals came to be created in its particular way and with its particular characteristics is to examine a moment in theatrical time when, for a number of reasons, the format was yet to take hold.

1992/1993: An Interesting, Anomalous Time for Jukebox Musicals The years 1992 and 1993 saw the Broadway debut of three high-profile musicals that drew from prerecorded music: The Who’s Tommy, Jelly’s Last Jam, and Crazy for You. When they arrived, catalog shows had been around for a decade. (They wouldn’t have been called jukebox musicals because the term reached wide circulation two years later.) Each earned critical attention in the United States and elsewhere. Despite their quality and box office potential, they didn’t start a trend, create a cultural shift, or coin a phrase. The shows are very different from each other in tone, ambition, and scope, yet their share a core set of commonalities.

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An examination of what these shows are, how they are constructed, and what they accomplish provides crucial perspective on what made possible the eventual arrival of the genre at decade’s end. The Who’s Tommy is a great starting point, as it is a stage musical derived from a complete “concept album.” The Who’s 1969 concept album is lauded as one of the most ambitious achievements in rock ‘n’ roll history, a dark and complex tale of the title character’s blasted consciousness. A film version from 1975 already embellished the song cycle’s narrative. Before being adapted to the stage, the music was extremely well known as a whole album and through hit singles like “Pinball Wizard.” The stage musical adapts what is an already total narrative arc with psychologically motivated characters who express the story through mini-narratives in the songs. Directed and adapted by Des McAnuff, the production began at the LaJolla Playhouse in 1992 and moved to Broadway the next year. Nominated for eleven Tony Awards, it won five, including Director and Original Score. This led to a lengthy tour. The show obviously struck a chord of enjoyment and novelty with audiences and critics. Despite this, a number of the artistic choices and limitations from the source material prevented it from being replicated by other groups, such as the Beatles or Rolling Stones, or even by other concept albums, such as Pink Floyd’s The Wall or the Kinks’ Lola vs Powerman and the Moneygoround. Though it may seem easy to convert a concept album directly into a stage musical, it is a remarkably tricky juggling act. The challenge of making a sequence of songs appear as though they were written for the musical can be constraining because the show has to follow the prescriptions of the original album’s narrative. It cannot create something with a freer plot or adaptation, which can be beneficial for jukeboxes. Mini-narratives must fit with the story, theme, and character motivation. They must help explain what is happening. With Tommy, the album’s built-in narrative both assists and hinders the stage production, as the already familiar story requires a rigid fealty through the song organization and construction. The plot of the album and the musical are identical: a young boy, Tommy, witnesses a traumatic act of violence that renders him without the senses of speech, hearing, or sight. He is neglected by his family, achieves fame through playing pinball, recovers his senses, and finds a new path forward for himself. The songs from the album particularly suited for a live stage performance are Tommy’s interior solo numbers like “Amazing Journey” and splashy effects-driven spectacles like “Pinball Wizard.” The jukebox stage adaptation is so faithful to the album that it adds nearly no dialogue. Like a megamusical, the action is conveyed by stage directions that illustrate what is already being expressed through song. In the course of the live presentation, this is sometimes superfluous or contradictory but it can be quite transcendent. The most effective scenes in Tommy are those in which the music and staging effectively complement each other without being redundant. Late in act one, the song “Cousin Kevin,” a scene of physical abuse, is paired with “Sensation,” Tommy’s first encounter with a pinball machine. While Cousin Kevin sings about beating Tommy, he is doing

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just that. The stage directions read, “They cross to a trash can. Cousin Kevin … sticks Tommy into the trash can, puts the lid on it and sits on top.” The scene shifts to a public space, a recreation center for kids who gleefully participate in Tommy’s torture while also singing “Cousin Kevin.” Although this adds additional voices to the sound and spectacle onstage, the true horror of the original song is Tommy’s isolation. He is alone with the cousin and his childhood injury makes him unable to respond. Populating the stage with other bodies and filling the soundtrack with additional voices undercuts that deep emotion. Following “Cousin Kevin” with “Sensation” is dramaturgically sound; after the kids’ cruelty, the audience is given a moment of emotional release as Tommy first plays pinball. Tommy “plays hypnotically, beating the machine. He’s beginning to rack up an incredible score. Lights flash, bells ring, buzzers sound. Ten-yearold Tommy stares into the mirrored surface and plays.”3 Tommy is suddenly in control of himself and both physicalizes and vocalizes a sense of self-agency; his once-active tormentors are in a state of abeyance. This sequence of song and narrative illustrates the show’s potential and that of the genre to create fantastically theatrical and psychological moments. The Who’s Tommy is bound by the tension between rock album source material and musical theater stage production and the calibrations of story, music, and spectacle. In jukebox shows, the primacy of the music is unquestionable. Even by these standards, Tommy derives its visual design aesthetic heavily from the original album, which is full of repeated lyrical metaphors and musical leitmotif.4 Symbols like the mirror, the pinball machine, and blindness are interwoven throughout the songs on the album and the stage version replicates these motifs in straightforward, representational ways. The stage directions state that mirrors and pinball machines feature prominently in the set design. During the most exciting and energetic songs, such as “Pinball Wizard,” the lighting design matches the flash and blink of a 1960s analog machine. The musical’s fealty to the album’s symbolism is extreme and is derived from matching the narrative of the source material. Comparing the structure of the album to the musical deserves discussion because, to an intense degree, Tommy had a narrative structure to it already that carries over from the original album. Initially released as a double LP, the records’s four sides each have distinct themes that advance the hero’s journey: side one is trauma, side two is neglect, side three is escape, and side four is ascension. The musical takes the twenty-four tracks and molds them into a two-act musical. Changes to the song order focuses the narrative while also modulating the story’s emotional beats. For example, a sequence of songs on side two of the album is “Christmas,” “Cousin Kevin,” and “The Acid Queen,” a grim compendium of malaise, neglect, and sadism. The musical includes the three songs in act one but spaces them out in a way that makes Tommy’s journey from trauma to escape more easily understood, which is especially important because the musical adds little dialogue that could be used as connective transitions. “Cousin Kevin”’s

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sadism is bookended by “See Me, Feel Me” and “Sensation,” both sung and staged from Tommy’s interior perspective. And the standalone “Acid Queen” number comes right near the end of act one. It and “Pinball Wizard” are the big, theatrical numbers before intermission. Although “Pinball Wizard” is in the middle of side three of the concept album it is given this place of prominence in the musical. This is a bit dodgy from a narrative standpoint, as neither song is sung by the title character but rather are about him. Diverting vocal attention in this way sidelines the main character at a moment when the audience should most care about his wellbeing. The Acid Queen tries to cure Tommy through drug cocktails and the pinball champions lose their titles to him. But they are both standout rock singles, among the Who’s best, so the decision was made. If it were to employ a more conventional musical structure, act one should end on the rousing and commanding “Sensation.” The second act continues the original structure but refocuses and repeats a number of songs to strengthen Tommy’s character arc. As he rises to fame and assumes the role of spiritual guru to a curious public, Tommy reprises “Sensation,” “I’m Free,” and “Pinball Wizard” in rapid succession, accompanied by a few lines of supporting dialogue that highlight his creepy messianism. Reprising numbers is a hallmark of musical theater, used to indicate change in a main character. A song is repeated so the audience can hear the difference between versions and mark the changes in their personalities. The return of these three songs highlights Tommy’s fakery and media-­ created personality. The Who’s Tommy is an effective jukebox musical. It provides emotional beats, a direct and compelling narrative, and rock songs that are clearly tied to a story. The visual, lyrical, and aural motifs contained in the ambitious source material carries over to the stage version’s staging, choreography, and design. The music and the 1960s era that is depicted certainly has a high nostalgia factor. But there are a limited number of albums that could even possibly follow Tommy’s lead. Because of the established narrative and musical score, Tommy operated like a rock musical similar to Rocky Horror Show or Dreamgirls. Many of the show’s characteristics which make it work come from rock musicals. At the same time, by drawing so heavily from the rock musical tradition, it prevents itself from embracing the dramaturgical freedoms allowed in the jukebox format. Tommy was an unrepeatable phenomenon. Jelly’s Last Jam, another proto-jukebox musical, played on Broadway at the same time as Tommy. Written and directed by George C. Wolfe, this biographical musical about the life of jazz composer Jelly Roll Morton is an ambitious and intricate show that dramatizes Morton’s struggles with racial self-identity. As critic John Lahr notes in the introduction to the script, Jelly’s Last Jam “is not reflecting a white world but debating a black one.”5 The plot is tied to a metaphysical conceit: Morton has died and cannot pass into the afterlife until he fully accepts his Blackness. This spectral overview of life is interspersed with songs Morton wrote and recorded that punctuate and accentuate his journey.

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The musical’s jukebox credentials are complicated by the fact that librettist Susan Birkenhead wrote lyrics for several of Morton’s instrumental songs, though even her lyrics are written in the style of an early twentieth-century jazz standard that Morton helped popularize. His songs are witty and sometimes salacious blues and jazz songs and are not tied overtly to any point in his life, which is a dramaturgical connection and narrative trick that is used in many later bio-musicals. Rather, the heavily fictionalized story is untethered to any particular fact or circumstance regarding the composer. The show’s message of racial self-acceptance takes precedence over specific events or songs. Even nostalgia for the music, something so key to other catalog shows, is secondary. Throughout Jelly’s Last Jam, the connection between story and song is calibrated toward the thematic and dramatic core of the scene. In act one, Jelly meets club owner Anita and is immediately drawn to her. Their evolving relationship is interwoven among verses of “Lovin’ is a Lowdown Blues.” The chorus sings after vignettes that chart their relationship from initial attraction, to passion, to breakup. At one point, Anita talks about a club she wants to open with him: ANITA:  Ooooh Jelly, the place I’ve found, you’re going to love. JELLY:  Wait a minute. You’ve already picked out the club. ANITA:  I see a baby grand piano, crystal chandeliers. My man deserves

nuthin’

but the best. And after a chorus of “Lowdown Blues,” their attitudes change: Jelly and Anita’s lovemaking transforms into a fight. ANITA (SWINGING AT JELLY):  You no-count-two-bit-two-timin’-son-of-a-bitch!6 The crosscutting of song and story advances Morton’s biographical and spiritual tale. Jelly’s Last Jam, which concludes with Jelly’s self-acceptance, is full of clever scenes that integrate drama and jazz. Given the level of talent involved in Jelly’s Last Jam, as well as its respectable Broadway run and award recognition (it was nominated for eleven Tony Awards and won three), the question remains why it didn’t catch on and inspire similar musicals. A number of artistic and economic factors limited the show’s longterm cultural impact as a true foundation for the jukebox genre. The first reason has to do with the regrettably limited awareness of Morton’s music. It cannot exploit nostalgic feelings to the same degree as Mamma Mia!, Jersey Boys, and most other musicals under discussion in this book. The other main factor has to do with the artistic and creative ambitions of director and book-writer Wolfe. He formulates Jelly’s Last Jam as a “concept musical,” a fractured, semi-realistic psychological character study like A Chorus Line or Company. He did not want the show to act or operate like a revue show, despite having the characteristics of one.7 Wolfe fights against the main tendencies of the jukebox show in an effort to artistically elevate the material, the music, and the story. Just as The Who’s Tommy

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was closely aligned with the megamusical, Jelly’s Last Jam is a concept musical and did not capture the imaginations or wallets of the theatergoing public. The third and final proto-jukebox of 1992/1993, Crazy for You, uses the music of George and Ira Gershwin to tell a breezy Depression-era tale about a rich but naïve East Coast banker who ends up in a rural Nevada town, falls in love with a local girl, and puts on a show to save the vaudeville theater there.8 Crazy for You takes its basic narrative structure from a Gershwin musical from 1930 called Girl Crazy.9 The music and plot have an ideal partner in librettist Ken Ludwig, a playwright best known for his comedy Lend Me a Tenor. Crazy for You shares a number of plot elements with Tenor, both have a backstage plot, mistaken identities, and groan-inducing puns. In its best moments, the situations and personalities in Crazy for You match the verve of the songs to create something bubbly. This bit of dialogue between Bobby, the banker, and Irene, his longtime girlfriend, showcases Ludwig’s clockwork-like craftsmanship: IRENE:  We have been engaged for five years. Now when are we getting married?! BOBBY:  We’re not. IRENE:  Of course we are. BOBBY:  Oh no we’re not! IRENE:  Don’t be ridiculous. I have the wedding all planned. The guest list is up

to nine hundred. Big crowd. You won’t miss me.10

BOBBY:  Great.

The setup-and-gag rhythm of the dialogue is a good fit for the lyrics and instrumentation of the music. Crazy for You also did not contribute to the creation of the jukebox musical because it behaves and is structured like a “Golden Age” integrated musical such as Guys and Dolls, in which all the elements and songs behave as an organic whole. (And Crazy for You is very self-aware about musical theater history; an act two sight gag explicitly parodies Les Misérables.) Crazy for You does not have the structure of a mature jukebox show. During the 1993 season on Broadway, these three musicals were being performed within blocks of each other. The repurposing of existing, prerecorded songs into a live performance also connects them together. But, despite having the basic characteristics of a catalog musical, there is something fundamentally absent about each of them and they collectively failed to congeal into a moment and a new musical genre. Were they ahead of their time? Maybe, but they each tried to fit their song catalogs into a preexisting musical theater structure—the megamusical, the concept musical, and the integrated musical. Molding themselves to these other genres is effective for each but it did not establish a template by breaking the conventions of these formats to a degree that the jukebox musical could be founded. All of them are dramaturgicaly sound—Tommy adapts the sentiments of an album to the stage; Jelly’s Last Jam interrogates a musical genius’s life; Crazy for You pairs the songs’ sophisticated wit with slapstick romance—but they stay within musical and theatrical norms.

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The catalog musical phenomenon got an intriguing if ultimately unsustainable boost during the 1992/1993 Broadway seasons, one that did not immediately shape or transform the genre as Mamma Mia! would in 1999. In the interim, other musicals were produced that were variously called revue shows, concert shows, or catalog shows. Only one US musical during this time could be described as a jukebox show, Love, Janis, which debuted in 1994. It is a dramatization of Janis Joplin’s life told through her personal letters and recordings with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Love, Janis is an odd hybrid of concert and recitation. The lack of plot is also true of Smokey Joe’s Café, a series of jazz songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller with the thinnest connective tissue, and Swinging on a Star, a revue show of Johnny Burke music. The repeated returning to this style, and the various attempts to rejigger narrative conventions or add drama to it, continued throughout the decade. Then Mamma Mia! came along and aligned all the pieces, tensions, confusions, possibilities, and potentials of this musical form. In discussing jukebox musicals, there will always be a before and after Mamma Mia!

Jukebox Musical Directors This book emphasizes the combination of music and story in the jukebox musical genre as a way of analyzing shows and envisioning the possibilities for them in production. Another key component in this process is the director, particularly a show’s original director. They can have immense influence over how a show is received and remembered, by creating a distinct look and helping interpret the songs dramatically. And, then, touring productions use the staging, set design, and costuming of the original run. Of the many directors associated with the format, Des McAnuff has had the biggest impact on the genre’s advancement and he has been a creative driver of them since the early days. McAnuff was the director and adaptor of The Who’s Tommy in 1992, and directed four more jukebox musicals between 2005 and 2017: Jersey Boys, Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Three of these are biographical catalog musicals and the other two rework concept albums. This is an enormous output, particularly given the long incubation process for musicals. As a director and adaptor, he helped shape all of these shows. He is especially adept at locating and theatricalizing the emotion that underlies a song. This comes across in the more dramatically effective moments in his shows, such as the “I’m Free” number in Tommy or the “Walk Like a Man” recording session in Jersey Boys. Another specialty is pairing catchy songs with complex lead characters such as Tommy, Frankie Valli, Donna Summer, and Yoshimi. His visual style may tend toward the obvious—pinball machines in Tommy—but it supports a central theme that the audience can grasp. Sometimes his artistic interventions lead to tensions among collaborators. In 2007 he was quoted in an article about Jersey Boys that, when he didn’t like the first version of Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice’s script, “we came up with the outline together. I helped them with

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the structure.”11 His dismissal of the writers prompted a stinging rebuke from Brickman, who responded, “I can see him now, goose quill in hand, fingers raw, eyes bloodshot from his tireless restructuring of our 72-page ‘idea.’”12 Their feud was later patched up. Though McAnuff is undoubtedly a crucial jukebox creator, another interesting voice in this field is Alex Timbers. Either with the company Les Freres Corbusier or independently, he has been involved in a number of wildly theatrical performance and theater pieces that have relied heavily on existing music to drive them forward. His style of adaptation and creation is much less literal than McAnuff and tends toward an aesthetic of either postmodern cool or postmodern chaos, depending on the production and its needs. This can be seen in his theater pieces, such as Dance Dance Revolution and Peter and the Starcatcher, as well as the musicals he’s directed with original songs: Here Lies Love, a biographical musical about First Lady of the Philippines Imelda Marcos with music and lyrics by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, which reframes the seventh president as a preening Mick Jagger rockstar. Timbers’s combination of postmodern chaos and postmodern cool—and their meeting ground in the place of ironic posturing—was readily on display in the 2019/2020 Broadway season, in which he had two shows running at the same time. He served as “production consultant” for American Utopia, a staged concert of Talking Heads songs by lead singer David Byrne. Its bare set was silver, grey, and sterile and gave Byrne and his fellow musicians room to groove. Timbers also directed Moulin Rouge!: The Musical, a stage adaptation of the film that used anachronistic pop songs in the setting of a 1900 Paris nightclub. Timbers brought a maximalist approach to Moulin Rouge!, layering theatricality on top of artifice to tell the deep-yet-shallow tale of a doomed courtesan and the penniless writer who loves her. In Timbers’s work, the characters and their stories are kept at an ironic distance. This is effective for both these shows and is a marked contrast to the emotional investments that the audience feels during one of McAnuff’s musicals.

1999: Mamma Mia! Establishes the Jukebox Musical If we had to pick a moment that sums up the jukebox musical phenomenon, the one scene that encapsulates all of its pleasures, it would be “Dancing Queen” from Mamma Mia!: The main character, Donna, is in a funk and her supportive best friends, Rosie and Tanya, cheer her up by singing of her young and carefree days. As the number begins, the stage directions note, “Rosie picks up her snorkel from the bed. Tanya rummages in her bag and pulls out her hair-dryer. They use these as dummy microphones to sing to Donna.”13 In a musical that mixes both diegetic and non-diegetic musical numbers, they could simply have sung directly to Donna without needing narrative justification. Grabbing of the snorkel and hair dryer is what makes it such an iconic moment, because who among us hasn’t karaokied into a brush, broom, or kitchen utensil? The moment has a

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joyous groundedness amongst the show’s theatrical fantasia and is a reminder of music’s power to make people happy. And for a creative team to come up with such a moment and situate it so confidently, that is why they were able to elevate the jukebox musical format. The “Dancing Queen” number is smartly metatheatrical and winks to the audience, it is exuberant and narratively sound, and it delivers a favorite hit tune. So many other shows try to emulate it. Critics, journalists, and scholars have regularly written about Mamma Mia! since its London debut, for good reason. The responses to the musical have ranged from awestruck to befuddled, with most intelligent analyses recognizing its success as a mix of artistry, chance, and smart business acumen. As Ben Brantley noted in his 2001 review, Mamma Mia! is “extremely artful in manufacturing its air of artlessness.”14 And nearly twenty years later, in an article titled “Can Critics Learn to Love the Jukebox Musical?” he quipped that “the pure klutziness of ‘Mamma Mia!’ makes it a strange work of genius.”15 This particular tension is what sets it apart from catalog shows of the 1990s. It has an elusive and alchemical quality to it. Scholars are fascinated by Mamma Mia!’s ability to manage plot, character, setting, song, and audience expectation. In connecting jukeboxes to the history of the musical, Elaine Aston categorizes Mamma Mia! as a “chick megamusical” because its “women-friendly storylines and songs texture the aural, visual and emotional drives of the musical.”16 And Naomi Graber notes that several of Donna’s scenes “are not essential to the plot, indicating that the creative team felt older women were better suited to both the make-up of the audience and the feminist sensibilities of the show.”17 In what Graber believes was once a musical that balanced daughter Sophie and her two chums with mother Donna and her best friends, the creative team shifted focus to the older women. The structure that emerged perfectly suited a jukebox show’s emotional requirements: the dramatic tension is just serious enough and just silly enough, the songs are integrated and not-that-integrated, the musical scenes are diegetic or non-diegetic without an abiding logic. Another element to this whole alchemy is the fact that the music is by Abba. The particular sonic qualities of their numerous hit songs from the 1970s and 1980s are key to the show’s construction.18 As George Rodosthenous notes, in a statement that should be creed for any producer of a catalog show, “The creators of a good jukebox musical know how to select a strong song, to make it appropriate for the narrative by referencing the source, but then to transcend that source. The original context of ABBA’s music is crucial … because the music itself has an inherent theatricality.”19 This is clear upon close examination of both tunes and lyrics. The songs are about love, sketch relatable character studies, and have satisfying conclusions. Book writer Catherine Johnson plays up that theatricality repeatedly throughout the show, and not just through the placement of the many diegetic numbers. When Donna sings the title song after encountering her old boyfriends for the first time, the lyrics don’t sync up with the story in any direct way. But both are dialed up to an intense dramatic pitch of longing and regret —Three men from my past! Confusion! Coincidence! A day before the wedding!

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Historian Aston makes another point about the effective layering of story and music. She writes about the division between songs that are sung by the male and female characters, and to what ends. “[T]he songs reserved for the women-­ centered scenes are often up-tempo, up-beat dance numbers and as such produce the most physical and/or vocal responses from spectators.”20 This indicates the intricate and careful layering that went into the creation of this show. Donna, the mother of the title, is undoubtedly the central figure and the show is best understood through her perspective. She gets the most songs, the best songs, and the most satisfying character arc. The Abba songs are tunes that she would have encountered in her youth. Even though the musical is set around 2000, the music is pop and rock of the 1970s and 1980s and there is no particular reason as to why the characters would be singing this other than that is what Donna would have heard in her younger days. In the show, characters constantly look into the past; discovering a character’s progeny is its core mystery and central dramatic tension. The “Super Trouper” scene captures these threads of nostalgia. Its lyrics have nothing to do with the plot which is about a celebrity rock star who is sick of touring. It is performed by Donna, Rosie, and Tanya, who had been in a band in their youth and don Abba-esque silvery outfits to sing at Sophie’s bachelorette party. The creators take this song of rock star malaise and refract it as a song of longing from a mother to her daughter on the eve of her nuptials. It perfectly illustrates how various strands of nostalgia, so crucial to a jukebox musical, can be woven together. The order of the numbers and who is assigned the singing has a concise purpose. Opening the musical with Sophie soloing “I Have a Dream” is a clear example of an “I Want” song that establishes a musical’s motivations and tensions and returning to it at the conclusion gives the musical a satisfying bookend. A number of female/male duets are peppered throughout the show. In act one, Sophie and her fiancée Sky sing “Lay All Your Love on Me” as a teasing and flirtatious declaration of mutual affection. Several act two songs are performed in duet to demonstrate plot obstacles that lead toward the happy denouement. “S.O.S.” is an argument between Donna and Sam that sets up the solo number “The Winner Takes It All” she later sings to him. These dramatic numbers are balanced by more playful and comedic duets. In keeping the focus on Donna’s cohort, her friends Tanya and Rosie each have act two numbers about hookups and romantic propositions. Tanya, the most sexually open of the three, has a tryst with one of the locals who, the script mentions, is noticeably younger than her: PEPPER:  Tanya, why don’t we catch up from last night? TANYA:  I’ve drawn a veil over last night. Last night never happened PEPPER:  [You] can’t ignore the chemistry between us. TANYA:  Little boys who play with fire get their fingers burned.21

[…]

She then launches into “Does Your Mother Know,” which, as Graber points out, reverses the gendered power dynamics of the original song and puts the woman

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in a confident, dominant position.22 The least believable pairing in the show, given the amount of onstage time they share, is Rosie professing her attraction for Bill to the tune of “Take a Chance” near the end of the show. The plot involves the arrival of Sophie’s three possible dads showing up without Donna’s knowledge the weekend of Sophie’s wedding. These two strands of narrative—discovering the dad and the wedding ceremony—collide in the final moments. But the actual conclusion undermines the expected denouement. Sophie chooses not to get married and they all decide not to find out who is the biological father. Structurally, this is a sly way of signaling that the plot, and the stakes of the plot, are wholly inconsequential. The characters are strong and distinct, and the music is popular and catchy. Those are the priorities in a jukebox show. The show broke, rebuilt, and then solidified the genre’s conventions. It employed the five basic categorical elements in new and artful ways. Using a preexisting song catalog, connecting it to an original plot, building off the mini-narratives of song lyrics—it excels at them and pushes the genre in new artistic ways. For these reasons, as well as the economic ones, Mamma Mia! stands as the Platonic ideal of the jukebox musical. Its ability to execute its ambitious plans drives later catalog musicals to attempt to capture that magic. A way of further appreciating the innovations of Mamma Mia! is to contrast it with two other shows that debuted in 1999: Disco Inferno, with music from the 1970s, and The Marvelous Wonderettes, which is full of songs from the 1950s and 1960s. Disco is a mess of a show whereas Wonderettes is a carefully crafted nostalgia machine, modest in its designs, charms, and execution. It points to a caliber of jukebox show that caters to niche audiences and tastes. Disco Inferno has a jukebox musical’s basic construction but fulfills none of the potentials. It lacks the charm of the genre and does not meaningfully integrate the music into the narrative. The story follows a Faustian bargain made between an aspiring musician and a devil. It is one of a handful of catalog shows that focus on disco music, alongside Boogie Nights, Disaster!, Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, and Xanadu. (It is not even the only jukebox with a Faustian plot. Tonight’s the Night is about an introvert selling his soul to become Rod Stewart.) The disco era is ripe for catalog musical treatment, with catchy and recognizable songs, innocuous lyrics, and a high nostalgia factor. It is also an easily parodied decade of excessive music and flamboyant fashion. Disco Inferno fails to imbue its formulaic story with either sympathetic characters or surprising plot beats. More damningly, the show includes expected hits such as “Celebration” and “Hot Stuff,” which are so lightly stitched to the plot that they are interchangeable and bland. The show has no distinct or memorable moments because of its rote dramaturgical pairing of narrative and song. In contrast, The Marvelous Wonderettes is a streamlined show with girl group and doo-wop music. It demonstrates the smaller scale that jukebox musicals can operate at, in both their construction and characterization. Credit is due to writer and director Roger Bean for the show’s economical and clever construction: the characters, members of the titular group of Wonderettes, sing at their high school

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prom in act one and their ten-year reunion in act two. The conditions and constraints of the script make The Marvelous Wonderettes economical to stage: the cast is four, it has minimal sets and costume changes, and the roughhewn aesthetic is narratively justified. The show is a particularly effective example of how the genre could have existed as modestly staged and budgeted performances perfect for touring companies, small regional theaters, and community groups.23 Any number of genres or artist catalogs have followed the Wonderettes template, but Mamma Mia! demonstrated that a larger canvas and more complex song usage lay within the potentials of the form. This chapter has examined the anomalous years of 1992/1993 as containing a collection of early innovations and it has looked at the arrival of Mamma Mia! in 1999. The year 2005 also stands as a milestone for the genre. Between these years, the only major jukebox show was We Will Rock You, an artist catalog musical with the songs of Queen. Its futuristic dystopian setting dramatizes how Freddie Mercury’s music will save the souls of the bohemian youth. With characters named Killer Queen, Galileo Figaro, and Scaramouche, it is predominantly a pandering exercise in fan service. By leaning so heavily on nostalgia and audience expectation, it smothers any possibility of surprising insight.

2005: The Year the Biographical Jukebox Musical Canonized the Genre The year 2005 produced a bumper crop of jukebox musicals on Broadway. The four that debuted are Jersey Boys, the biographical musical about the Four Seasons, Good Vibrations, a Beach Boys catalog show about 1960s surfers, Lennon, about the life of the Beatles front man, and All Shook Up, which is full of songs popularized by Elvis. In theory, each should have done well, as they all have crowd-pleasing stories and highly recognizable songs. And yet, to further illustrate the fickle and difficult nature of creating a catalog show, one became a massive success, one a modest hit, and two were expensive and embarrassing flops. Both Good Vibrations and Lennon bombed despite being a surf musical with Beach Boys’ songs and a show following the life of musical genius John Lennon. The producers relied too heavily on Baby Boomer nostalgia to cover problems with the plots and how songs and narrative blended. Lennon’s cardinal sin was that it featured almost no Beatles songs and focused on the music he made after the band broke up. Its attempt at innovation within the bio-musical genre was to cast actors of different races and genders to play John in different scenes, an artistic choice that was met with befuddlement. The show failed to deliver what audiences expected and the reviews were vitriolic. Good Vibrations tried to succeed on pure nostalgia. The story collected tropes from 1960s beach movies like Gidget and the songs were sanitized to match its pastel California groove. The Beach Boys’s catalog has depth, darkness, and complexity to it but Good Vibrations stuck to feel-good hits. It is instructive to contrast Good Vibrations with the flimsy though well-crafted Jimmy Buffett jukebox Escape to Margaritaville. Setting aside

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the relative quality of the source music, the effectiveness of Escape to Margaritaville is due at least partially to how the show’s plot, look, and characters match the white man calypso sound of Buffett’s albums. The miscalculations of Lennon and Good Vibrations plagued them at every level: the story, the use of songs, and the execution. What Jersey Boys and All Shook Up were able to do becomes, in contrast, more worthy of celebration. Jersey Boys’s accomplishments—a long Broadway run, lucrative touring productions, and Clint Eastwood-directed film—are embedded in the dramaturgy of the show itself which stresses the earnestness of both characters and music. The show’s straightforwardness matches the way the characters interact with each other. The corniness of the “Jersey contract” scene, in which a handshake seals Bob Gaudio and Frankie Valli’s agreement to share profits on the songs they create together, is handled with such solemnity that it can’t help but be effective. This earnestness is further emphasized through the direct address to the audience, which all of the band members do at certain points in the narrative. Gaudio’s speech near the end of act one, as he muses over the band’s sound, typifies the show’s conservative outlook: We weren’t a social movement like the Beatles. Our fans didn’t put flowers in their hair and try to levitate the Pentagon. Our people were the guys who shipped overseas […] and their sweethearts. They were the factory workers, the truck drivers. The kids pumping gas, flipping burgers. The pretty girl with circles under her eyes behind the counter at the diner. They’re the ones who really got us, who pushed us over the top.24 What a brilliantly manipulative moment! The audience feels more authentic and American through their love of the Four Seasons. It aggrandizes the band and the audience, and sets up other types of music as less real. The show’s plot construction is linear and spans decades, dramatizing the discovery of the band’s distinct sound, the rise to fame, fame’s complications, and an eventual redemption. Much has been made about the Rashomon-like method of characters contradicting each other in the story’s telling, but this is not nearly as avant-garde as it seems. In these moments, the characters are less arguing over facts or motivations as they are expressing different emotions about what was happening. The monologues do not affect the show’s flow or shape. Rather, different characters assume control over the narrative to give themselves a place at the center of the story. The first act effectively speeds through the rise of the band—as critic Chris Jones noted, the show wisely delivers the Four Seasons’s biggest hits right before intermission.25 The most dramaturgically satisfying moments are early in the musical, when the earnestness and the story and the character arcs are in sync with the music, as when Gaudio first hears Frankie sing. He assumes narrator duties in the scene and delivers lines directly to the audience like, “After eight bars, I know I need to write for this voice.”26

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Another straightforward element is the use of Four Seasons music. There are thirty-one songs in Jersey Boys and twenty-seven of them are completely diegetic. The group sings in the street, in the recording studio, and in concert. It makes sense that a bio-musical would rely on this technique (and almost every musical indulges in it), but it is also dramatically obvious and hopelessly square. Despite the direct audience address that already signals the metatheatrical quality of the show, the creators chose to keep the songs as diegetic numbers. Unlike other catalog musicals that weave a song’s mini-narrative into their characters’ lives and motivations, in Jersey Boys the dramatic tension is largely surface level concerns about whether a song is going to be a hit or not. The trope appears twice in act one, when the band creates “Sherry” and then again when they record “Walk Like a Man,” and is repeated in act two, as Frankie and Bob Gaudio fight the label to release “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.” This earnestness of tone, focus on the band, and treating songs as just songs pushes the narrative forward. But this also leads to some problems in characterization that the musical works hard to overlook, such as how the emphasis on straight, white, Jersey men pushes all others to the margins. The Four Seasons’s recording producer Bob Crewe’s homosexuality is alluded to, but the character is a gay stereotype who preens and talks about astrological signs. The women in the musical are either shrill, disposable, or both. Three women from Frankie’s life are given significant roles: his protective mother, his alcoholic wife, and a girlfriend who doesn’t understand the masculine Jersey code of honor. The supporting female characters are girl group members, waitresses, and prostitutes. Nothing detracts from the genius of the band, not even its members’ questionable actions. Extramarital affairs and connections to gangsters are excused away. The earnestness, which is a strength, calcifies into hagiography. This also speaks to the limitations of the biographical musical. For the sake of nostalgia and the rights to the songs, these shows cannot cast the principles as odd, mean, or awful. Jersey Boys is a template for bio-musicals in a number of ways, both the construction of the narrative and how it integrates the music into largely diegetic settings. It also highlights some potential shortcomings, particularly shows that take an expansive view of performers’ lives. In the early scene from All Shook Up that is quoted at the start of this chapter, as Chad leads a spirited rendition of “C’mon Everybody,” he touches the busted jukebox and “it lights up, sending the townsfolk into a frenzy.”27 Based on Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and mixed with the plots from Elvis movies like Roustabout, King Creole, and Jailhouse Rock, this show is all about love, desire, and passion in a small town. The dramatic tension begins when Natalie, the local mechanic, falls in love with Chad at first sight and pursues him through various schemes throughout the rest of the show. It is full of Elvis songs, Elvis posturing, and sight gags involving shoes of the blue suede variety. Despite the many musical numbers, the show moves at a fast clip, particularly in act two. The characters are chasing each other around an abandoned fairground and it has all the energy and pacing of a bedroom farce. It is interesting to compare All Shook

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Up with the disastrous Good Vibrations of the same year, which also had a plot that was a pastiche of genre movies and full of 1960s rock. Whereas the Beach Boys musical was uniformly derided as being inconsequential and bland, the Elvis show has more complexity to it. This is because of what the creators take from Shakespeare and what they learned from Mamma Mia! Crucially for the Abba show, because it makes the musical more complicated, is how in numbers like “Does Your Mother Know” the gender and power dynamics are swapped from the original recording. All Shook Up follows this idea. Early in the story, Natalie dons a male biker outfit and renames herself “Ed” to befriend Chad. The town’s female librarian becomes smitten with her male persona and, in keeping with Shakespeare, Chad discovers that he too is attracted to Ed. Late in the play, Chad solos the ballad “I Don’t Want To,” a song about loving someone against your own wishes. The way that music blends with character and story in this moment is challenging and sophisticated, especially as it is an Elvis song that’s being sung by the show’s Elvis surrogate character with comically supernatural powers of machismo. In the closing scene, as Natalie and Chad are preparing to ride out of town together, he asks her if she can put the Ed beard back on once and awhile, a public acknowledgment of his attraction. This show pulls a couple of tricks on its audience, none bigger than such progressive messages about sexuality and gender identity. The most clever moments in the show are when the characters are queering the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s music. The Tony Awards of 2006 illustrate what a watershed the previous year was for jukebox musicals. When the selections by the Nominating Committee were announced, it became clear that there were two shows in competition for the most important and influential awards: Jersey Boys and The Drowsy Chaperone. They could not be more different in tone or style. The earnest Jersey Boys is contrasted with Chaperone’s winking metatheatricality, which is steeped in nods to musical theater history. Chaperone begins with a framing device. Man in Chair, as he is known, is listening to records of a fictional 1920s musical. He wistfully narrates the plot and the audience watches it unfold, with madcap characters running around a hotel and falling in love. It has a number of clever moments of comedy, as when the record Man in Chair is playing skips, and the actors within the musical repeat and repeat the same lyrics until he bumps the machine. The way it celebrates musical theater as an artform is a primary driving force. Jersey Boys and Drowsy Chaperone competed in eight categories, including Best Musical, Director, and several acting and design categories. For some critics, this was no less than a battle over the future of Broadway. Several worried about the ascendancy of jukebox shows, particularly after a year that saw four in Broadway houses. The headlines and articles were apocalyptic. In “Oh ‘Boys,’ oh ‘Boys’; With this Mixed Bag, the Future of Originality on the Great White Way Remains a Gray Area,” critic Charles McNulty wrote that “the soul of the Great White Way has never seemed more up for grabs.” In “The Day the Musical Died,” Brantley bemoaned, “It can only be a matter of time before ‘Ronald McDonald: The Musical’ comes to town.”28 By reducing the medium

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to a fast-food clown, critics like this were fearful of the new sway that jukebox musicals had. Award consideration in and of itself had legitimated catalog shows in a new way, granting a level of sophistication to the genre that these tastemakers disapproved of. Jersey Boys and Drowsy Chaperone both came away from the Tony Awards ceremony with a number of statues, but it was Jersey Boys that won the coveted Best Musical award. The catalog musical, an economic powerhouse since 1999, gained a newfound artistic stature. The format was now firmly established. Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys show the possibilities in creating and mounting a jukebox musical: the amount of money that can be made, how they can be constructed, and how best to integrate preexisting music into a live performance event. Mamma Mia! demonstrates the benefits of combining song style to miséen-scene, a feature of Escape to Margaritaville, the Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country, and others. Jersey Boys refined the biographical narrative arc, something followed by countless musicals such as Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, On Your Feet!: The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan, Sunny Afternoon about Ray Davies and the Kinks, and more. This chapter examined the twisted path toward the firm establishment of the jukebox musical genre. In the second half of the book, we are going to analyze the three subgenres in turn, to discuss what makes them tick, what makes them special, and what can make them successful.

Notes 1 Joe DiPietro, All Shook Up (New York: Theatrical Rights Worldwide, 2005), 14. 2 As Mamma Mia! opened on Broadway in October, 2001, the 9/11 attacks are part of its story. The cataclysm of that day sent shockwaves through the performing arts. Not only did it affect attendance and how shows were received, but tension, paranoia, and worry created the need for emotional release that it was able to provide. The reviews were enthusiastic and, more than that, they almost uniformly contrasted its frothy good times with the horrors inflicted on the city. Reviews noted that the bright and poppy nature of the show was a welcome balm to the city and to commercial theater. Ben Brantley called it “a giant singing Hostess cupcake” in how it gave theatergoers a needed moment of levity and escape in dark times. Ben Brantley, review of Mamma Mia!, New York Times, October 19, 2001. 3 Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff, The Who’s Tommy (New York: Music Theatre International, 1993), 29–30. 4 Also deserving of mention is the casting of the film version. In the movie, Tina Turner plays the role of the Acid Queen. It’s an amazing performance. It also shifts the lyrics from the third person to the first, same as in the stage version. In the original Broadway version of Tommy, the character was played by Cheryl Freeman, a Black singer, who channels Turner’s energy for the number. Freeman was one of the only performers of color in a major role. 5 John Lahr, introduction to Jelly’s Last Jam (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1993), xi. 6 Ibid., 62–63. 7 This is a route that Wolfe has taken a number of times—with Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk, a survey of Black dance through US history (its star, Savion Glover, played the role of “Young Jelly” in Jelly’s Last Jam) as well as his jukebox musical Shuffle Along, or The Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, the retelling of the making of a Jazz Age Black musical using the songs of its creators, Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake.

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8 Crazy for You is the second of three jukebox musicals that use the Gershwins music, after 1983’s My One and Only and before 2012’s Nice Work if You Can Get It. All of them have original plots that are set in the time of the Gershwin’s music and follow the style of their Jazz Age musicals—guys and gals falling in love at first sight, socialites and show folk, quippy one-liners, tough broads and smooth fellas. 9 The fact that some of these songs—numbers such as “I’ve Got Rhythm” and “You Can’t Take That Away from Me”—were originally written for stage musicals and others for film musicals may seem to negate Crazy for You from being considered a jukebox musical. But, after many decades being sung as jazz standards with innumerable recorded versions, the plots and characters of these early musicals have been forgotten and the tunes are recognized exclusively as pop songs. This is how this show is able to build upon the nostalgia that people have about these songs. 10 Ken Ludwig, Crazy for You (New York: Concord Theatricals Company, 1993), 10. 11 Leba Hertz, “‘Jersey Girls’ are Quick on Their Feet, Juggling Multiple Roles,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 14, 2007. 12 Marshall Brickman, letter to the editor, San Francisco Chronicle, March 1, 2007. 13 Catherine Johnson, Mamma Mia! (New York: Music Theatre International, 1999), 33. 14 Brantley, review of Mamma Mia! 15 Jesse Green, Ben Brantley, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and Scott Heller, “Can Critics Learn to Love the Jukebox Musical?” New York Times, August 31, 2018. 16 Elaine Aston, “Work, Family, Romance and the Utopian Sensibilities of the Chick Megamusical Mamma Mia!” in Good Night Out for the Girls: Popular Feminisms in Contemporary Theatre and Performance, ed. Elaine Aston and Geraldine Harris (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 119. 17 Naomi Graber, “Memories that Remain: Mamma Mia! and the Disruptive Potential of Nostalgia,” Studies in Musical Theatre 9:2 (2015), 191. 18 The ability to pull from a large catalog cannot be discounted in the construction of a successful jukebox musical and the Mamma Mia! creators carefully mined the band’s trove of recognizable songs. For an example of how difficult it can be, look at Mamma Mia!’s producer Judith Craymer’s follow-up catalog show, Viva Forever!, with music of the Spice Girls. The original story follows a young singer’s rise to fame and what she loses along the way. The nostalgia factor is present, as the group has been wildly popular since the mid-1990s. But, as a number of reviewers noted when it debuted in London, the producers did not have enough material at their disposal because the band released only three albums over the course of a decade. It closed at a financial loss. 19 George Rodosthenous, “Mamma Mia! and the Aesthetics of the Twenty-First Century Jukebox Musical” in The Oxford Handbook of the British Musical, ed. Robert Gordon and Olaf Jubin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 623. 20 Aston, “Work, Family, Romance,” 128. 21 Johnson, Mamma Mia!, 66. 22 Graber, “Memories that Remain: Mamma Mia! and the Disruptive Potential of Nostalgia,” 188. 23 The show was popular enough to inspire three sequels: The Marvelous Wonderettes: Caps and Gowns, The Marvelous Wonderettes: Dream On, and the holiday-themed Winter Wonderettes. 24 Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, Jersey Boys (New York: Theatrical Rights Worldwide, 2005), 97. 25 Chris Jones, review of Jersey Boys, Chicago Tribune, November 7, 2005. 26 Brickman and Elice, Jersey Boys, 44. 27 DiPietro, All Shook Up, 17. 28 Charles McNulty, “Oh ‘Boys,’ oh ‘Boys’; With this Mixed Bag, the Future of Originality on the Great White Way Remains a Gray Area,” Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2006; Ben Brantley, “The Day the Musical Died,” New York Times, May 21, 2006.

Part II

Types of Jukebox Musicals

5 Exploring a Discography Artist Catalog Jukebox Musicals

The artist catalog musical is one of the first categories of jukebox musicals to become a massive success, with the debut of Mamma Mia! in 1999. A lively musical comedy that, more importantly, solely featured the hits of Abba, Mamma Mia! proved that audiences would flock to see a story built around popular music. Like a biographical musical, the artist catalog musical features the music of one artist or group. Despite a limited repertoire, this montage can cover several decades of music, as well as multiple albums and styles, depending on the range of a musician’s career. This can allow for a combination of chart-topping hits, but also more unknown tracks that fit the storyline. Like most jukebox musicals, an artist catalog musical relies on nostalgia and a strong fan base to garner support. Artist catalog musicals can select from several albums of an artist, their entire discography, or merely from a single album. For example, American Idiot draws heavily upon the Green Day album of the same name. Jagged Little Pill does the same, with the work of Alanis Morissette, especially from her titular 1995 album. However, there are songs that are gleaned from other albums or written specifically for the production to help supplement the music from the chosen album that enhance the story or historical context. American Idiot is a concept album in reaction to the war in Afghanistan and the Middle East. The musical by that name also utilizes music from the 2009 album 21st Century Breakdown. Jagged Little Pill features songs that were written for the musical itself and enrich the story’s dimensions. In this chapter, we will present some unique and interesting features of an artist catalog musical that can arise during the interplay between the unique ingredients of an original plot mixed with the discography of a single musical act. An artist catalog musical features songs from a specific performer or group integrated within an original plot or adaptation. Unlike a biographical musical, DOI: 10.4324/b22939-7

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an artist catalog musical does not portray a musician’s life story or challenges faced in their career. However, the artist catalog musical encompasses whimsical comedies, fantastical adaptations, hard-hitting dramas, and parody farces. This subcategory differs from era- and genre-specific musicals by focusing on a limited repertoire of songs by one artist or group. This poses the unique challenge of seamlessly arranging these numbers within an original story in such a way that might rival a more traditionally integrated musical. Artist catalog musicals can highlight the most popular songs of an artist, or intermix hits with previously unknown work. In these works, the plots and themes connect to an essence of the music and artist—the jovial Mamma Mia! with Abba, the hard-scrabble Girl from the North Country with Bob Dylan, or the angst of Jagged Little Pill with Alanis Morissette. Artist catalog musicals often contain strong parallels in tone and theme with the artist’s own musical aesthetic. The mini-narratives and production design often maintain this theme. Bat Out of Hell emulates a very postapocalyptic colorful edgy design, American Idiot reflects the post-9/11 grunge style of Green Day, and Mamma Mia! is filled with bright colors and the varying dance hall hits and softer melodies like “Slipping Through My Fingers.” However, artist catalog is different from a biographical jukebox musical due to its original narrative and may also be differentiated from an era- and genre-specific musicals due to content use from only one artist or musical group. The characters within the musical are original to the story and plot or adapted from a previous work, such as working the characters of the Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia into the musical framework of Head over Heels and the story of Peter Pan in Bat Out of Hell.

Features of an Artist Catalog Jukebox Musical The signature of an artist catalog musical, which serves as the primary delineation for this book, is the usage of a discography of a single artist or group. This can include the entire catalog of an artist, spanning over decades, or smaller portions of work that define a specific time period. Song choices depend on the plot created for the musical, as well as the number of songs and albums an artist has completed or written. The work of the group or artist is the primary focus, similar to a biographical musical. Unlike a biographical jukebox musical, the artist is not a character and the content of the work itself is not based on true stories. The characters are adaptations and original iterations, telling a whole new tale. An artist catalog musical provides an opportunity for more musical containment in the integration of plot, story, and song. Focusing on one artist’s discography allows not only for the musical to showcase chart-topping hits but also for deeper cuts and hidden tracks that diehard fans can recognize. Recognizability helps the uninitiated fan of the artist to get on the same page and play along with the plot. The cultural weight of hit songs versus unknown tracks can add to the audience’s appreciation of the depth of an artist’s musical catalog. But the excitement of recognizing a song can help an audience empathize with the characters or signify a critical moment, which is needed to go along with the plot.

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However, there are generally no hard and fast rules to the genre. For example, the immense fame and popularity of Queen, with their expansive discography, allows for many hit songs like “Killer Queen,” “Somebody to Love,” and “Don’t Stop Me Now.” Every song has the potential to be a recognizable hit in the storyline, especially if the group has an enduring fame. When it comes to performances, unlike a biographical musical, artist catalog musicals do not have to follow specific idiolects, impersonations, or mannerisms of the artists featured, as there are generally no real-life people to be portrayed through song. More often, the performance will reflect a specific style of music and aesthetic choices of an artist. In another facet to the performance, there is no set dramaturgical requirement of diegetic and non-diegetic material in an artist catalog musical. For biographical jukebox musicals, it makes sense for diegetic performance styles to occur in the works, as the protagonists are musicians and naturally their music would be performed in concerts or rehearsals dramatically situated within the story. However, with artist catalog jukebox musicals, as well as era- and genre-specific ones, there is a mix of diegetic and non-diegetic performance, as the plot can take many forms and directions. Not everyone is a musician in an artist catalog musical; it just depends on the plot and characterization. In We Will Rock You, The Marvelous Wonderettes, and American Idiot (to name a few), there are characters who play instruments within varying experiences and contexts. However, in musicals like Jagged Little Pill or Head over Heels, a performer’s accuracy to a specific real-life individual is less important to the performance. Some jukebox musicals have stand-ins for characters, usually to parody a specific person or type of persona. For example, Abba is portrayed through the fictional group “Donna and the Dynamos,” consisting of protagonist Donna and her two friends. These three women perform Abba’s music, such as “Super Trooper” and “Dancing Queen,” and within the fictional world of the narrative, these songs are written by the three of them. In Bat Out of Hell, the lively energy-filled rock music of Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman,1 personified by leather outfits, loud motorcycles, and dark and gritty sets, which reflect the postapocalyptic premise of the show, but the music is used as the basis for the production, and we do not encounter a parody of Meat Loaf. However, whether the artist exists canonically within the musical is ambiguous in most instances, unlike a biographical musical in which the audience knows that the featured artist is the protagonist. Like a traditionally integrated musical, the characters’ songs come from the heart, from a place of emotion or deep thought, like an aside to the audience or soliloquy. According to Jagged Little Pill book writer Diablo Cody, without the actual persona of Morissette singing, the audience is allowed an altered view of the lyrics, now intertwined within a new story, free of real-world constraints: “I would not have taken that meta-approach unless I had felt that the song demanded it.”2 This kind of creativity allows for a wider range of characterization and plot, without requiring a known persona who may be difficult to replicate. The audience still maintains their suspension of disbelief.

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Another musical that has a singer-songwriter proxy is Escape to Margaritaville, with the music of Jimmy Buffett providing the impetus and inspiration for the show. And it also makes sense that the show itself would have a Buffett-like singer as the romantic lead and central protagonist. Buffett’s songs, his messaging, one might even call it his brand,3 is remarkably consistent over his catalog of hits that make them perfect for narrativization. His tuneful near-endorsements of alcoholism in “It’s Five O’clock Somewhere,” “Why Don’t We Get Drunk,” and “Margaritaville” all are performed and provide easy explanations for the laidback lifestyle that the show celebrates. The main character is a Buffett-type songwriter named Tully Mars,4 who begins the musical as a singer with a bar band on an island resort. He sings “License to Chill” at the top of the show. (The cleverest line in the show is a metatheatrical note of self-parody, when an agent looks at Tully and says, “Acoustic guitar … songs about the beach … hush puppy shoes … white people love that kinda shit. You could be the next big thing.”5) His carefree life is complicated when he meets the workaholic Rachel Williams and is smitten. They inspire each other to attain fame and wealth, he as a Grammy Award-winner and she as a sustainable-energy entrepreneur. They conclude the show by reuniting back at the bar where they first met. Despite the low stakes of the show and the workmanlike dialogue, the show has some sweet, earned moments. Tully and Rachel fall for each other over the song “Three Chords.” It is a song about playing a song, and is set up by this exchange: RACHEL:  My

brain has been working overtime my whole life, it’s not easy to just shut it off. TULLY:  Then maybe you gotta find something that tricks your brain into staying busy but relaxes it at the same time. You need to learn the guitar.6 This is not exactly on par with Maria teaching the Van Trapp children to sing “Do-Re-Mi,” but Tully’s earnestness in teaching and Rachel’s willingness to learn is what sells the scene and their pairing. The dramatic tension flattens out in act two, as every character gets what they want, but that is also something to expect from the songs that inspired the show. In a departure from a pattern of surrogates and stand-ins, the band Queen actually exists in the world of We Will Rock You, the artist catalog musical focusing on the music of the group. Queen is not only named but is integral to the story in a cyber-dominated world devoid of rock music. They become mythical prophets in the foretold resurgence of man-made music. The search for musical instruments, foretold in the prophecy in the musical’s plot, culminates in the discovery of Brian May’s guitar amidst the rubble of what was formerly Wembley Stadium, a famous location that can serve as an Easter egg for fans to recognize and connect with Queen’s live performances. In a dark turn of events, the band members of Queen are executed before the action of We Will Rock You begins. This detail creates the feeling of postapocalyptic grounding that reveals the mythos of the musical’s premise. The dominoes begin to fall.

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The show features characters such as Killer Queen, Galileo Figaro, and Scaramouche, direct lifts from Queen songs and lyrics. The hero, Galileo, searches the globe for rumored musical instruments that will break the cycle of computer-generated music that has encompassed the planet. Other ensemble protagonists, called the Bohemians, names themselves after the rock gods of old: Boy George, Mick Jagger, Miley Cyrus. Interestingly, the 2002 musical comes just one year after the introduction of the iPod. The expansion of cyber technology, electronic music, and corporate globalization of the time, represented in the setting, is a commentary of Apple Corporation, as seen in the simulated company Globalsoft, the antagonistic government that controls iPlanet. Artist catalog musicals’ characters can be more outrageous and exaggerated, depending on content and context, as these characters aren’t real people. There can be more wiggle room with comedy, depending on the context and featured character archetypes, such as the young ingenues of Sophie in Mamma Mia! and Philoclea in Head over Heels, or the young lovers of Raven and Strat in Bat Out of Hell. This is distinctly different from biographical musicals, where the portrayal of real people is intended to be serious and more empathetic in their presentation. Of course, if the characters in these musicals were alive or still living, oftentimes, troublesome life events could be portrayed, such as the tumultuous relationship between Sonny Bono and Cher, through the story and its narrative framing. But through these three genres, we can analyze who is standing in the protagonist’s way, which characters are narrative parallels, or who may be seen as helpful to the story’s goals.

Nostalgia and Shoehorning More intensely than in other entertainment genres, nostalgia and a recall of the past is a major draw for audiences and fans of jukebox musicals. Mamma Mia! supercharges feelings of nostalgia. The music elicits fond memories, as both cast and audience reexperience their past. Perhaps this is the reason so many return to see the show again and again. Mamma Mia! has a distinct relationship with nostalgia, as seen in the characters of Donna and the Dynamos, consisting of Donna and her two friends, Tanya and Rosie, who act as a stand-in for Abba by diegetically performing their songs. Donna, Tanya, and Rosie have their own longing for the past and dress in their old costumes. They reunite to sing old songs for Sophie, who is at the age the trio was when they were in their heyday. As an added layer, the audience attends the show to relive their own nostalgia through Abba music, but in a new way, empathizing with the longing for the past through the characters and story onstage. In contrast to an era- and genre-specific musical, an artist catalog musical operates within a limited spectrum. While the music can span multiple time periods of an artist’s career, there can be a higher risk of a niche audience than an era- and genre-specific musical. This is due to the usage of one artist, instead of multiple artists in era- and genre-specific musicals. An audience member

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interested in the show will likely be interested in that singular artist. As a hypothetical example, an audience member might enjoy disco and Europop in general, but may not be a fan of Abba. If this hypothetical audience member knows the music of Mamma Mia! is only from Abba songs, they might be more reluctant to see the show due to the sole use of that music. The story’s nostalgic experience would drive them away. A show that tries too hard to whip up nostalgia is Breaking Up is Hard to Do, featuring the music of Neil Sedaka. His early 1960s hits include “Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen” and “Calendar Girl,” and the musical’s setting and plot derive from those numbers and their sound, which have a sock hop rock ‘n’ roll mood. Breaking Up is set at a resort in the Catskills in the 1960s. The hotel setting allows for a number of diegetic songs a swell as a location that throws random people together without much needed justification. The characters and their motivations are established early and play out predictably over the two acts. Marge arrives at the resort for a three-day weekend after having been jilted at the altar. A star-making song contest is scheduled at the same time. The plot then follows Marge’s path back to love which happens during the contest itself, thus bringing the two threads of the narrative neatly together. Some of the moments in the show are predictable and sweet, such as the initial meet-cute between Marge and the shy songwriter Gabe. After accidently embarrassing Marge in front of the resort’s guests, Gabe attempts to make it up to her: GABE:  I’m sorry. I thought you might like a glass of seltzer. MARGE:  I would love some. GABE:  But we ran out, so I brought you this corned beef sandwich. MARGE:  How … thoughtful.7

But the songs are the real reason for the show. And this is a musical whose opening number is “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” and whose finale is “Love Will Keep Us Together.” The placement of them in the narrative tends toward the obvious, as when Marge sings “Lonely Nights” as a solo because she’s lonely. A better moment that combines character, plot, and song is act two’s “Laughter in the Rain,” that Gabe composes as a way to finally show his love for Mabel. Overall, the limited range of the Sedaka catalog, in terms of the uniform sound and number of recognizable hits, prevents anything original from happening in the musical. A jukebox musical featuring an artist or group that has been incredibly popular allows for a wider incorporation of hit singles. Many of the songs in the musical We Will Rock You are well-known, as it features the music of Queen. When a song is introduced, the recognizability creates a sense of energy and vibrancy that helps the audience key into the musical. However, this squeezing in of another song or character may have negative consequences. When there is a hit-after-hitafter-hit pattern, the show risks becoming repetitive, heavy-handed, and overly

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explained. This can happen in some instances of plot shoehorning, which is the practice of forcing two objects or ideas into a space that would not usually fit the environment in which they are placed. In a catalog musical, this could feature the inclusion of a hit song that does not fit within a given storyline or context, or an overly orchestrated moment that forces a change in pacing to create a sonic environment. This may alter the already established character development, the musical’s tone, or the narrative. These shoehorned songs can weaken the audience’s belief in the previously fortified world in which the work rests, thus confusing the plot. Shoehorning in a jukebox musical frequently occurs when a featured song or character explains current plot points in great detail. Having too much explanation often deters the audience from making their own interpretations of the scene and of the work. Additionally, placing a song where it doesn’t belong risks distorting the artist’s message. Spoon-feeding meaning, metaphor, plot and characters can be heavy-handed and may backfire. The inclusion of characters like Galileo and Scaramouche, whose names evoke “Bohemian Rhapsody” (one of the most well-known and intense creations of the group), may be an off-track collision into campiness. It risks becoming a cheap laugh, perhaps an audience insult! Mikael Wood, critic for the LA Times wrote: “And though ‘We Will Rock You’ makes dozens of cheap jokes about the perceived frivolity of manufactured pop, Queen itself never seemed interested in such old-fashioned chauvinism.”8 It is a shame that such intricate and enjoyable creations were flattened in this way. Like an era- and genre-specific musical, an artist catalog musical needs script and song to work together, the mini-narratives of each song acting in tandem with the spoken plot of the musical. When an artist’s more serious messages are ones of war, inequity, life struggles, or disenfranchisement, the storyline must mesh with and generally should complement the overall themes representing the artist or group. Stretching the plot by shoehorning warps meaning, and may dissolve the audience’s suspension of disbelief when characters begin acting outside of their established personality. Songs may over- or underemphasize the artist’s message or make obstacles too easy to overcome. In We Will Rock You, for example, Galileo and Scaramouche stand amidst the ruins of Wembley Stadium in their final attempt to find mythical instruments that were declared in a prophecy. Then, as the two characters express their love for each other, a guitar magically appears. Galileo does not know how to play but Scaramouche does. While this highlights a theme of love and collaboration that is the antithesis to the postapocalyptic government that rules over the planet, there is a lack of struggle that was not seen previously in the character’s arcs. In We Will Rock You, many characters lose their lives in the struggle to fulfill this prophecy, and with this unexpected musical twist, the main adventure’s obstacles suddenly become too easy to overcome, compared to the immense pain, death, and trauma that happens throughout the rest of the story. Characters have been killed and brainwashed, and the sudden appearance of a guitar negates all of that strife. The initial meaning of the quest is lost on the audience and the final scene of the musical belittles

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Queen’s intended commentary on social struggles. Reviewing the show’s 2020 North American tour, Alyson Eng noted, “People who enjoy traditional musicals with relatable plots that reflect real-life situations may not find this musical appealing. I could also see it potentially being confusing, hard to follow, and/or slightly cheesy for some theatregoers.”9 Yet another critic is responding to both the watered-down narrative and the squandered genius of the music. Some musicals, such as 2014’s Holler if Ya Hear Me, may have been too forward-thinking and progressive, leading to shorter runs and less financial and critical acclaim at its debut. This, in a way, proves the rule about the importance of nostalgia through failure instead of success. With a book by Todd Kreidler supporting the rap music of Tupac Shakur, Holler follows John, an African American man who, after serving time in prison, struggles with the adjustment to everyday life. The musical had a total of only fifty-five performances.10 Director Kenny Leon cited high costs in keeping the show running, while others cited the show’s content as inconsistent with the primarily white Broadway audiences’ tastes and ideas of jukebox musicals at the time.11 Despite this short run on Broadway, the show was staged in 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia with a reworked script and with the hope that the story and music would resonate with more diverse audiences.12 This newfound interest, along with the changing critical tastes and styles in the form, creates an encouraging environment for a revival of the show.

Adaptation and Anachronism In “On the Art of Adaptation,” Linda Hutcheon writes that: The desire to transfer a story from one medium or one genre to another is neither new nor rare in Western culture. It is in fact so common that we might suspect that it is somehow the inclination of the human imagination—and, despite the submissive tone of some critics, not necessarily a secondary or derivative act.13 This exemplifies an artist catalog musical, which has layers upon layers of adaptation within them, starting with the adaptation of songs and their mini-­narratives into a larger story. Often, an artist catalog musical will adroitly reflect the style and aesthetic choices of an artist. One would want to hear the music they are so fond of, while also indulging in the aesthetic choices and style of the artist or group. These productions are true to form. Because there is less of a need to portray a person as they were in real time, actors have greater leeway. This is evident in Jagged Little Pill, in which actors were specifically told not to emulate Alanis Morissette’s singing voice. For Elizabeth Stanley, who played Jagged Little Pill’s matriarch Mary Jane Healy, They always asked us to make it our own. Even in the first audition, I remember seeing the breakdown saying, “Please do not imitate Alanis

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Morissette. Make it your own,” which is such a relief, because who could be her? … When we were in rehearsals for the first lab, our music director said, “Do you want to hear the demo that Alanis made?” I said, “I really don’t, because I just don’t want to be tempted to copy her in any way.”14 There is a freedom for actors when they are given such space to create but, of course, and this is evident in the Jagged Little Pill cast recording, they cannot stray too far from the original’s melody and vocal cadences. As well, a number of interesting and innovative jukeboxes are new adaptations of older stories that are reconfigured around a band’s discography, namely literary stories in the public domain or tropes used to further the plot. For example, All Shook Up utilizes Shakespearean plot devices and story types through the integration of the discography of Elvis Presley and the plots of Much Ado about Nothing and As You Like It. These new characters and storylines create a new take on older stories and plot types, which creates an environment of both the new and the familiar for audiences to explore. In these instances, instead of shoehorning, the musical style can be emulated without parallel imitation of the original artist. There are multiple levels of adaptation and borrowing from old sources in Nice Work if You Can Get It, which has songs from the catalog of George and Ira Gershwin and a book that was inspired by the plays of Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse and Bolton wrote many witty and zippy scripts and stories in the early twentieth century that captured the spirit of the Jazz Age, including several musical comedies with the Gershwins. The book for Nice Work was written by Joe DiPietro, who also penned the script for the Elvis/Shakespeare adaptation All Shook Up, and he brings a similar verve to this script. That is, as he undercuts the 1950s homogeneity of the Elvis films that are part of All Shook Up, he also pierces some of the more retrograde 1920s stereotypes in Nice Work. Set in 1927—during Prohibition but before the arrival of the Great Depression—the play’s enjoyments are the wittiness of the lyrics and dialog that then accelerates into farce. The pair at the center of the show is the caddishly rich and richly caddish Jimmy Winter and the streetwise bootlegger Billie Bendix, who are opposite in every way and are also fated to fall in love. Jimmy’s behaviors and confusions give the show much of its energy, and he gets the best lines in trying to woo his diametrically opposed paramour: “Billie, I’m not exactly certain if I have one wife or two wives, but if you agree to be my fourth or maybe fifth wife, I promise you, you’ll be the one I’m with for the rest of my life.”15 Billie has some especially complex moments of song that build upon the possibilities of a jukebox show. The solo number “Someone to Watch over Me” is a wellknown Gershwin tune that is perfectly placed in the narrative to add depth to the character singing it. After meeting Jimmy for the first time and kissing him shortly thereafter, she launches into the torch song in a way that undercuts her gruff and businesslike demeanor. In the original Broadway version of the show, Kelli O’Hara played Billie. Her rendition is masterfully complex, in that she uses hints of rhythmic syncopation and elision to reflect the character’s inner turmoil

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over the strange encounter.16 The narrative picks up the pace in the middle of act one, as the characters run around and chase after each other through a mansion that belongs to Jimmy’s mother. The door-slamming farce of the latter part of the show is matched by Gershwin songs like “Fascinating Rhythm.” And the show ends happily for everyone. As an example of adaptation, Nice Work is able to artfully juggle all the different pieces of narrative and setting to fully support the music which is at its heart. Two artist catalog musicals, Bat Out of Hell and Head over Heels, take on different adaptation styles when combining older stories with new music. The aesthetic choices of Bat Out of Hell the musical, and the aesthetics of Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf, are very similar. Bat Out of Hell, an adaptation of Peter Pan, replicates the postapocalyptic glam rock of Meat Loaf into set and costume design. From the original Bat Out of Hell album trilogy in the early 1980s, Steinman wanted to loosely adapt Peter Pan, and the stage production is a culmination of that decades-long process. In a postapocalyptic 2030 world that resembles Manhattan, now called Obsidian, young teenager Raven desperately wants to explore the world away from the confines of her home and her family’s residence of Falco Towers. When she witnesses a physical confrontation between her father, Falco, and The Lost, a group of teens who never age, she becomes entranced by a boy named Strat, their leader. When Raven escapes Falco Towers and her restrictive family, she begins a chain of events that seem to parallel Meat Loaf ’s signature style of stringing together a roller coaster of lyrics that always come together. Song adaptations are formulated around the story, but still give the true taste of Meat Loaf, which is the major draw for audiences. Bat Out of Hell can weather plot holes since Meat Loaf ’s catalog can stand on its own. An example is when Sloane and Falco, Raven’s parents, sing “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” during her birthday party. Confusing, but fun for the audience. However, because the story of Peter Pan is used as a basis for the production’s new storyline, plot points and narrative beats are dispersed to create a story that allows for thematic strengths to come forward, such as the themes of maturity and generational divide.17 Raven is Wendy, Strat is Peter, Tink is Tinker Bell, and The Lost are a connection to the Lost Boys of Peter Pan and Neverland. Instead of more mysterious and magical origins to their immortality, the mutated Lost of Bat Out of Hell are set in a state of suspended animation by an act of chemical warfare released in the tunnels under Obsidian. Raven has the desire to grow up and get away from Falco’s strict control to experience freedom and love, but her fear of growing old alongside the immortal Strat juxtaposes a conflict between growth and tradition. During their first adventure together, as Raven goes on a motorcycle ride with Strat, the titular song is performed. This combination of plot, lyrics, and music highlights the adventurous driving force of youthful ambition and aggressive adolescent optimism, which is an accurate adaptation of Meat Loaf ’s original message (albeit, Wendy’s innocence in Peter Pan is more pronounced!). Just go with them, and sing along.

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In contrast, Head over Heels mimics the “girl power” ethos of its source material, the music of the Go-Go’s. The band, which is “frequently referred to as ‘the most successful all-female rock group of all-time,’” has a number of memorable tunes for adaptation. Skewed gender roles, male preference, and a decisionmaking patriarchy was at the core of the Go-Go’s feminine power message during the 1980s and 1990s. However, rock critic David Levine argues that “the achievements of their classic line-up … haven’t been fully appreciated yet.”18 Perhaps this is why the chart-topping hits “We Got the Beat,” “Our Lips Are Sealed,” and “Vacation,” easily slide into the plot of Head over Heels, without obscuring the message of those powerful female voices whose lyrics destabilize the ubiquitous presence of sexism in society, especially Renaissance when the story takes place. Artist catalog musicals may also play with anachronism by utilizing the aesthetic of an artist and that of older texts or story as the basis for the plot of the production. Head over Heels adapts Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia and utilizes upbeat, electronic pop-rock in combination with lush Renaissance costumes. The show’s look integrates neon colors and rock ‘n’ roll with Tudor-era clothing patterns and early modern language. Hemlines are short and vibrant; sleeves are lined with bright furs and feathers. Combining late-twentieth century fashion with a grounding in the original source material gives the show a whimsical aesthetic of both historic and modern. Despite its anachronism, Head over Heels and Arcadia are thematically parallel in many ways. The show maintains the essence of the original text and provides commentary on current times and its misguided reliance on outdated traditions. The modern plot adaptation dealing with social tradition and gender identity questions aligns with the band’s artistic messages. The major conflict of the show revolves around four prophecies that are given to the royal family of Arcadia. If the Four Flags of Arcadia fall, the kingdom will lose its “Beat,” a mysterious and critical life force revealed through the Go-Go’s song “We Got the Beat.” This is a prime example of adapting the elements of the Arcadia epic with one of the most famous Go-Go’s songs. The childhood friendship of Philoclea and Musidorus in Head over Heels is a departure from the details of Arcadia, as originally the arc of Musidorus is completed through the role of Pyrocles, Musidorus’ brother. Head over Heels’ Musidorus is a young shepherd. However, the cross-dressing disguise of the young lover in the musical remains largely the same. Philoclea and Musidorus’ love is forbidden due to custom and the disparity in social class, often seen in works of theater and literature. Basilius and Gynecia, Philoclea’s parents and rulers of Arcadia, believe a society of tradition and strict rules keeps Arcadia strong and prosperous. Gynecia and Basilius have been trying to find Pamela, Philoclea’s sister, a husband for five years. However, Pamela loathes the idea of customary marriage, but she is not yet aware of her own predilection for an unexpected love. Pamela wishes for Philoclea’s freedom and too dreads the confines of marriage. While a common theme and plot device, forbidden love provides a strong, immediate basis of conflict. Audiences can immediately root for the underdog,

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as Basilius and Gynecia have intransigent opinions about marriage and social class. It appears that these societal opinions could not possibly be changed, but the audience cheer for the lovers because they have seen similar stories pan out in tragedies and comedies alike. Sidney’s works influenced Shakespeare,19 who also subsequently created tropes in literature and pop culture that are widely recognized and utilized in other musicals, theatrical works, films, and television. If only Sidney had time-traveled to the twentieth century! While this could be considered too “on-the-nose” for some Head over Heels viewers, the adaptation of “We Got the Beat” introduces audiences to a primary driving force of the musical—the “Beat” or the life force of Arcadia. The song is one that many might know, whether as fans, casual listeners, hearing the song on the radio, or hearing it from another work such as a television show or film or a cover by another artist. The use of this song, in particular, can bring the audience together in shared understanding, as well as priming the audience for one of the main conflicts in the musical—to save the Beat! In the opening of “We Got the Beat,” the characters describe that the Beat represents their lifeblood, a clever nod to die-hard Go-Go’s fans. A mystical life force, the Beat helps the kingdom function and bring prosperity to all, flowing through each body and the environment, sent by the gods to help keep the land prosperous. The choreography of this number comprises coordinated movement which highlights how the Beat is inside everyone. These movements are so fundamental to the survival of the community that if there were to be a single misstep, everything would fall apart. Devotion to an ideal is paramount, whether then or now. But some, however, march to a different beat. Head over Heels addresses internal struggles of sexual identity. Mopsa, Pamela’s maidservant and confidante, advocates for the freedom to choose one’s own path. The song “Beautiful” compliments this message while introducing and highlighting the character’s arc throughout the show. Again, it is important to note that it doesn’t feel shoehorned because Pamela’s beauty was discussed as a prized currency in Arcadia. The characterization of Pamela as being very earnest, yet also being influenced by her privilege and beauty, is well-adapted to the plot. Pamela often sees herself only through her appearance as determining her social worth, a sentiment still well-suited to modern-day audiences! A parade of highly sexed male suitors during the “Beautiful” song illustrates how she is a sought-after bride but also reinforces how much Pamela does not want to get married—especially to a man. Unbeknownst to her father Basilius, Pamela will fail to provide an heir to Arcadia. He places no value on her personal freedom, sexuality, and bodily autonomy. Her evolving performance signifies that Pamela likes to feel beautiful for herself, not for others. This dichotomy creates a sense of tension for Pamela because she doesn’t want to get married, but neither does she want to sacrifice her beauty and shrink away. Tradition dictates that beauty is a source of family pride and a form of currency, a sarcastic take on the Go-Go’s message about the social worth of female beauty. To Pamela, beauty feels more like a trap than freedom of expression. Her beauty

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is the linchpin between her freedom of self-expression and the prospect of marriage, a plot well-adapted to modern social pressures and the gist of the Go-Go’s message. This song establishes her inner conflict to transform from naivete to the self-realization that she is attracted to women, especially Mopsa. When Mopsa realizes Pamela’s affections and attempts to kiss her, Pamela nervously resists. Pamela breaks into “Automatic Rainy Day” in a panicked attempt to try and dissuade Mopsa’s affection, as well as her own. Mopsa, hurt, replies in the next verse, creating a miscommunication which drives their new conflict. Now both characters are hurt and Mopsa quits her servitude to Pamela. Pamela is yet to find her love in Mopsa, who has left for a vacation—on the island of Lesbos of all places! Without shoehorning, the song “Vacation” is acted out, whimsically, yet with a sense of yearning. Mopsa’s absence, with the help of the Go-Go’s modern-day lyrics, furthers the plot. “Vacation” adds emotional forwarding, revealing that Mopsa is still in love with Pamela. When Pythio, Oracle of Delphi, foretells the doom of the kingdom, a superseding conflict above all others is introduced. The oracle relays the mysterious information, through the song “Vision of Nowness”: 1. Philoclea will fall in love with a liar, 2. Pamela will consummate her love—but with no groom, 3. Adultery will occur in Gynecia and Basilius’ marriage 4. A new king will become a better ruler of Arcadia.20 In “Vision of Nowness,” the song highlights that Arcadia must move toward a new, more liberal mindset, shedding the tradition that has been holding them back. Pythio introduces these four prophecies by announcing that Arcadia has become too rigid in its traditions, and this will lead to the kingdom’s downfall. Basilius’ conservative mentality makes way for inflexibility. Parents often fall into a heteronormative default that is undercut by Musidorus’ disguise and Pamela’s sexuality, as well as Basilius’ obstinate refusal to believe any other hypothesis regarding a possible future monarch. Head over Heels’ thematically addresses the wide varieties of love, sex, sexuality, and gender that exist in Arcadia—and our world as well. The music of the Go-Go’s is a sprightly addition to the adaptation of an ancient tale for modern ears. Some critics embraced the adaptation, while others argued that the musical strips the empowering messages underneath the Go-Go’s musicality. “Unlike, say, the Abba songbook, there isn’t much sonic variety or weirdness to distinguish one peppy dance number from the next, and too much Go-Go’s can blend into one enervating beat,” Michael Schulman wrote of the original New York production. “The familiar tunes give the tale a welcome infusion of nostalgia— depending on what long-ago carpool they transport you to—but the catalogue is puddle-deep.”21 However, Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune considers the musical a detraction from the original music: “A lot of harder-edged Go-Go’s fans who find their way through the door will wonder what on earth all of these silly

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theater people are doing with their beloved music, not just because it feels so far removed from its original pioneering context but also because the sensibility here so doubles down on fluttery theatricality at the expense of raw, charged, visceral, feminist pop.”22 Adapted, yes, but true to form? Possibly not, depending on who you ask. These two very different reads of the show are not necessarily contradictions of each other, but they do speak to some of the really exciting challenges that await a creative team that tackles the show in production. Lazarus is an interesting experiment in artist catalog musicals. It sought to both honor and undermine the artist who created it, and did so with the full involvement and blessing of the artist himself, David Bowie. More than any other major songwriter, Bowie spent a career putting himself and his numerous alter egos at the center of his musical productions and other spectacles. He is a poet of self-alienation, and so it makes sense that a jukebox musical centering on his songs would alienate the audience. Lazarus had a long and fractured development process and, something that is really unique among the genre, the songwriter had regular involvement in the artistic decisions around the show. Bowie developed the plot with playwright Enda Walsh. The musical is based on the 1963 novel The Man Who Fell to Earth, which had already been adapted for film in 1976 with Bowie playing the title character. The plot, such as it is, centers around an extraterrestrial alien who has acquired enormous wealth on Earth but is confounded and narcotized by people, alcohol, and technology. The musical features songs from throughout Bowie’s discography, including hits like “Changes,” “Life on Mars?,” and “Heroes.” The original production, directed by Ivo van Hove, was sterile, intimate, and full of video projections. The musical numbers, particularly the recognizable hits, don’t satisfy as much as they confound. Though it may not be for all tastes, one has to at least respect a jukebox musical that boldly strives to alienate the listener. The orchestration on “Changes” and “Life on Mars?” is dissonant and grating, especially if one has the original in mind. It seems to replace the revolutionary angst and energy of the Bowie recordings with bitter monotony. Yes, the songs may be searching for change and life on Mars, but in Lazarus the fight is a losing one. The final number of the show is “Heroes,” a song about hope and its impermanence. As scholar Susan Bennett wrote, “I found the ending strange and unfinished, but nonetheless consoling, creating some provisional expression of community between stage and audience.”23 Lazarus is a unique and ambiguous musical that wove a musician’s intentions into every facet of the production.

The Mini-Narratives of American Idiot “Concept albums” integrate a story and music from the start. However, a musical adaptation of the same is both an aural and visual experience. Michael Mayer and Billie Joe Armstrong’s American Idiot draws its narrative from the Green Day album of the same name. Written in the aftermath of 9/11 and the rapidly escalating “war on terror,” the album addresses the fear, confusion, and anger of the

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time, and brings home the idea that US society is struggling with acceptance, change, and representation. The album itself communicates feelings of loneliness, loss, and anger within the post-9/11 social climate. The continued conflict and American military forces stationed in the Middle East, combined with the confusion many people experienced while watching the news, left many feeling that they had a lack of political representation. The opening song, “American Idiot,” gives the fans familiar with its lyrics, and those who are uninitiated in the audience, a taste of the concept album and a plot line. 24 The three protagonists, Will, Tunny, and Johnny, distrust and loathe their hometown, setting the scene and initial tones of the story to come. Interestingly, like a megamusical, American Idiot is almost entirely sungthrough, keeping the feel of the original concept album and supporting additional music, revealing how the music of the concept album supports its plot and remains strong when transferred to the stage. 25 The plot involves Johnny, Tunny, and Will searching for meaning in their life, an emptiness precipitated by feelings of disenfranchisement. The three young men find meaning (or not) via very different paths. Johnny and Tunny run away from the stifling suburbs in the cynically named “Jingletown, USA.” Both men are soon frustrated with the city, and this is where they split. Johnny turns to drugs while Tunny attempts to become the “Favorite Son,” a beacon of masculinity that prompts him to enlist in the military to fight in Afghanistan, hoping that this will bring meaning to his confused existence. Meanwhile, Will is feeling conflicted while stuck in the suburbs as his girlfriend, Heather, is anticipating the birth of their child. While the three protagonists of the musical break apart physically, the music continually draws them back together through plot and the usage of non-diegetic performance. This method also creates parallels and metaphorical doorways into moments of shared experience between groups of characters. They sing the exact same words and think the same thoughts in tandem, even though they are hundreds of miles away from each other. One of the best instances of this performative trope is in the group number “Last Night on Earth.” Whatsername, the woman with whom Johnny falls in love, begins to shoot hardcore drugs with him for the first time. Also onstage, Will’s girlfriend Heather comforts their newborn child. This moment reveals a striking and cynical dichotomy. Heather and Will’s relationship was frayed during the unexpected pregnancy, but Heather promises the infant she will take care of him and finds strength through the child. For Whatsername, the love is also there for Johnny, but this path is ultimately detrimental, as Johnny’s drug use and growing addiction begins to pull them apart. Both women take a new step in their journey: Heather as a mother and Whatsername pressured into a drastic new phase in her relationship with Johnny. This moment is a turning point that accelerates tension and rising action. Another turning point occurs during “21 Guns.” A low point of the musical, the characters question the paths they have gone down. The Extraordinary Girl,

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an Army Medic Tunny met in combat, asks if his injuries, PTSD, and trauma have been worth the decision to enlist. At the same time, Heather becomes fed up with Will’s apathy and refusal to step up for their family. She walks out and takes their baby with her. Hitting rock bottom, each protagonist is urged to stop running of away from trauma and face the fact that they need help. Importantly, the music reassures them that it is okay to ask for help even when it is painful. The characters are not given solutions, rather they are presented with a path forward out of their misery and despair. Linked through the song, the audience sees that each character is experiencing similar struggles. “21 Guns” thus interweaves each plot thread during this low point. If “21 Guns” is the shattering of a window, “Wake Me Up When September Ends” is the moment when each character begins to pick up the pieces. The propulsive energy and heavy bass drum of “21 Guns” is complemented by the soft beginning of “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” Each protagonist finding the strength to overcome personal obstacles. Johnny addresses his father’s death as a major source of his trauma. Will realizes his refusal to step into the position of a father was a mistake. Tunny wishes to go back home. After this moment, the three protagonists work to find a way back, if not to happiness, at least a sense of self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. The finale is a medley of songs by Green Day that wrap up the characters’ journeys. A lone acoustic guitar provides a slower, calmer instrumentation to underline the new stasis and period of reflection of the characters. The trying times in their character arcs over the course of the musical have finished. There is a sense of resolution but also a feeling that there’s still work to be done. The characters have learned and grown in such a way that allows them to mature and face the trauma that has occurred in their life, hopefully to work through and manage things that caused them to go on their journeys and understand what has happened to them. But, returning to the original Green Day concept album, did the protagonists reject the confines they so wished to dismantle? Or, did their dreams change into a new outlook, overthrowing these constructs? There is an ambiguity at the end of the album that the musical captures as well. Though such open-endedness risks alienating or confusing audiences, this is the best and most earned place on which to conclude American Idiot. Anything more definitive or uplifting would betray the music and ethos of the album.

Girl from the North Country and Looser Plots In contrast to American Idiot, Girl from the North Country has a looser plot and story arc. Written by Irish playwright Conor McPherson, Girl from the North Country features the music of Bob Dylan. Set in Duluth, Minnesota, Dylan’s birthplace, the musical takes place during the Depression around the time that Dylan was born. Further solidifying the connections to the songwriter’s upbringing, the musical utilizes period- and regional-specific instruments, a sharp contrast to Head over Heels’ anachronisms. Dylan gave McPherson free use of his extensive

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catalog of songs, so McPherson decided to integrate the story of the Nativity as a reflection of the many Biblical themes and allusions found in his lyrics. McPherson, who had no prior experience with musicals, chose songs to elicit themes of wonder and mystery, transcendence and transiency. Unlike American Idiot, the character arcs in Girl from the North Country did not emerge from the original songs. Since most of Dylan’s works are “ambiguous and universal,” McPherson created the plot first and found Dylan songs afterward to create the inner portraiture of the characters.26 As residents in a boarding house arrive and tell their life stories, themes of stagnancy and longing emerge. The musical plays into the guests’ unrootedness, as well as the disquietude of characters who feel stuck within their roles as mothers, wives, husbands, or children. Many of the song performances in Girl from the North Country are diegetic, but not in any straightforward way. They are often presented as dreamlike vignettes. This is used so the characters tell their stories through a liminal, parallel dimension in which the songs describe situations, rather than directly move the plot forward like dialogue would. These performances reveal the characters telling their own stories rather than a narrator relaying information in third person. This can be seen in a song like “Hurricane” where Joe Scott, a boxer, retells his journey of how he arrived at the boarding house. The original song is delivered as a journalistic exposé, with Dylan recounting the facts of a horrific miscarriage of justice. It is obvious that he is not a Black boxer who is framed for murder. However, in the diegetic performance of the musical, Joe is the one taking ownership of the story. The ambiguity and universality found in Dylan’s lyrics, which have poetic undertones as a base, allowed for almost any story and any character development. Answers hang in the air and are not always confirmed, highlighting a deep sense of hymn-like mysticism within both Dylan’s music and the production. Girl from the North Country could be considered an outlier in the artist catalog category, since the plot preceded the music. Ease of adaptation, Depression-era nostalgia, and the artist’s blessing are a rare trio. McPherson’s creativity as a playwright, along with a novel approach to Dylan’s music, also left shoehorning out of the picture. As McPherson noted of Dylan’s catalog, “There’s always an echo of something for the audience within those songs.”27

Jagged Little Pill and the Need for Specificity A departure from the traditional jukebox musical format can also be seen in Jagged Little Pill. The audience is emotionally drawn in by the influential and era-defining album, which includes “You Oughta Know,” “Head over Feet,” “Hand in My Pocket,” and “Ironic.” The musical is cleverly driven by Morissette’s hyperemotional style and real-life messages. For director Diane Paulus: Everybody who loved Jagged Little Pill, the album, has an expectation of what they’re going to experience. And I like having that challenge as a

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director …. But the fact that we were able to go original—we weren’t doing the typical jukebox model. We were making this original story that allowed us to put in the kind of issues that we wanted to live inside, that came from Alanis. I would say the album is sort of like the urtext.28 This quote from Paulus encapsulates the creative perspective of a number of artistically ambitious jukebox musicals, the combination of originality and urtext that can be balanced in production. The musical tells the story of an upper-class American family, the Healys, consisting of parents Mary Jane and Steve, and siblings Nick and Frankie. Each of the family members, and a number of ancillary characters, is given a distinct arc over the course of the two acts, though the real emotional core of the show is the relationship between Mary Jane and her daughter. Frankie struggles with her bisexuality and her identity as a Black teenager who was adopted by a white family in her infancy. When Bella, a classmate of Nick and Frankie’s, is sexually assaulted at a party, the event brings up trauma and conflict that affects the Healy family directly. Cody did not want “a dance-in-the-aisles jukebox musical with a featherweight story.” She “wanted Jagged Little Pill to be as real and provocative as the album that inspired it.”29 This puts the musical in a similar place as both American Idiot and Girl from the North Country, which also tackle dark and complex issues. Jagged Little Pill briefly departs from the pre-written song format in “Smiling” and “Predator,” in acts one and two, respectively. “Smiling” is sung by Mary Jane,30 who is attempting to hide her addiction to painkillers. Her injuries after a car accident, and resurfaced memories of past sexual trauma, drive Mary Jane’s opioid dependency. This song, written by an adult Morissette and sung by a parent figure in the musical, departs from the tunes sung by teenage characters written by Morissette as a young adult and teenager. The shift reflects a change from teenager to adult, as an adult character reflects on her past and her situation in the present. “Predator” was written for the musical to describe Bella’s rape at the party. The revelation, approximately halfway through the musical, that no one came forward to report the assault and students are disparaging the victim, is a commentary on the #MeToo movement and its limits. A new song was needed for this moment, to tailor the scene specifically to this subject, Adding “Predator”  thus makes narrative sense and prevents musical shoehorning, which would take the audience out of the scene, detract from the moment, and grossly mistreat the topic of sexual assault. Audiences must listen to the lyrics and cannot not rely on memory or be allowed to sing along. The lyrics are unknown, as is the moment. The characters don’t know what to do and the audience doesn’t either. This moment is notable in the way that the jukebox form has limits in discussing serious current events. A song and a moment can risk losing nuance if not analyzed carefully. It doesn’t preclude usage of pre-written songs in serious moments, but the introduction of a brand-new song forces the audience to focus on the

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emotional words the characters are singing. The audience has to listen to Bella and her story; it is so instrumental to her arc and her interactions with those who question her credibility. An artist catalog musical, as defined by this volume, is a subgenre of the jukebox musical that has music solely from a single artist or group. While this may sound restricting, the examples in this chapter show the creative ways that artist catalog musicals can adapt original artistic works into credible stories, plot devices, and characters. However, like other jukebox musical styles, there are pitfalls that create shoehorning, such as the overextension of song and plot in a way that detracts from the story’s flow, just to provide for the inclusion of a hit song. Additionally, strings of popular songs intercalated into the plot, which lack contiguity with the artist’s original message, risk becoming a concert. Too much of any catalog can become monotonous and, as Michael Shulman noted of Head over Heels, “blend into one enervating beat.”31 Unless the songs can stand on their own merit, like those of Bob Dylan and Alanis Morissette, many jukeboxes fall into the same routine of shoehorning music to an original story, rather than the story emerging from the music. One way to move beyond the predictable is through effective use of nostalgia, as in Mamma Mia!, or with an adaptation based on a well-known story, like Bat Out of Hell patterning itself after Peter Pan. Fan-based audiences are less likely to be forgiving of a spoon-fed plot. However, if the message is strong and continues the artist’s message, plot holes may be forgiven. This chapter has analyzed the specific challenges and possibilities of artist catalog jukeboxes, and the wide range of subjects that they have tackled. Yes, they can be as featherweight as Escape to Margaritaville, but they can also reach toward topics and themes more substantive. From here, the book moves on to a dramaturgical investigation of the biographical musical, a category that is the most ubiquitous within the genre but also the one most beholden to formulaic constraints.

Notes 1 Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf. Bat Out of Hell: The Musical: Original Cast Recording. (Manchester Opera House/80 Hertz Studio: Michael Reed, Steven Rinkoff, Jim Steinman, 2017.) 2 Diablo Cody, Jagged Little Pill (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2020), 94. 3 “Margaritaville” has been attached to a clothing line, tequila label, and chain of hotels, among other business ventures. 4 The character Tully Mars is also found in Buffett’s books Tales from Margaritaville and A Salty Piece of Land. 5 Greg Garcia and Mike O’Malley, Escape to Margaritaville (New York: Broadway Licensing, 2018), 105. 6 Ibid., 41. 7 Erik Jackson and Ben Winters, Breaking Up is Hard to Do (New York: Theatrical Rights Worldwide, 2015), 8. 8 Mikael Wood, review of We Will Rock You, Los Angeles Times, July 17, 2014. 9 Alyson Eng, review of We Will Rock You, BroadwayWorld.com, January 15, 2020.

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10 “Holler If Ya Hear Me Broadway,” Playbill, accessed November 29, 2021. https:// www.playbill.com/production/holler-if-ya-hear-me-palace-theatre-vault-0000014051. 11 Jason Newman, “Saul Williams: Why Broadway’s Tupac Musical Closed Early,” Rolling Stone, July 21, 2014; David Rooney, “Tupac Musical ‘Holler If Ya Hear Me’ Meets Swift Demise on Broadway,” Billboard, July 14, 2014. 12 Elias Leight, “Tupac Shakur Musical ‘Holler If Ya Hear Me’ Returns in Atlanta,” Rolling Stone, September 5, 2017. 13 Linda Hutcheon, “On the Art of Adaptation,” Daedalus 133, no. 2 (2004): 108–11. 14 Cody, Jagged Little Pill, 85. 15 Joe DiPietro, Nice Work if You Can Get It (New York: Concord Theatricals, 2012), 41. 16 “Someone to Watch over Me” on Nice Work if You can Get It, accessed April 8, 2021, Spotify. 17 Jim Steinman, “A Trip to Neverland: The Loaf Behind the Meat-Jim Steinman in Interview 1981.” Neverland Nocturnal Pleasures. Accessed July 27, 2021. https:// jimsteinman.com/neverland2.htm 18 Nick Levine, “How the Go-Go’s Pioneered Girl Power,” BBC Culture, July 28, 2020. 19 Franco Marenco, “Double Plot in Sidney’s Old ‘Arcadia,’” The Modern Language Review 64, no. 2 (1969): 248–63. 20 Jeff Whitty, Head over Heels (New York: Broadway Licensing, 2018), 17. 21 Michael Schulman, review of Head over Heels, The New Yorker, July 27, 2018. 22 Chris Jones, review of Head over Heels, Chicago Tribune, July 26, 2018. 23 Susan Bennett, “Directing Across Genre: Film, Fiction, Music, Theatre,” in Ivo van Hove: From Shakespeare to David Bowie, ed. Susan Bennett and Sonia Massai (London: Methuen Drama, 2018), 203. 24 Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer, American Idiot (New York: Music Theatre International, 2010), 1. 25 Patrick Healy, “Finding the Musical Hidden in a Punk Album,” New York Times, April 1, 2010. 26 Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and Terry Teachout, “Three on The Aisle: Conor McPherson and His Ghosts,” American Theatre, March 5, 2020. 27 Ibid. 28 Cody, Jagged Little Pill, 134. 29 Ibid., 224. 30 This number was written for the musical and was later featured on Morissette’s album Such Pretty Forks in the Road. 31 Schulman, review of Head over Heels.

6 A Life in Lyrics Biographical Jukebox Musicals

This chapter explores the biographical jukebox musical, a subcategory which focuses on the life of a specific musical artist or group as told through their own music. The subject of biographical jukeboxes ranges from the jazz of Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, to the country and honky-tonk of Patsy Cline, Buddy Holly, and Hank Williams, to the funk and soul of Tina Turner and Donna Summer, to the Latin beats of Gloria and Emilio Estefan. They also tell the story of bands such as the Four Seasons, the Temptations, and the Kinks. Despite the varied styles, eras, and personalities, the structure of bio-musicals is remarkably formulaic in their construction and execution in how they parcel out moments of triumph and struggle. And, with the exception of Williams’s overdose at the end of Hank Williams: Lost Highway,1 all conclude on moments of triumph. One of the main dramaturgical signatures of biographical shows is that the songwriter of the music serves as the protagonist of the work itself. These musicals tell the story of key relationships that the artists had with producers, family members, fellow musicians, and romantic partners, along with the aspects of their life that shaped their musical career and the songs in their discography. Often, these two spheres meld as life events influence the direction of their music. The pacing of the musical’s action is determined by the creative team, shaping a story that can fit nicely within two acts. Biographical musicals can primarily present an artist’s early work, their entire discography, or their life to the present day. These biographical musicals are different from artist catalogs because the latter have a fictional plot that is either original or an adaptation of a fictional source material. For the purposes of categorization, a biographical jukebox musical has two requirements: a majority of the songs are related to a particular artist or group and the plot focus on the life story of that solo act or group. Bio-musicals focus on the path that an artist has taken, focusing on their career and how their conflicts and hardships influenced their music. Most of these shows follow a DOI: 10.4324/b22939-8

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similar formula; they are told chronologically, with segments of exposition, rising action, introduction of conflict and obstacles, a major climax, eleventh-hour moments, and final celebrations. Biographical jukeboxes often begin with a protagonist’s origins, homelife, childhood or teenage years, and their introduction to music. Were they a musical prodigy? Did a parent, guardian, or mentor help them learn to play an instrument? Did they stumble onto a self-realization of their talent? These musicals also focus on the main character’s big break as a moment that precipitates the rising action of the narrative. Did a record producer see them playing at a nightclub? Did the singer win a talent show or get on television? Did our protagonist storm into the middle of a recording studio office with their first demo in hand? These are major turning points in an arc, ratcheting up the action and really getting the plot going. After all, these musicals are about the person and their music career! Biographical musicals also feature realistic human struggles. The character must face inner turmoil such as drug addiction, mental health battles, breakdowns of relationships, or financial insecurity. These are all real challenges, and they help the artists appear more human instead of only famous and talented. To study the key patterns that are prevalent within the genre, this chapter focuses primarily on Beautiful: The Carole King Musical and The Cher Show. Beautiful tells the story of singer-songwriter Carole King, her marriage to fellow songwriter Gerry Goffin, and her friendship with another composer and lyricist duo, Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann. Beginning with her career in 1958, Beautiful chronicles the challenges and triumphs of King: from her youth writing songs for famous groups such as the Shirelles and the Drifters to the recording of her 1971 album Tapestry. From the perspective of three incarnations of the iconic pop singer Cher, The Cher Show similarly highlights the humble beginnings of the singer, her rise to fame with Sonny Bono, and her film career, dramatizing the conflicts and triumphs along the way.

Dramaturgy and Storytelling With biographical jukebox musicals, there is at least one degree of separation between the character and the musician. After all, the protagonist of the musical work resides within a piece of entertainment: biographical but ultimately fictional. In order to tell the story, there is the process of integrating songs and plot in a way that communicates aspects of theme, conflict, and character that is entertaining, yet also truthful. Despite being based in history and featuring real individuals, the story is ultimately a construction to portray a life. However, a whole team behind the work ensures that the story is not just a parade of facts spoon-feeding plot to an audience. Although representations may appear fantastical through structural devices—such as the costuming in The Cher Show which has aspects of magical realism—all are grounded in real life. However, although the songs enhance the plot, dramaturgy is especially critical to telling the story due to the need for biographical accuracy.

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Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations exemplifies all the problems of a biographical musical that is reliant on exposition dumps of information related to the band and the events around it. The show centers around group leader Otis Williams and his ability to wring a series of classic Motown hits out of a revolving parade of singers who performed at members of the Temptations. This central fact of the show, that members of the group were fired or quit with regularity, is a core dramaturgical problem that the show doesn’t sufficiently solve: that is, how to sustain dramatic tension when the characters keep changing? The answer in Ain’t Too Proud is to have Otis narrate directly to the audience, at length, throughout the show. As Joe Dziemianowicz noted in his review, “The story traces the Detroit band’s rise to fame and its personal and political conflicts, which unfold efficiently, if mechanically, in an ‘and then we did this’ fashion.”2 The songs are mostly recognizable hits like “My Girl” and “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” but the songs are sometimes even cut short to get to more exposition. Overall, the reviews praise the music and the singing but are frustrated by the reliance on ­“shallow” storytelling and plot contrivance. 3 The closest thing to praise that Greg Evans can muster for the narrative is to call it “ruthlessly efficient.”4 What Ain’t Too Proud demonstrates is that, even with great music and bankable classics, a bio-musical needs to take the time to allow the characters and the tunes to narratively cohere. Dramaturgical analysis focuses on the ways that plot is relayed to the audience, and how plot points are organized to form a narrative arc. Essentially, it defines what elements are included or created in order to tell a story. The strength in a story can come from character arc and development, introduction and resolution of conflict, as well as themes and messages featured in the narrative and how these are presented. Plot holes and loose ends are aspects of the story, which are never explained and are never clearly rectified. If a character disappears without any mention at the end of their arc, the audience is left to interpret an omission. Audiences are used to specific patterns. Patterns provide structure; breaking patterns can create either unexpected and intriguing plot twists or confusing, and potentially exciting, moments for the audience. Imagine the plot of a story as a long string. There is a beginning and end, other strings can intersect, create little knots, or force the original string to twist back and forth in many different directions. But if that string is cut, the web falls apart. When a pattern is broken, it changes the course of action in a story. Monotony is averted and boredom alleviated when patterns change. This can be as small as a cymbal crash on the last beat of a measure. Or it can be a non-diegetic song breaking a pattern of diegetic songs to highlight a moment of emotional intensity. Suddenly, the plot shifts, and audiences don’t know how our protagonist will overcome a conflict. The unpredictability can be exciting and intriguing, even when certain theatrical movements are designed to alienate, confuse, and make people uncomfortable. But musicals in general often follow an arc in which protagonists meet their goals. Sometimes they find satisfaction in a situation that differs from their

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original goals, such as the abandonment of fame for love or finding fulfillment even if they don’t win a competition they had been working toward. In addition to Beautiful, there are a pair of others that focus on songwriters. Leader of the Pack: The Ellie Greenwich Musical covers the career of the songwriter behind “Be My Baby” and “Da Doo Ron Ron” and The Boy from Oz tells the story of Peter Allen, the performer and writer of 1970s pop and ballad hits “The Lives of Me” and “She Loves to Hear the Music.” In both cases, the structure of the narrative and the placement of songs is very similar. The hit songs are arranged to coincide with events from their lives, something that is factually suspect but is structurally satisfying. Though, in both cases, the overly direct connection between life and music drains the shows of complex drama or memorable characters. In both musicals, the dramatic tension is around the songwriter’s romantic relationships. Ellie tries to balance her artistic career with her marriage to fellow songwriter Jeff Barry; Peter struggles through a marriage to Liza Minelli and his homosexuality. Leader of the Pack is full of obvious pairings of story and song. When Ellie and Jeff get engaged, the next two numbers are “Not Too Young to Get Married” and “Chapel of Love.” But, there are some poignant scenes, as when their career and romantic paths diverge: JEFF:  I’ve

been thinking about moving to L.A. There’s a big future in writing movie scores. ELLIE:  L.A.? Movie scores? I thought you were telling me you wanted to write with someone else … now you’re telling me you want to get into the movies? JEFF:  What I’m trying to tell you is … I think we should get a divorce. The exchange pivots to the song “Look of Love,” whose mini-narrative about seeing an old flame with a new partner doesn’t exactly gibe with the musical but captures Ellie’s feelings of loss.5 Boy from Oz has an even more difficult time with its complex subject, which opened it up to both criticism and troubling reviews. Before it opened on Broadway, critic Michael Joseph Gross wrote that the show “has come nowhere near accounting for all of Allen’s lives. Its portrait of him is, to say the least, highly selective.”6 And reviews noted that the shoehorning of uncomplicated characters has the “annoying habit of sabotaging a good number.” 7 In both Leader of the Pack and Boy from Oz, moments that are intended to have dramatic weight are too simplistic to have an impact on the audience. Regardless of the types of patterns and structure of the musical’s arc, plot holes and inconsistencies can take the audience out of a story and make it difficult for the audience to feel satisfied with the story’s progression or ending. Questions of when, why, and how affect all types of stories and provide necessary contextualization for biographical musicals. A story has already been written because a life has already been lived. Essentially, a protagonist is a real individual and events in the musical take place in the past, retelling the artist’s significant life events. However, creative decisions regarding what to put in and what to leave out impact theme, structure, and plot. An example of a strong wrap-up is

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Carole’s move from New York to California in act two of Beautiful. Cynthia and Barry listen to Carole as she sings “You’ve Got a Friend,” highlighting how well they all got along despite their disagreements and competitiveness. If there wasn’t time spent on their separation, it wouldn’t necessarily feel like a proper send-off, and audiences would be left wondering what happened to Barry and Cynthia. Wrap-ups provide context, a final little bit of information that helps the audience understand the ultimate direction of the protagonist’s story. The music is almost always diegetic in bio-musicals, meaning the performances are dramatized as live within the world of the musical. All of the characters can see and hear the performance happening. Concerts and jam sessions are events in the show, as well as being visible to the audience. This doesn’t mean that biographical musicals have solely diegetic performances. Many can have non-diegetic songs where characters break into song to express deep emotion. These breakouts are the classic musical theater style performances where it is perfectly viable within the medium to sing in order to express dialogue, emotion, and ideas. In the world of the musical and the behavior of the protagonists, it makes sense for the characters who are musicians to play as musicians! The diegetic plot progression can be strengthened by action and dialog interspersed within the songs. Blocking, choreography, and dialogue can show action, reaction, and consequences of life events. Intercalated dialogue, physical action, and visual depictions add reality and the artist’s life is not steamrolled into one long megamusical. Diegetic songs, such as concerts, have fewer opportunities to advance the plot. However, diegetic performances can easily enhance the emotional reflections of previous scenes, either through parallels between the song lyrics and the artist’s life or by highlighting various personal characteristics of the artist. Almost every song in Beautiful is diegetic. The stage performances mimic King’s original emotional delivery, which is how the audience takes note of the gamut of her emotions. Arguably, to sustain believability, the talent of the actor needs to at least reflect that of the artist! Beautiful and The Cher Show play with diegesis and integration in a unique way but utilize different methods and perspectives. Live performance is integral to the protagonists’ story arcs, because of their history as songwriters as well as their relationships to their spouses Gerry Goffin and Sonny Bono. The audience needs to see their performances and collaborations with other artists. As a young woman, Carole King’s compositions became famous through the artists who recorded and performed her songs. The inclusion of these other artists within the plot of the musical, along with the musicians who performed them, allows them to be part of the story’s perspective. For King to sing all of these songs alone would negate the artistic relationships she cultivated, a critical part of her biography. There are a few instances where Carole sings her own music in act one, and the musical shows her sitting alone at her piano late at night, putting together the melodies of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and “It Might as Well Rain until September.” In late night scenes of songwriting, she seeks out the piano keys and the quiet solace of home as her oasis, rather than inside the

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bustling and often chaotic studio. This reveals the tender emotions from which her songs were born. Several times in act one, Carole’s introduction of her own songs transforms mid-scene to a recording studio or television program on which a musical group is performing them. This gives the audience a behind the scene look into Carole’s creative abilities. The Cher Show modulates diegesis and non-diegesis, most notably within the parameters of a show-within-a-show format in its original Chicago run, which was heavily altered for Broadway. In Chicago, the premise of the musical began with the variety show, “The Cher Show,” introduced at the beginning of the musical and referenced throughout with onstage cameramen. This formula automatically makes each song diegetic through this framing device. The musical also features the evolution of The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour as well as Cher, a subsequent television variety show. The Cher Show’s narrative format highlights the campy style of musical variety shows and sketch scenes of the 1970s and 80s, thus blurring the boundary between diegetic and non-diegetic performance. However, this metatheatrical premise altered the reality of the performers’ roles as characters, leaving the audience to question whether or not the ensemble is actors in “The Cher Show” or a more traditional musical ensemble. It might take an uninitiated audience several scenes to have comprehended this format. For Chicago Tribune critic Chris Jones, the original format proved confusing. He even offers advice on what to change before the official Broadway transfer, to cut the: “needless fictional show”8 and posits that this would give the three incarnations of Cher a clearer role as protagonists. It seems like the writers took Jones’ suggestion, scrapping the show-within-a-show parameters that blended too many dramaturgical layers. For both Chicago and Broadway productions of The Cher Show, the story is told through three incarnations of Cher: Babe, Lady, and Star. The three are tasked with acting out the story, with Star, the mature entertainer, taking the lead. The Cher persona characters of Lady, Star, and Babe are present throughout the musical, serving as narrators. However, there is an element of magical realism within their shared consciousness; the three communicate throughout the performance as friends and sisterly incarnations. Like a house of mirrors, it can at times be difficult to distinguish among the three as characters, but this presentation helps draw the audience further into the story. The audience is watching a presentation of Cher’s life through multiple iterations, as the musical’s narrative and elements of non-diegesis follow the typical style of a jukebox musical, thus fitting nicely within the genre and adding to the biographical story.

Progression of Action In biographical musicals, the protagonists’ personal development and growth is chronicled through their own songs and how they are used throughout the overall narrative. This can give a greater sense of authenticity to bio-musicals compared to other jukeboxes. Telling the story of a musician’s life or group’s

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existence within a historical arc, using the songs that they created, reveals critical emotional context. The emotional drive of melodies and lyrics are then connected to artists’ life events: marriages, addictions, breakups, deaths, and the like. This interconnection contributes both to the plot and the integrated song choices. Non-diegetic songs, those that appear to spring from a character’s soul, offer a notable layer of realism. Right in front of the audience, the musician composes a song from their own head in real time. In the context of concerts, rehearsals, or impromptu jam sessions, the characters and protagonists are musicians themselves, and contextually they are writing and performing their own music. An extreme example of this is On Your Feet!: The Story of Gloria and Emilio Estefan, which revolves almost entirely around music and performing (rivaling Jersey Boys in the reliance on diegetic numbers). The musical follows Gloria from young adulthood to fame, as is typical for the genre. But, especially because the relationship between the Estefans is so stable and harmonious, the show cannot rely on that as a source of tension. “The Estefans hardly followed the familiar jukebox musical narrative of rise-excess-fall-repentance-redemption,” notes Chris Jones. “Theirs has been, by all accounts, a contented marriage of epic length, especially by the standards of the music business. They are nice people.”9 The musical includes intergenerational conflict, especially between Gloria and her mother, but that is dramatized through the immigrant journeys of both Gloria and Emilio’s families. That is, both performers feel the weight and obligation to honor their cultural traditions and familial sacrifices, even as they gamble on a career in music. And it is the music itself that is at the heart of the struggle in the musical. Because the musical is structured around the musician’s efforts to get their songs heard and recorded, numbers like “Rhythm is Gonna Get You” and “Live for Loving You.” Act one culminates in an extended sequence about getting a record company executive to listen to “Conga,” which he refuses to do because he doesn’t believe the band is capable of mainstream attention. The release of the song caps their rise to stardom. Without standard narrative or biographical tropes, the show loses its dramatic energy in act two, which is mostly around Gloria healing from a spinal injury and reconciling with her mom. On Your Feet!’s finale follows her recovery due to the outpouring of support from her fans. The focus, again, is mostly on the music. Both Beautiful and The Cher Show focus on a specific artist and their work, but additionally feature music from their contemporaries that offer a larger context for their work and a sense of the wider range of music inside a particular era or genre. For instance, in The Cher Show, an actor portraying Gregg Allman, Cher’s shortterm husband, sings “Midnight Rider/Ramblin’ Man” in a staged presentation of a television show. Often, biographical jukeboxes start their narrative just before the main character’s career begins. This allows for narrative contextualization, exposition, and backstory, often highlighting the dreams and goals of the protagonist before the rising action of the musical’s plot. Dynamics like socioeconomic status, family life, and early development helps the audience find a shared experience and empathize with the protagonist before the adventure really begins.

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The arc in Beautiful reveals a metamorphosis from an obstreperous teen and young adult who loved music but could never perform it herself to a poised woman who stepped into her own voice after leaving her husband and starting her own solo career. The plot begins with a teenage Carole and the tumultuous relationship she has with her mother, with early scenes showing the seed of her musical career. Her initial, yet brief, conflict with her mother about her desire to become a songwriter shows her first real-life obstacle, pinpointing the rise of action in the musical. Her youth and the harshness of New York City makes Carole’s mother fear for the safety of her young daughter. But Carole’s goals (and the naivete of youth) push her forward and eventually land her a job. An early medley of songs at the top of the show help to set the stakes for Carole as a songwriter as well as mapping out the landscape of pop music in the late 1950s. The “1650 Broadway Medley” blends the popular songs of the day, also recognizable to an initiated audience. These nostalgic songs can spark an emotional reaction for anyone who recognizes “Splish Splash,” “Stupid Cupid,” or “Yakety Yak.” The inclusion of these iconic melodies serves as evidence for the popularity of the writers of the time, the inordinate number of chart-topping hits they churned out, and the catchiness of these songs, even decades into the future. Knowing these facts, the audience understands and hears what is at stake for Carole, a job at a top publishing house that could catapult her career into the big leagues. The Cher Show has similar details. The retrospective aspect of the musical is the thread that ties everything together; Cher’s memories drive the plot forward. However, the retrospective lens of the Cher musical, with all three incarnations of Cher commenting on major events in her life, begins as a quest for acceptance rather than a search for autonomy. At the top of the show, the world of the musical is first to emerge, with Star establishing the character of Cher and the variety show in which the musical will exist. The show opens with a stage manager calling Cher to the set. The story of Cher’s life begins with Babe, the incarnation of Cher in her youth and young adulthood. These first scenes establish for the audience the dramaturgical method through which the musical will tell the story; it will be very self-referential in tone and outlook. The scenes of Cher as a child with her mother, now abandoned by two fathers, play into this aesthetic and dramaturgical choice to reveal the early themes of Cher’s desire for love and acceptance, which manifests as a lifelong desire for belonging. The song “Half Breed,” sung by Babe and her mother, introduces a feeling of otherness and an ultimate desire to be loved. Yet the song is also able to convey both characters’ inner strength. These themes continue throughout the musical and are a prime motivation for Babe, Lady, and Star. Her feelings of alienation, present in early scenes with her stepfather, resurface during her first encounter with Sonny Bono, a male figure who controls her every move. Main characters’ establishing situations must be introduced early. These serve as a launchpad for the audience. The initial situation can also happen in the present, while past situations and flashbacks can explain and lead up to that scene. Crafting a well-defined establishing scene allows the audience to get their

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bearings before the action really revs up. Alienation and playing on audience discomfort does exist, but more often in straight plays (often Brechtian in nature), and not in many musicals. Biographical musicals typically progress chronologically, with the main plot of the action carrying over several months or years. They often begin at the beginning of a career and end at the culmination of a goal or high point of their life, paralleling major themes and lessons that the musical conveys to the audience. For dramaturgical analysis, we have to look at how theatrical works introduce the situations of the characters, how action rises after a new situation changes the conditions, what kinds of obstacles and setbacks the characters face, and how they overcome these obstacles. Supporting characters help enhance themes for the story. In Beautiful, Cynthia and Barry are utilized as foils for Carole and Gerry, their character arcs are paralleled over the course of the musical’s action. Cynthia’s reluctance about a romantic entanglement with a coworker both reflects and contradicts Carole’s quick marriage to Gerry. As Cynthia and Barry grow closer, Carol and Gerry grow apart over his feelings of stagnation. Notably, when Carol and Gerry finalized their divorce, Cynthia and Barry became engaged. This dynamic between the two pairs highlights and complements each other, while enhancing character development and stories. Props and staging also provide visual meaning to uphold the theme and highlight important moments. An example of a prop being utilized as a symbol for theme and character progression in The Cher Show is the character’s relationship to Cinderella’s glass slipper. For Star, the songs in the Cinderella cartoon were the first musical stylings she learned to sing. The scene in which Babe attends a screening to see the Disney Cinderella is a moment of rising action, as Babe realizes she wants to be a famous performer when she grows up. At the very end of the Chicago run of the musical, Babe, Lady, and Cher’s mother Georgia help Star put on the final part of her costume: a shoe. The shoe not only replicates the visual motif of the Cinderella film it also completes the arc of Babe, Lady, and Star in a satisfying and recognizable way. In the Broadway iteration, Star and Georgia share a reprise of “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” from the Disney film. This harkens back to the initial scenes of the story; Babe’s first dreams of stardom are now fully realized. In Beautiful, Carole sitting at her piano has a similar visual effect, especially in relation to the song “Will You Love Me Tomorrow.” The audience first hears the song when Carole and Gerry are tasked with writing a song for the Shirelles, in a friendly competition with Cynthia and Barry. After a long night, Carole sits at the piano and reads Gerry’s lyrics for the first time. The sweet love song makes Carole pause with emotion, as the words Gerry wrote feel like a declaration of. In an intricate bit of dramaturgy, the song’s undercurrent of doubt also foreshadows struggle and conflict for the two throughout the musical. The tune is a hit, but Carole and Gerry’s relationship ends in divorce halfway through act two. After catching Gerry in yet another affair, she enters her home and sits at the living room piano. She plays a small portion of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” in almost the exact same spot

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onstage as when she first composed it with Gerry. Both visually and aurally, the audience is given a symbol of love, but this song now has an entirely different meaning, the sweet lyrics contrasted by the depressing events that just transpired. The question the song asks is finally answered: No.

Suspension of Disbelief With all live performance, the suspension of disbelief is critical to the progression of the story and the audience’s continued engagement with the work. For musicals, suspension of disbelief is critical as characters break into song midscene. If an audience member stops to ask questions about plot, structure, or characterization, they are taken out of the musical’s current action. It can be difficult to reenter the story again. To create suspension of disbelief, a narrative through-line has to be carefully crafted and clearly stated. In bio-musicals, not only is there a character that carries most of the story but also that character is based on a real-life individual. This is where things can get kind of tricky. For performers trying to emulate a specific musician, one must create balance between an accurate, empathetic portrayal and an exaggerated impersonation. For iconic voices such as Tina Turner and Gloria Estefan, actors have needed to find a new way to speak and sing in order to sound like the actual character they are portraying. If done in an overexaggerated way, the performance could fall into sounding like a musical revue filled with impersonators rather than a retelling of the artist’s life. If a performer has a distinct and recognizable cadence and sound, audiences familiar with the artist’s persona may find themselves analyzing and picking apart the actor’s means of expression rather than focusing on the story and music of the show. And, of course, those are the audience members that are going to buy a ticket to a show about the performer. Sometimes, an exaggerated impersonation of a specific artist is created when the singer has an iconic look or voice that is hard to accurately replicate. If a musician has a specific kind of nasal resonance in their voice, or a particularly unique vocal range, it makes the challenge of recreating this artist much more difficult. Replicating the singing style of an artist or a genre specific musical has the potential to fail. We’ve all likely seen or heard the exaggerated Elvis impersonators, which can quickly fall into parody! Additionally, audience may become bored or restless when a musical has no narrative and is too song-heavy, sounding more like a revue or concert rather than a musical. This can happen when there are filler songs that don’t assist to enhance the emotional or thematic tones of the musical. It is important to note that one of the defining characteristics of the megamusical is a sung-through score, but the action onstage in a jukebox musical must allow for the visual communication of plot. A confidently structured catalog musical integrates favorite songs that also substantiate and support the plot, either in emotional tone or as a setup for events. An interesting example of how a jukebox combines a band’s history with its songs is Sunny Afternoon, a bio-musical about 1960s British rock band the Kinks.

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It focuses on the early years of the band, and the personalities of brothers Ray and Dave Davies who were the core writing team. Twenty-eight Kinks songs are featured in the show, and the director and writer made some canny choices in where to place them for maximum effect and audience engagement. In his extensive overview of the show, John Fleming praises book writer Joe Pendhall’s “expertly made distinct choices as to which aspects of Ray Davies’ original story and song catalogue to use to best craft a show that would provide an entertaining account of the Kinks’ early years.”10 Fleming notes the number of times throughout the show that historical record is fudged and a song inserted to please the audience. An act one scene finds the band drunkenly carousing and trashing a hotel room while singing “Till the End of the Day.” Fleming questions, “Did that event actually happen? The answer of ‘yes and no’ highlights the expert way the show conflates separate events to convey an essential truth.”11 Overall, Sunny Afternoon adheres to the official and sanctioned story of the band, and also delivers a collection of hummable, danceable hits. Within the jukebox genre, biographical musicals are some of the most self-referential. The artist is singing their own music, which grounds the story of their life. The music within bio-musicals is the vessel for its storytelling, like all musicals, but with the added layer of the musician-as-protagonist. The person who wrote the songs becomes the emotional core of the musical’s characters and plot. A well-crafted narrative helps ground the songs in the story, regardless of whether or not the songs are diegetic within the musical’s world or are non-diegetic sung expressions of feeling. The reflexively diegetic numbers in biographical musicals can help with the feeling of trepidation some can have with more traditional, non-diegetic songs, as some people can get quite annoyed with characters breaking out into song when no one normally would! As mentioned earlier, the fact that most of the songs in Jersey Boys are diegetic makes the overall narrative more easily understood. Having diegetic material such as live concerts grounds the music within the show, providing a basis for the thematic elements of the musical’s plot. A scene can begin with a live performance, and the audience is invited to join in the world and setting in front of them. An especially ambitious biographical show, due to its attempts at weaving together many personal stories and many frames of reference, is Shuffle Along, or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed. It is about the people who created the groundbreaking Black musical Shuffle Along: Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, who made the music, and Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles, who wrote the book and starred in it.12 The music in The Making Of all was written by Sissle and Blake in the 1920s, so the jukebox musical is the story of the making of an original musical told through the lives of the people who created it. There is some sophisticated looping of narrative elements but, dramaturgically, the pieces get in the way of each other. The plot is relatively straightforward. The creators encounter racism and resistance to their new show and act one culminates in its triumphant opening. Act two, then, traces their eventual falling out and diminishment into obscurity. The show is intended as an act of reclamation

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for overlooked performers, music, dance, and Black culture. In an article about The Making Of, John Jeremiah Sullivan called it “a kind of historical box around the set pieces.”13 But the message impedes the dramatic tension and narrative pacing. In a particularly perceptive analysis of the show, Joan Acocella writes that “the show’s one big trouble” is “dispersal, atomization.” The Making Of’s “bag of pieces” means that neither the characters nor the stories cohere.14 Several of the songs were originally written for the stage but are known, if they’re known at all, through their recordings which remove the original context. The most well-known number, “I’m Just Wild about Harry,” was repurposed for Harry Truman’s 1948 presidential campaign. In The Making Of, about half the songs are diegetic, in that the audience watches the singers rehearse the number for their show. This is then paired, somewhat magically, to the choreography. For example, the patter song “I’m Simply Full of Jazz” includes a chorus that is a description of the dance itself: ‘Cause I kick like a donkey, jump way back, ‘Cause I act like a monkey, and ball the jack, And like Miss Minnie, I do the shimmie, Keep my shoulders shaking until you hear them crack …

The audience watches a row of dancers execute the movements. The Making Of is steeped in “a nostalgic impulse.” But, in educating the audience, the show failed to entertain it. As Acocella put it at the end of her review, “Good for [The Making Of ’s creators] for trying to get some credit for them. Still, it should have been a better show.” In a biographical catalog show, the main character’s initial meeting of a love interest often happens around the time of their rise to fame, serving as an additional subplot to the protagonist’s musical narrative. It’s also a good excuse to throw some romantic tunes into the show. Songs paired with the introduction of a romantic partner increase the emotional tone of the narrative, by adding feelings of infatuation and excitement. Dramaturgically, this adds an additional layer of meaning and context. The audience infers that the song was written about the person and these feelings that the protagonist has are the ones that influenced the song. The lyrics are the thoughts that were going through their head. A love interest as a musical partner intertwines to carry a plot. The character pairing of Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Cher and Sonny Bono, and Tina and Ike Turner, are necessary to ensure an audience stays engaged in the story. For Cher, her feelings toward Sonny and their initial interaction create a newfound belonging. But the layer of naivety, seen in Babe, furthers explains why Cher did what she did. The show-within-a-show theatrical technique allows the audience to read new levels of nuance into the performances. The protagonist is often portrayed as the underdog, going up against a myriad of challenges. After exposition, one of the next steps in their journey is when

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they forge their path after discovering their musical predilection. The main characters do this by seeking out friends to play and compose with, performing their first songs, and getting their big break. In this respect, the protagonists are herolike, similar to mythical characters on a personal quest, confronted with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. For Carole in Beautiful, her start begins at 1650 Broadway. Her first test is to prove that her portfolio deserves merit by impressing Don Kirshner, the head of the company. This goal, opening the door for her songwriting career, sets the tone for act one. For the audience, a dramatic power dynamic is created as the older, more experienced Don holds the key to a carrier for the young but tenacious Carole. Ultimately, her endeavor pays off, and the play takes a new dramaturgical turn with Carole working to write the next hits a number of musical groups. Looking historically at the play and its characters, the relationship between Carole and these groups such as the Shirelles is mutually beneficial. But the inclusion of these songs, written by Carole King, adds to the origin story of the singer and serves to uniquely highlight the progression of her life and career. These hits are a major part of King’s life and work, even if she wasn’t the one to sing them at the time of recording. This is important for the audience to know. Another challenge over the course of the musical is Carole’s trepidations about publicly singing the songs herself. That she eventually does is a major reason why the ending of the show is satisfying. Sometimes, characters don’t reach their goals as they originally set out to do. However, through their struggles, they go through a transformative process of self-realization that supersedes the original goal. For Star in The Cher Show, it is the realization that she did not need a romantic relationship to be an icon. She had her strength and her own determination to make personal and career decisions. Over the course of the musical, Cher overcame her humble beginnings to be a superstar, finding love and confidence in herself rather than from a man; the show is her own Cinderella story.

Popularity of Biographical Jukebox Musicals Most jukebox musicals thrive on indulging their audiences’ feelings of nostalgia. To hear the music and watch the protagonist’s life unfold uncovers new information for fans of the artist and musical lovers alike. An idealized, nostalgic gloss on a show’s historical settings reveals aspects of music history and offers a backdrop for the plot while incorporating the required context. The placement and use of songs help tell a hidden story behind the artist’s life; thus, biographical shows are more plot-driven than the other two categories of artist catalog and era- and genre-specific. Although the plot is essentially predetermined, since the musician has already lived their life, the audience learns their struggles and motivations which are revealed through deliberate incorporation of specific songs. Lyrics become the truthful inner voice of the artist. The audience member may finally experience an insight that they never previously considered when they

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were singing along to a tune on the radio. This creates a newly found, albeit voyeuristic, emotional connection. This new feeling and insight helps to drive the biographical jukebox musical’s popularity. The mini-narratives of the songs that get told through the lyrics are immediately connected to the artist’s life, adding to the show’s meaning and thematic weight. The audience interprets an element of backstory and personal history through the song, even if they have little knowledge of the artist’s overall discography. One does not have to be an Abba aficionado to appreciate Mamma Mia! While dramatically narrowed to the life story of one person, a musical’s messages and themes resonate differently, and more personally, with audience members. Thematically, both Beautiful and The Cher Show discuss the need for the protagonist’s liberation from patriarchal standards within society and the music industry. In The Cher Show Sonny Bono’s control over his wife’s image and financial management left her with no stake in her own business enterprises. Her dyslexia were taken advantage of, with Babe and Lady unable to read many of the contracts they signed. At the end of act one, Lady decides to leave Sonny and begin her own path as an individual artist and entrepreneur. She becomes a musical icon and celebrated actress, and then also goes through multiple grueling farewell tours. For Star, the eldest of the Cher trifecta, her fears still linger toward the end of the musical. Then, Babe, Lady, and her mother, Georgia, step in to help return her confidence. They share that, despite the struggles of life, Cher will be able to push through the conflict toward a brighter day. In Beautiful, Carole’s arc through her career and marriage highlights the balance between work and life, as well as the responsibilities of parenthood and marriage. At her work, Don Kirshner tells a newly hired Carole that she can write “girls songs” and “boys songs,” with a difference in sound and subject matter depending on the market. She is instructed to write for each group differently. There would be no deviations, and Carole is left to follow the rules. In the musical, groups like the Shirelles sing girls songs like “Will You Love me Tomorrow” as does solo the fictionalized Janelle Woods with “One Fine Day” (instead of the group the Chiffons). Men’s groups like the Drifters sing masculine melodies with “On Broadway.” Following the characters’ arcs, Carole and Cynthia’s perspectives on marriage differ, with Carole enjoying marriage (for a time) and Cynthia reluctant to mix romantic and business relationships. Carole’s relationship to Gerry changes with his two affairs. After her divorce, Carole performs “It’s Too Late Baby” at a local music venue. This is a shift in her character arc. The attentive and invested audience realizes that the song is personal and that Carole is reflecting on how, even though she tried her hardest, her marriage wouldn’t have worked. This is also the first time in the musical’s story in which Carole is performing for others in an artistic setting. She’s not pitching a song for publication but is expressing artistically the thoughts and emotions she has been having. This scene begins a new path for Carole, one of full independence in her career and her story. This also adds to the audience’s empathetic response.

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Finales There are two points in a biographical jukebox musical in which the most popular songs are included: during the rising action and the finale. Some individuals or groups have chart-topping hit after hit and others have a combination of hidden gems and recognizable melodies. Any hit in an artist’s discography may be chosen to further “tune in” the audience. This is similar to artist catalog and era- and genre-specific musicals, in which popular hits can be found at the start of rising action or first celebratory moment as well as the very end of the musical’s finale or encore. The finales of biographical musicals usually feature the most popular songs, further bonding the audience together while confirming their existing perception of the artist as genius and icon. The final number in the King musical is “Beautiful” and in The Cher Show is “Believe.” These provide the audience opportunities to sing and dance along with the actors during post-curtain call encores (if the production allows it). In these moments, the traditionally stringent and quiet behavior enforced in most theaters is loosened, and audiences cheer, clap, dance, and sometimes sing along. Audience participation also adds to the show’s catharsis. “Believe” is introduced as part of finale and serves as a culmination of the thematic arc in the show’s narrative. Focusing on the song through the lens of Cher and Sonny’s relationship over the course of the musical, the usage of the song as the finale allows for Star to look back on their storied relationship. However, the up-tempo style of the song is paired with a showcase of dazzling and reflective Bob Mackey costumes. Now thematically blended as a whole person in the finale, the characters of Babe, Lady, and Star confidently sing together as a well-integrated trio, with newfound knowledge and self-reflection. Babe has lost some of her youthful naiveté, Lady takes control of her own autonomy, and Star holds hope for the future with the wisdom she has accumulated. The upbeat rendition of “Believe” is the recognizable radio version, acting as a final sendoff that is cumulation and celebration of all that has occurred during the evening, a fitting nod to the empowerment theme and inner conflicts of the musical’s narrative arc. In act two of Beautiful, Carole King has an emotional closure with Gerry Goffin after the simultaneous breakdown of their marriage and her rising career. Carole is just about to step on the stage at Carnegie Hall, harkening back to the very first scene of the musical which begins at the concert. The themes of coming into her own person and overcoming rocky relationships wrap up at the musical’s end, culminating with Carole’s triumph in becoming a solo artist as a single, independent woman. As she performs “Beautiful,” everything that led to that moment reaches a crescendo: from her time as a songwriter, to her friendly competition with Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, to her romance with Gerry, and the conflict, tension, joy and heartbreak expressed throughout the musical. This final rendition of “Beautiful” solidifies her change to the audience. She sits alone at her piano, singing with passion and gusto, drawing on her newfound

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strength. The original concert audience would not have known about King’s struggles but the musical allows for the event to be an emotionally charged, dramatic ending. In a biographical show, the producers must secure the rights to the artist’s songs, so the portrayals are always positive spins on the artist’s life. After all, if a production team approached you to use your music in a biographical musical and then tried to portray you as a villain, you likely wouldn’t be too happy! If a biographical jukebox focuses on real-life individuals, then many antagonists are also real people. However, using only known information from an artist’s life can help avoid defamatory statements or portrayals in the production. The wellknown conflicts between Cher and Sonny Bono are penciled in The Cher Show. In a notable collaboration, Cher watched several performances of The Cher Show and gave it a stamp of approval. Her endorsement of the show and approval of the actors helped to shape the production. Stephanie J. Block, the performer playing Cher as Star, reiterated the critical nature of true-to-life portrayals. Block’s performance was not only enhanced through personal contact with Cher, but given license by Cher who trained her on mannerisms and voice. Upon her first meeting, Block was petrified, but wanted to get as close to the character as possible, saying: I was brought to the principal’s office to meet Cher, and she was lovely. She was gracious. She knows what it takes and the vulnerability you need to be out there exposed, especially when she is going to be watching her own life. And she was honest, too. She was like, “You gotta know, this is pretty damn scary for me, too. So let’s just do it together.”15 In a similar vein, Ben Brantley wrote a rave review of Jessie Mueller’s portrayal of Carole King: But when Ms. Mueller sings the show’s title song—sitting at a keyboard in, of course, Carnegie for the production’s finale—she delivers something you don’t expect from a jukebox musical. That’s a complex, revitalizing portrait of how a very familiar song came into existence, and of the real, conflicted person within the reluctant star.16 Accuracy is probably the biggest obstacle for actors in their portrayal. Critics and audiences alike demand the real deal. The biographical challenge remains: How do you replicate an icon? In the execution of a bio-jukebox, the musician-as-protagonist’s life story is turned into idyllic entertainment. Not necessarily filled with falsified events but rather stuffed with ideas and conflicts which are enhanced in order to highlight different aspects of an individual’s life in a way that can be easily communicated. This satisfies the audience’s craving for an entertaining, exciting, humorous, and thought-provoking experience. As a bonus, theatergoers can begin to think of

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the artist’s songs as emotionally connected to true-to-life events. The musician is the protagonist. They are the hero, the underdog, the character the audience must support and believe in for the story to thrive. When involved in or central to the dramatic conflict, the protagonist is still allowed to make mistakes and have human foibles, but they come out the celebrated hero in the end, a person who has achieved their goals and learned lessons. The story must be entertaining and engaging for viewers while remaining truthful in the story being told. Including sensationalized or blatantly fictitious events makes the portrayal ingenuine. When serious topics are discussed, this can cross a line into defamatory statements if information is introduced that never happened. However, realistic struggles such as mental health lapses, substance abuse, relationship missteps, and other strife, create dramatic conflict in which our characters face and overcome. This chapter has covered biographical catalog shows in general, and focused on the details of Beautiful and The Cher Show because of how homogenous and formulaic this subgenre really is. With few exceptions, the structure and placement of song throughout the musical is standardized. The struggles and triumphs of the artist track throughout the show for an eventual rosy picture of the main character. And, of course, the songs themselves are direct reflections of the artist’s life and emotional state at the time of composition. The fealty to the formula makes bio-musicals distinct from artist catalog and eraand genre-­specific shows, despite them all having the five characteristics of a jukebox musical. As we have discussed here, how the biographical formula works in performance, and how it remains effective in performance, stems from audience anticipation. The ticket buyers are anticipating a rise-and-falland-rise narrative and are also very ready to hear specific numbers from the songwriter’s repertoire. Also, to a more intense degree than other musicals, people expect the performer to sound like, and at least be costumed like, the actual performer. Directors, designers, and actors need to search for artistic and creative opportunities within the formula, without deviating too far from it as the disastrous flop of Lennon can attest. The songs and scenes that have the greatest potential are those that are the most anticipated but also, if you think about it, are the strangest: the combination of personal event from a songwriter or singer’s life and a song that they at one time recorded. When Carole and Gerry write “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” in act one of Beautiful, it is not anything like what actually happened as that song was composed and produced. Nor was it a deep reflection of Carole and Gerry’s relationship as the scene makes it out to be. It is an idealized portrait of both that moment and the creative process, and the show doubles down on that vision by having the song performed twice, both by Carole and Gerry and then later by the Shirelles. (This is a reverse of the number’s recording history: it was released by the Shirelles in 1960 and then recorded by King for Tapestry in 1971.) The challenge for scenes like this in production is to find the poignancy underneath the song, its hidden truths, and using the tools of theatrical design and acting to bring them out.

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The next and final chapter examines the broadest and least constrained out of the types of jukebox shows, the era- and genre-specific musical. Because they can draw from a wider range of hit songs, and because it has few limitations on the subject matter, the stories and narratives are wide open.

Notes 1 Randal Myler and Mark Harelik, Lost Highway: The Music and Legend of Hank Williams (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1996). 2 Joe Dziemianowicz, review of Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, New York Post, March 21, 2019. 3 Alexis Soloski, review of Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, Guardian (London), March 21, 2019. 4 Greg Evans, review of Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, Deadline, March 21, 2019. 5 Anne Beatts, Leader of the Pack: The Ellie Greenwich Musical (New York: Samuel French, 1985), 61. 6 Michael Joseph Gross, “The Boy from Oz You Won’t Meet on Broadway,” New York Times, October 5, 2003. 7 Ben Brantley, review of The Boy from Oz, New York Times, October 17, 2003. 8 Chris Jones, “Just ‘Believe!’ Pre-Broadway ‘Cher Show’ Needs to Let The Chers Take Charge,” Chicago Tribune, June 28, 2018. 9 Chris Jones, “‘Everything is Real,’” Chicago Tribune, May 31, 2015. 10 John Fleming, Davies and Penhall’s Sunny Afternoon (London: Routledge, 2017), 24. 11 Ibid., 28. 12 For a more in-depth analysis of the performance and, in particular, its use of blackface, see Kevin Byrne, Minstrel Traditions: Mediated Blackface in the Jazz Age (London: Routledge Press, 2020). 13 John Jeremiah Sullivan, “American Shuffle,” New York Times Magazine, March 24, 2016. 14 Joan Aconcella, review of Shuffle Along, or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, New York Review of Books, June 23, 2016. 15 Suzy Evans, “How Stephanie J. Block Became Cher with a Little Help from the Star Herself,” Hollywood Reporter, December 17, 2018. 16 Ben Brantley, “A Songwriter Who Found Her Voice,” New York Times, January 12, 2014.

7 Reminiscing about the Classics Era- and Genre-Specific Musicals

Like hit movie soundtracks that define a generation—think Footloose, Saturday Night Fever, The Breakfast Club—a musical that builds its narrative around a collection of well-known tracks from a specific genre and time period pulls an audience into the story by evoking memories and catering to musical tastes. This chapter focuses on era- and genre-specific musicals, the subcategory of jukebox musicals that includes music in a specific style and/or historical era of the twentieth or twenty-first century. Era- and genre-specific jukebox musicals use genres and movements that give people the feeling of a specific time period. These musicals are idealized time capsules that the audience can watch as they are opened and revealed. Unlike biographical or artist catalog musicals, era- and genre-specific shows feature songs from multiple artists who all worked in the same musical style. These songs are connected by sound and by time period. Because the songs reflect the era in which they were written, they are complemented by the musical’s script, whose setting, tone, and story share the mood of the music. Like artist catalog shows, genre-specific musicals have an original story or adapted plot taken from a movie or literary work. These musicals are very stylized in how they conjure up the past, like the mid-1980s in Rock of Ages, or the glitz and glamour of 1990s pop stars in & Juliet, and the spunky early twentieth century New York streets in Hello! My Baby, written to “connect a new generation with a fading, uniquely American cultural legacy.”1 Musicals such as these also utilize specific instruments from that era, to add a nostalgic aural filter over the tunes. These can be plunking banjos, wailing electric guitars, or droning synthesizer beats. Narratively, there is a bit more freedom in an era- and genre-specific musical, because of the quantity of music that can be integrated, such as glam rock of Rock of Ages or 1950s and 1960s song leader ballads in The Marvelous Wonderettes. This final chapter examines the most structurally and dramaturgically challenging of the jukeboxes, because the openness of the music DOI: 10.4324/b22939-9

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and the story that must house it. Examining the potentials and excesses of the genre make it a worthy conclusion to the book as a whole. Era- and genre-specific musicals sell themselves through pure nostalgia, as they do not have the same draw for a specific performer as in an artist catalog or biographical show. Most era- and genre-specific musicals lean heavily on nostalgia through their aesthetic choices, themes, and dramaturgical patterns. They tell a story that is meaningful to audiences who are current interpreters and former participants in the entertainment style. The era- and genre-specific musical takes the audience on a trip down memory lane, highlighting aspects of a certain decade to create a romanticized look and feel. Drawing cues from a typical audience member’s reminiscences of the featured era, writers, choreographers, and designers litter the production with typical accoutrements, like the circle skirts and saddle shoes in The Marvelous Wonderettes. Knowing what audiences remember and love from the time period, as well as the ability to discriminate among possible choices from a wide range of popular music, is critical to audience appeal. Balancing this winking symbolism within a new story builds on audience comprehension and helps immerse them in the plot. As noted by John Severn in Shakespeare as Jukebox Musical, “While an existing song in a jukebox musical gains another level of meaning from its placement in a narrative, its former meanings are not erased. Indeed, these former meanings in turn loop back to deepen the meaning of the narrative.”2 Like a time capsule, era- and genrespecific musicals encase nostalgic or historic elements in a narrative to elicit the audience’s fond memories of the past. Interpretation relies on both individual experiences or historical understanding. Like time capsules, not everything can be included and opening one needs a little help. Sometimes the audience is asked to travel to a place and time where they have never been, but this technique can be effective for both the initiated and uninitiated to the era. Rock of Ages’s clever dramaturgical construction has influenced other era-specific musicals that have followed. The dramaturgy is gleefully and intentionally chaotic, driven by the necessity of molding the story around music that is awkwardly retrograde. As an example of the pandemonium, the script is full of metatheatrical asides that permit the show to thread the needle between celebrating and criticizing the genre’s excesses, particularly the depictions of women. Like Mamma Mia!, it is nostalgic for an era when the anticipated audience demographic was in the throes of youth, but it wants to both present and undercut the schoolyard misogyny of the lyrics. Rock of Ages’s plot revolve around Sherrie, who arrives in Los Angeles to become famous, and Dennis, a club owner who needs to save his business from villainous developers. These are two narrative tropes reminiscent of 1980s teen movies and music videos.3 This pastiche of plot contrivances is part of the production’s constant winking. The humorous, yet snide, tone is established from the outset. One of the club employees, Lonny, serves as the narrator. He opens the show by talking directly to the audience and pokes fun at the ludicrous era by asking the audience members to get friendly with the person next to them, intimating that they will be more than

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friends by the end of the show. Lonny says, “Yes, we are taking you back to an even sexier time … THE REAGAN ERA!!!”4 This setup works to remind the audience of the sexual attitudes of the era. The script presents itself as a comedy to ask the contemporary audience to lighten up. Humor sidetracks the audience from thinking about any serious misogynistic associations. But the songs need to be carefully picked, otherwise the audience will lose sight of the story. Because these musicals have a large pool of nostalgic hits to choose from, chart-toppers and lesser-known tracks can be used to further the various storylines. Each song could be a hit from its own time period and the ones that are most remembered will give the audience an emotional jolt. Audiences can immerse themselves in the songs of their childhood, teenage years, or young adulthood, and recall those times via the musical. This emotionally connects the audience to the characters, and can help them root for people that they might not otherwise. Audiences may find themselves reliving their rock ‘n’ roll dreams, like those Drew is pursuing in Rock of Ages, or remember their high school prom as in The Marvelous Wonderettes. Younger audiences could sing and dance to the Backstreet Boys’ 1999 hit “Larger than Life” in & Juliet. Rock of Ages brings audiences back in time to the dive bars of Los Angeles, where misfits walked on floors covered in sticky beer and rowdy bar patrons squatted for hours at their favorite haunts. The soundtrack of Whitesnake, Poison, Journey, and Twisted Sister become aural hauntings, helping audiences key into the temporal ambiance. As musical movements and pop culture trends change, shifting aesthetics define eras. With the progression of musical innovation since the beginning of recorded sound, musical genres and movements define a place and era. As time progresses, nostalgia affects each new generation.

Playing the Nostalgia The nostalgia of era- and genre-specific musicals often paint a time period with broad strokes. Sometimes they are intended as escapist fun. In Roger Bean’s The Marvelous Wonderettes, Betty Jean, Missy, Suzy, and Cindy Lou perform as the Marvelous Wonderettes at their prom in act one and ten-year reunion in act two.5 The audience literally becomes the four girls’ school chums, serving as both the promgoers and the former classmates. This immersion allows the audience to experience the characters’ progression. The transformation over a tumultuous decade, and the personality shifts of the characters, becomes much more apparent. During the second act, the audience learns how the four girls’ lives panned out from the innocence of the 1950s to the rebellion of the 1960s. In most instances, The Marvelous Wonderettes uses diegetic performance to comment on events and interactions that happen in the story. The use of diegetic performance, similar to a biographical musical, provides a sense of grounding for the audience. The audience can relate because the plot and characters are believable. These songs provide insight into the characters’ emotions, which furthers the performances and provides an emotional parallel for their reactions. Due to the

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particular placement in the musical, the songs in act one give the audience a sense of emotional intimacy with each character. The numbers are calibrated perfectly with what is to come within the story. The first several songs—“Mr. Sandman” and “Lollipop”—are instantly recognizable. As the four girls begin to sing solo numbers, all of which pertain to love, each song aligns with the subtext, backstage drama, and personal relationships among the members. Missy reveals she has a crush on their teacher, Mr. Lee (played by an audience member whose song appears in act one). Through “Secret Love,” it is revealed that Betty Jean suspects that her boyfriend is cheating on her with Cindy Lou. This is confirmed when Betty Jean sings “Lipstick on Your Collar” and Cindy Lou responds with “Lucky Lips.” Suzy’s naive love for her boyfriend is the focus of “Stupid Cupid.” Cindy Lou commandeers “Allegheny Moon” from Betty Jean, and the audience watches their friendship unravel publicly. Ah, teenage angst … The audience is welcomed into the action, as the Marvelous Wonderettes address them as classmates and promgoers. The overall metatheatrical frame of the performance creates a multilayered reality for the audience. The theater space is transformed into a gym filled with crepe paper decorations, while audience participation helps to imaginatively fill in the rest of the scene. Like biographical musicals, diegetic material grounds the plotline. The audience “votes” for prom queen in act one, using slips which had been given out beforehand. (It’s not taken too seriously. The actual winner is written into the script and is critical to act two.) This staged prom voting, however, invites the audience to make believe they are participating in the world of the musical. The involvement physically and mentally brings them into the performance. The audience is invited to escape to the simpler world of the musical, into the time capsule of theater and music. The nostalgia in act two is amplified even more, as the emotional and physical setting is of a ten-year high school reunion. The lens of maturity and acquired life experiences creates a new metatheatricality. The conflicts of the decade-old senior prom now seem inconsequential, or completely different, to what the young, naive girls experienced. The audience relates to lackluster marriages, conflicted relationships, and the upheavals of pregnancy and child-rearing. However, long-running grudges can still hurt. The songs in act two are longer and there are more solos than in act one, with each character singing three to four songs in succession while the others serve as backup singers. The women describe how their lives have changed while also realizing the parallels between then and now. Dramaturgically similar to act one, relevant songs spring forth when the plot needs them, such as “That’s When the Tears Start” and “It’s My Party” when Betty Jean realizes her husband is again unfaithful, this time with another former classmate. The songs chosen in act two are more individualized than those in act one. The reunion brings a sense of achieved independence, and the audience understands the four characters’ emotional separation. However, when the play finishes, the overarching theme has the women bonding together and offering a reconciliation of friendship. The Marvelous Wonderettes’

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straightforward plot is steeped in nostalgic tunes, and the audience is encouraged to get up and dance in the final medley, which includes Aretha Franklin’s classic, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.” To further appreciate the skill and craftsmanship of The Marvelous Wonderettes, it can be compared to another juke that covers the same time period and sometimes the same songs, Beehive: The 60s Musical. It also has an all-female cast, of six instead of four. Beehive barely has a plot, and this works to the detriment of its nostalgic message and enjoyment factor. The show really lays its cards on the table right from the top. After an opening musical montage, the first word spoken, as a direct address to the audience, is “remember.” This directive is framed as a series of rhetorical questions such as “Remember white Jubilee wax on your go-go boots?” that also gets the show into trouble.6 Among the people the show asks the audience to contemplate are the Beatles, Sonny and Cher, and Elvis, though it has no songs by any of these artists. Characters ask the audience to remember the twist, but nobody sings “The Twist.” The numbers that are included range across the era and the changes of style and taste over the decade is what creates the narrative arc, moving from girl group hits “It’s My Party” and “My Boyfriend’s Back” to hippy anthems “Proud Mary” and “Me and Bobby McGee.” Wonderettes is a better show that uses the same trappings of the era, because it has a plot that connects the characters to the meanings and mini-narratives of the songs. This accentuates and deepens the nostalgia in rich and interesting ways, as the four women in the show look back and experience the change themselves. Beehive just announces change, whereas the passage of time in Wonderettes is felt by the characters. The bitterness of growing up in that era is palatable. Like an artist catalog musical, the era- and genre-specific musical has an original plot and invented characters. Era- and genre-specific musicals don’t usually feature real-life individuals within the work but they do play on stereotypes or parody a specific personality. Stacee Jaxx in Rock of Ages, for example, pillories a typical self-absorbed rockstar. Motown: The Musical, on the other hand, straddles the line between biographical and era- and genre-specific delineations, as it tells the story of Berry Gordy and founding of Motown Records. A vast catalog of music is available by artists who recorded on the label, and the musical absolutely capitalizes on these riches, almost to a fault. Motown features more than sixty-five songs from artists such as the Jackson Five, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, and Stevie Wonder. The story, loosely based on Gordy’s autobiography, charts the rise of the legendary record company, with iconic songs such as “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and “I Want You Back” serving as the drive, backdrop, and focus of the show. Fast-paced biographical snippets of the artists are dramatized as they pushed through racial barriers to become famous in mainstream society. Like The Marvelous Wonderettes and Rock of Ages, and similar to biographical musicals such as Beautiful and The Cher Show, many of the performances in

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Motown are diegetic. The artists and groups perform their hits themselves while the overall narrative is on the fame and influence of the record label. However, the musical’s fast pace was negatively reviewed, with critics lamenting that, rather than focusing on a few select artists, the plot moves too quickly to appreciate the many different musicians’ stories. There’s only so much one show can insert into a plot over the course of two hours. Overloading an audience with information and characters left critics feeling unfulfilled, with barely sketched out information presented in the story. A revolving door of artists and historical moments can contribute to a reviewlike storyline that is treated much more superficially than if the audience remains with specific characters to witness their journeys, thus allowing them to empathize and root for the protagonist. A common problem in all jukebox musicals, and on this most critics agree, is the exhausting barrage of hit after hit. Too much of a good thing means a weaker plot that meanders through to the next song. In his review of Motown, Charles Isherwood pointed out that “making way for so much music means that ‘Motown’ breezily scrimps on storytelling. Characters come and go so quickly we barely have time to register their famous names, let alone get to know them.”7 Similarly, David Rooney notes how squeezing in so much history prevents a coherent story from coming across to the audience: “You can’t hurry love, but apparently you can hurtle through 25 years of pop history without depth or complexity if Motown: The Musical is any indication.” However, Rooney acknowledges the importance of the songs included in Motown: “[T]he point is that these songs are embedded so deep into our musical DNA that they all bring an invigorating rush of familiarity. No matter how shaky the narrative context there’s still an enormous kick from watching them performed live.”8 Overall, both reviewers share a similar note about integrated music. Isherwood points out one of the most telling aspects of the jukebox musical genre as a whole as he notes, Audiences don’t go to Broadway musicals to see audiobooks performed live, and few are likely to complain that “Motown” skimps on what they have come to hear: the sweet stream of music that fused the soul of rhythm and blues with the ear-worm hooks of pop to create a genre that played a role in America’s changing attitudes toward race in the 1960s.9 The catalog musical is all about the famous songs that audiences love to hear and have performed live. If the vocal performances are good and the music is presented well, the story often comes second. Cheri Steinkellner’s Hello! My Baby integrates tin pan alley tunes from the early twentieth century already in the public domain. From a nostalgic viewpoint, obviously, modern-day audiences and actors have no first-hand recollection of the era. As Philip Brandes notes, as a departure from previous era- and genre-specific musicals, “Seeing the spirits of Eddie Cantor, Al Jolson and the songwriters of a bygone era reflected in these young faces, you can score one for continuity in this self-styled ‘new-fashioned musical.’”10 When Hello! My Baby protagonist Betty Gold dons the garb of the teenage “song pluggers” of the time to break into the male-dominated field of songwriting, the conflict between her

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disguise and ambition is the primary source of tension and comedy. This plot echoes similar themes of women cross-dressing to succeed that is found in both Renaissance plays and Yiddish trouser comedies.11 Betty also becomes entangled with her fellow songwriter Mickey McKee. The relationships within the story become more complicated when “Buddy,” who is really Betty, catches the eye of socialite Alice Tierney, and when Mickey believes that Betty is in love with his new songwriting rival Buddy.12 Integration of song, and the incorporation of mini-narrative and plot, create opportunities for grounding in the world of the musical. Even costumes and props can be connected to a song’s lyrics. In Hello! My Baby, Alice’s eveningwear is the impetus for the song “Alice Blue Gown.” The musical’s plot is molded around song’s mini-narrative and the costuming grounds the song in the story. In the context of the show, the number is written by Mickey and Betty for Alice’s debutante ball. “Alice Blue Gown” was originally written about Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Teddy Roosevelt,13 but for the context of the musical, the protagonists pen it to celebrate the fictionalized ball. In this scene, the jukebox convention of using prewritten songs is turned on its head. Having too many popular and instantly recognizable songs may add to audience confusion over the characters and their importance to the plot, as was noted in the critical response to Motown. With not enough setup or breathing room between songs, the plot cannot remain true to its story. The Marvelous Wonderettes skirts around this trap by narrativizing the concert format; this dramaturgical environment circumvents the revue show structure. In Rock of Ages Stacee Jaxx and his band Arsenal perform several diegetic songs, such as “Cum on Feel the Noize.” Because of the wide pool of songs to choose from in an era- and genre-­ specific musicals, these stylings are a large draw for audiences. There is less of a niche perspective to the music; many people are interested in that specific genre and era. And there are almost limitless songs to potentially choose from. Choosing two chart-toppers per year for a whole decade can create a soundtrack of twenty recognizable hits for audiences. For example, & Juliet utilizes a range of female-led pop songs as the title character reclaims her own story and life from the male-dominated Romeo and Juliet.

Adaptation and Genre Like artist catalog musicals, older works can be adapted in exciting and rejuvenating ways, by using the songs to create a work that amalgamates the music with a story that has been told and performed for even hundreds of years. According to John Severn, such conglomerate works require a new point of view, to be able to appreciate and understand where the work is coming from. He characterizes audiences as having “an openness to change in the present, and a willingness to reassess their relationship with the past.”14 As an example, & Juliet blends well-known intellectual properties, music known to younger generations, with a widely known source text, transforming it into a girl-power musical that turns

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the traditional patriarchal structures on its head.15 & Juliet features pop music from the 1990s and 2000s from a variety of artists and has an interesting tie-in: all of the music was either being produced or written in collaboration with hitmaker Max Martin.16 This musical creates a new ending for Romeo and Juliet and transforms the tragedy into an anachronistic pop opera. The incorporation of Martin’s popular music and reinventing a well-known narrative provides a fresh perspective on a four-hundred-year-old play. It integrates Renaissance-era fashion design and visual flourishes such as quills with modernized fabrics, lights, dance, and music. & Juliet also blends instruments and aural styles, through the use of strings and harpsichord to bring a Renaissance-like flair to the pop music. In the show, the raucous pop stylings of chart-topping forges the two styles together. This framing creates an irresistible hook for integrating plot and song, especially as the core characters of the show are iconic figures. The songs were chosen to match the narrative’s themes of independence, teen adventure, love, and personal change. The Spice Girls’ music has a rebellious, if sanitized, feminine energy, while the Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC have many recognizable dance hits. All of the aesthetic choices are at play in the musical’s metanarrative framing device. In it, Shakespeare’s wife, Anne Hathaway, first persuades her husband to change the downer ending of the play and then even takes an active role in shaping the story anew, in ways that reflect her understandings and hopes for love and marriage. Because the story is not directly lifted from Romeo and Juliet but operates from a reenvisioned premise of the play, it has an additional energy, a mission of artistic freedom, and a requirement to take liberties with the narrative. The musical begins with rehearsals before the first performances of the play. Shakespeare and the ensemble of actors feel that the production is near-perfect but Anne pauses the rehearsal, questioning the ending and maintaining her opposition to Juliet’s suicide. Seeing more in the young character, she wonders what the rest of Juliet’s life would be like if survival was the beginning of her story rather than her end. Much of the musical focuses on giving Juliet more agency. Juliet’s youth and social position means that the young protagonist is told what to do by her family, especially her father, Lord Capulet, rather than being allowed to choose actions under her own volition. In the original play, a great deal of importance is placed upon masculinity and the patriarchy. While Juliet was originally allowed to make a decision regarding when she would want to marry, she is eventually forced into an arranged marriage designed by her father. & Juliet flips this narrative around, with Juliet leaving Verona and traveling to the city of Paris for needed soul-searching. The devices of writing and rewriting contribute to a metanarrative that comments on the Shakespeare play’s misogynistic tones and the heavily-enforced patriarchal gender roles. & Juliet highlights and emphasizes this argument with girl-power anthems such as Katy Perry’s “Roar,” Robyn’s “Show Me Love,” and Britney Spears’ “Oops! … I Did it Again.” Juliet circumvents the final rebellion of the play and is saved by Anne from killing herself. Anne and her husband take on

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roles of competing authors and dramaturgs wishing to take charge of the story, their rivalry heard through a dueling duet of the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way.” This is a prime example of how a song can change its context within a jukebox musical. The lyrics are the same, but the call and response nature between Will and Anne dramatizes a new thematic layer to the lyrics. Will’s reluctance to make the change is the initial motivator for the song. While they express love for each other in the first few lines, the phrase “I Want It That Way” takes on different meanings, changing from a declaration of love to an adamant need to assert one’s own creativity. The number signals the start of their own relationship conflict and also underlines the deeper problems within the story. The interplay between song and adaptation highlights a new theme of personal choice and self-discovery. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet has extremely limited agency. In & Juliet, her future is not so bleak and her options for living life are more open. Juliet now can decide who she wants to be, who she wants to be with, and how she wants to live her life. The & Juliet adaptation twists the ending so that Juliet, now more mature, returns to a miraculously living Romeo to announce that she knows her own mind. This redirection of Romeo and Juliet, in which her options and prospects were limited to those of her father, Lord Capulet, allows the musical to reformulate the messages behind present day feminist movements. The dramatic characters take on new roles within & Juliet, as Anne Hathaway takes the helm of the story. She jumps into the plot, becoming a companion to Juliet and coaxing her to think differently about the world. Juliet’s nurse has a new role as well. She remains Juliet’s chaperone but also has her own story separate from her ward. She has hopes and dreams as much as Juliet. Instead of being the source of comedic annoyance to other characters, she offers maternal comfort. She sings “Perfect” by Pink, which gives Juliet strength in her struggle to find herself outside of romantic relationships. The placement within the narrative and sentiment behind the rendition of Britney Spears’ “Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” made it one of the most critically celebrated songs in the musical. The number, which initially was about a young woman’s move toward adult maturity, is given added layers because it is sung by May, a friend of Juliet who identifies as nonbinary. In giving it to May, the song highlights the struggles they face within a rigidly binary world. The song highlights a lack of safety and security for May because of continued gender constructions that are physically mapped onto clothing and public spaces and also stressed through expected family roles and arranged heterosexual marriages. Though the places where May travels with Juliet and Angelique are worldly and cosmopolitan, they are still judged and fear the violence that could be carried out on characters who don’t fit into specific heteronormative ideals. “Roar” is Juliet’s eleventh-hour torch song. It is her anthem of strength that answers for the hardships and obstacles that she faced from the very beginning of the musical. Juliet learns to use her knowledge, experience, and independence to make her own decisions, not those decided upon by her parents, friends, or social expectations. Both “Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman” and “Roar” exemplify the show’s central feminist theme.

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This adapted version shows the versatility of catalog musicals to bring forth alternate messages from a classic story, which ultimately opens up Shakespeare’s works to new audiences. As noted in Shakespeare as Jukebox Musical, the “jukebox musical’s capacity to accommodate a multiplicity of viewpoints” means that adaptations of Shakespeare can convey “multiple potential meanings according to the context in which they are performed.”17 Like many adaptations, & Juliet puts the responsibility on the spectator to have enough cultural capital and knowledge of the play’s original tragedy, which is caused by the masculine energy that drives the source text. Otherwise, the girl-power irony is lost. Despite having a variety of new characters and a reworked metatheatrical narrative, real enjoyment of the show depends on an audience’s familiarity with the original work. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the audience won’t have a good time dancing in their seats to Katy Perry, Jessie J, and the Backstreet Boys, but it can affect how an audience member might react to the plot. Shakespeare’s works often feature stories and characters from different settings and time periods, such as castles in Denmark and Greek villages, so the combination of a Shakespearean story with modern music falls in line with the existing dramaturgical pattern. Shakespeare as Jukebox Musical finds that the “conscious obstruction of stable links between the past and the present is particularly prominent in jukebox musical versions of Shakespeare’s plays, which by their nature already complicate a sense of a stable past by bringing together in one narrative at least two time periods.”18 Their use of catchy pop tunes reflect modern sensibilities, such as the third-wave feminist movement and public support of LGBTQ+ identities. Many of these era- and genre-specific musicals are fun and frivolous, and are unconcerned with deep-rooted inequalities or systemic social problems. Some gloss over issues, focusing on the positive overarching aesthetics or themes of an era to stir up warm feelings of nostalgia, so the audience feels uplifted when they leave the theater. In Rock of Ages, German developers Hertz and Franz want to wipe Los Angeles clean of rock ‘n’ roll hedonism and replace it with suburbs and business developments. This threatens the life of the Bourbon Room and the rock ‘n’ roll community. Sherrie is repeatedly, and comedically, objectified by the men around her and is often put in harm’s way by their perception of her as a prop. She is, however, saved in the nick of time from each possible danger. Stacee Jaxx’s predatory behavior toward Sherrie and other female characters is a running theme in the show. Drew’s rockstar dreams and Sherrie’s desire for fame intertwine with the seedy but always survivable Bourbon Room. Fights happen, but everyone takes their scrapes and shiners in stride as badges of honor. Even when Drew and Sherrie realize that a picket fenced life in suburbia is what they really want, they maintain the grit of their rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. In The Marvelous Wonderettes, Missy’s evolving ten-year relationship with Mr. Lee, her one-time high school teacher, is never treated as predatory. For many in a contemporary audience, this would be seen as highly inappropriate. Their future marriage is predicted to be a happy one, and the other characters are delighted when Mr. Lee proposes. Betty Jean’s husband remains unfaithful, but Cindy and Betty Jean’s

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friendship is reconciled. Nostalgia, as well as keeping thematic elements from the original music, foregrounds uplifting elements through a humorous tone. How some humor or topics will be seen in the future, however, remains to be questioned. Era- and genre-specific musicals are campy fun. They take iconic music and add exaggerated visual aesthetics and add contemporary anachronisms through the plot, dialogue, and characters. Like the other categories, era- and genre-­ specific musicals rely heavily on nostalgia and use it to their advantage. Period costumes and era-specific instruments add to the suspension of disbelief and an audience’s investment in the story. The feel-good music predominates and is the draw for audiences. Additionally, the wide pool of available songs allows creators to form the plot around a nearly endless list of topics and ideas. But too many hit songs can add to audience confusion over the characters and the narrative. Era- and genre-specific jukebox musicals can be forgiven for going off the rails, though, as such flexibility and possibility is the fuel that drives them forward.

From Soundtracks to Cast Recordings: Jukebox Musicals Adapting Movies Within the category of era- and genre-specific shows, there is a phenomenon of the musical that is also a movie adaptation. Taking a preexisting song catalog along with a preexisting story and cast of characters, and repackaging it as a musical may seem like, in the abstract, a case of too much or too many layers. And, it is true, this attempt at combining movies and songs has resulted in some of the oddest jukebox musicals ever created, but a few find ways to uniquely capitalize off of their source material and others are just rather bland. This section looks at five of them: Return to the Forbidden Planet, Bullets over Broadway, Cruel Intentions: The 90s Musical, Xanadu: The Musical, and Moulin Rouge!: The Musical. This list covers a variety of musical styles from tin pan alley to disco, but all of the films are similar to each other in their cultural status. Each are beloved cult classics that are popular in part due to their innovative or interesting soundtracks. What connects these musicals together is the experience of watching them live. The audience’s existing awareness of the plot and characters alongside a knowledge of the songs and their mini-narratives is crucial for the works. Though, this particular nostalgic tug can be precarious. One of the first jukebox-to-movie adaptations is Return to the Forbidden Planet, which is loosely based on the 1956 science fiction film Forbidden Planet, which is itself a loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Return mashes together references to the film with a heavy dose of repurposed Shakespearian dialogue and inserts 1950s and 1960s rock ‘n’ roll music into the proceedings. The show is not as slick or seamless as some of the later ones in this category, but even in its lumpiness it has a number of charms. Return foregrounds its movie influences in every way possible. The sound design is full of “synthesizer effects” that mirror the original film’s use of the theremin. The dialogue is peppered with sci-fi slang

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and a prefatory note on the acting style suggests modeling the characters on “1950’s ‘B’ movie stereotypes.”19 An illustrative example of how it combines and layers the references is to compare the Shakespearian original with the musical. In act 1, scene 1 of Tempest, Gonzago cries out against the storm: GONZAGO:  Now

I would give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground, long heath, brown [furze], any thing. The wills above be done! but I would fain die a dry death.20

In Return, the speech is repurposed as the spaceship’s crew encounters an asteroid shower: BOSUN:  Now

would I give a thousand light years of space For an acre of barren ground. SCIENCE OFFICER:  The wills above be done. But I would fain die a terrestrial death.21 As this happens, the whole crew sings “Great Balls of Fire.” The whole production works hard to maintain a high level of whimsy, through it can be difficult to keep everything in mind while mentally juggling the musical’s plot, Shakespearian quotations, dated sci-fi tropes, and Jerry Lee Lewis songs. The music used in the show is British and American such as “Good Vibrations” and “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss)” that somewhat evoke the time period in which the original movie was released. The haziness around its intentions— why these songs with this story?— carry over to the way that the numbers are interpolated into the plot and the reasons characters are motivated to sing. Act one ends with a rousing chorus of the Kinks’s “Gloria,” driven by the simplistic trope of naming a character after the song so that the cast sings her name. Other love songs are included for no greater purpose than because a character falls in love at first sight. The musical’s structure is rather flimsy, but the show can appeal to a very particular audience. If you love Shakespeare puns and rocket launches set to “Born to be Wild,” then Return to the Forbidden Planet is for you. A cleaner suturing of era and plot can be found in Bullets over Broadway, based on the movie of the same name and featuring songs from 1920s and 1930s, the era in which it is set. The story follows playwright David Shayne who, in order to get his new work financed, has to give Olive, a bootlegger’s untalented girlfriend, a prominent role. The cast of characters include eccentric showbiz types and murderous gangsters, and much of the comedy comes from the main character attempting to create a play under stressful and dangerous conditions. The musical adheres very closely to the film. It condenses some locations and character beats but in other scenes lifts whole chunks of dialogue from the movie. In some cases, music that had been playing in the background as part of the movie’s soundtrack is instead sung by the characters. The tunes are memorable tin pan alley numbers full of wordplay and a sense of joie de vivre, such as “Let’s Misbehave”

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and “I Found a New Baby.” The tunes also have little subtext or depth to them and are simply, unabashedly fun. The dialogue in Bullets over Broadway is fastpaced and witty, which could be bogged down by the insertion of a song, even a comic one. This can break the momentum, especially with a script that has so much wordplay and verbal sparring. The show’s trick is to break up numbers with asides that comment upon the moment or undercut the action with cringe humor. A perfect example of this is the act one number “I Want a Hot Dog for My Roll,” when David meets Olive for the first time. To demonstrate her range, Olive breaks out a rendition of this smutty tune of endless double entendres. In the midst of her performance, she interjects a series of one-liners, such as “I called it interpretive dancing ‘cause the audience used to interpret it one way and the Catholic Church interpreted it another.”22 This is how, throughout the show, the comedic energy remains up tempo. Ironically, it is the character of Olive, who is written as a talentless egomaniacal performer, who has the best numbers, because they carefully calibrate character, song, and plot for maximum comedic effect. When scenes try to straightforwardly emphasize the sentiment of a song in its intended manner, they are lackluster despite being good tunes. Translating a movie into a jukebox musical is a tricky hybrid and Bullets over Broadway only fitfully reaches its own goals of interrogating story and song. Like Return to the Forbidden Planet, Cruel Intentions: The 90s Musical is an era- and genre-specific jukebox that is also a double adaptation. It is based on the movie of the same name that is itself adapted from the nineteenth-century French novel Dangerous Liaisons. Like the movie, the musical is set among the students at an elite, monied private school and follows stories of sexual betrayal and romantic heartbreak. The interpersonal scheming and emotional manipulation by the characters gives the show a frothy and melodramatic tone. The real question for this show, which, also like Return, isn’t sufficiently answered, is why are these musical numbers fit into this narrative? As the title promises, it is set in the 1990s and the songs are all pop tunes from the era. But the method of integrating them is usually quite simplistic, bordering on embarrassing. Early in the show, the characters Kathryn Merteuil and Sebastian Valmont place a bet over whether or not he can seduce a virginal classmate. In laying out their wager, Sebastian asks what is at stake: KATHRYN:  If I win, then that vintage car of yours is mine. SEBASTIAN:  And if I win? KATHRYN:  I’ll give you something that you’ve been obsessing

about ever since

our parents got married. SEBASTIAN:  Be more specific. KATHRYN:  In English, I’ll fuck your brains out.23 She then launches into Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle.” Its mini-narrative does not match the position or mindset of the character, but rather undercut them. Yes, the lyrics are full of sexual metaphors, but the first-person narrator

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of the song is in a subservient, anxious position relative to her object of desire. Kathryn, on the other hand, is more assertive and calculating toward Sebastian. Other songs that are awkwardly grafted to the plot include Deep Blue Something’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and No Doubt’s “Just a Girl.” Another scene that runs against the music to the detriment of both is when a bigoted parent dismisses her daughter’s music teacher, not because they are in an inappropriate relationship but because he’s Black. This all happens while she sings TLC’s “No Scrubs.” The original number is sung by a group of African American women, about men who have no money or prospects and thus are disregarded by the narrators. The tune’s message of empowerment and self-respect is clever and assertive; having it performed by a racist rich white woman in Cruel Intentions is an attempt to be edgy and subversive that is excruciating in its execution. Cruel Intentions is an adaptation that, in theory, should be able to overlap song and story, but the execution is without much merit. As is evidenced by the much stronger & Juliet, there are clever ways of taking the music of this period to bring freshness and surprise to a well-known story. But this particular show demonstrates the pitfalls rather than the possibilities. Xanadu is one of strangest jukebox musicals overall, not only because of its source material but because of its attitude toward that movie. The musical follows the plot of the 1980 film, in which Kira, one of Zeus’s muses, arrives in Los Angeles to help a struggling painter open a roller skate disco. Thankfully the musical gives Kira significantly more agency over herself and her own artistic aspirations rather than being the passive and objectified muse of the original film. The narrative of this cult classic is bonkers and there is a high potential for parody. But the catalog musical version of Xanadu seems to genuinely hate the movie that it is based on, and treats it with withering contempt. Parody is a common form of humor in jukebox musicals. All Shook Up makes fun of the outdated gender politics of Elvis films and Rock of Ages mildly criticizes the misogyny of hair metal. But Xanadu is relentless in how it lambasts the film: the terrible dialogue, the wooden acting, and the haphazard plot. Here is the opening scene of the show, in which the audience is introduced to the lead character as she describes how she will visit the artist incognito: KIRA:  First, I will not call myself “Clio.” I will call myself CALLIOPE:  You’ve thrown them off of the track now! KIRA:  Secondly, I will wear roller skates and leg warmers! EUTERPE:  You shall be as current as today’s headlines! KIRA:  And thirdly, I will sport an Australian accent.24

“Kira.”

That last line is a reference to star Olivia Newton-John’s wavering accent in the movie. From the very beginning, the show undercuts who the characters are and their motivations, in ways that are funny but also cruel. After establishing at the start that the characters are silly and paper thin, the show has no choice but to follow through with that attitude for the rest of the performance. Because of

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this, Xanadu paints itself into a corner. After explicitly telling the audience in the opening moments not to care about the characters, it would be impossible and disingenuous to ask them to care what happens. Even the disco songs are undercut in performance. Electric Light Orchestra wrote a number of songs for the film, a number of which became enduring hits such as “Magic” and “All Over the World.” and Newton-John wrote several as well, a number of which became enduring hits, such as “Magic” and “All Over the World.” Other songs were added to the musical: “Evil Woman” and “Strange Magic” by Electric Light Orchestra and “Have You Never Been Mellow” by Newton-John. The songs that were written for Xanadu the movie are all sung straightforward, following the soundtrack versions and the distinct vocal stylings of Newton-John in particular. But the three added numbers are played as parodies of themselves. All three are sung by the muses, rather than the lead characters. Their use in the musical is a bit strange, as they also undercut the earnestness of the other songs and of the pop music genre in general. For example, Electric Light Orchestra’s “Evil Woman” is sung by a group of scheming muses as they plan to trick Kira into falling in love. The song’s placement in the musical inverts the mini-narrative of the lyrics. Instead of a male narrator singing about a woman who has wronged him, they are singing about themselves as evil. Another odd detail: the three muses, as they gloat over their diabolical efforts, scat along with the guitar solo. By mimicking the sound of an electric guitar, it becomes a parody of the band’s disco style. “Strange Magic” also adds some vocal screeching and scatting, taking the guitar wails and converting them into vocal tics. Throughout the musical, the numbers pillory the very foundational music, sound, and bands that make up the show. Xanadu also sprinkles the dialogue with references to other jukebox musicals and Andrew Lloyd Webber; it spares no one from the cutting satire. This can be a fun, if also exhausting, show for people who get all of the references, but can be cynical and confusing for those who do not. All musicals based on movies expect some passing familiarity with the source material in order to effectively move and amuse the audience, but Xanadu nearly demands a deep knowledge of the plot, characters, and even actors from the original. One of the most topsy-turvy musicals in this category is Moulin Rouge!, a postmodern take on an already postmodern pastiche of a film by the same name, a story of doomed love among the Parisian underclass. Despite the anachronistic flashes, Moulin Rouge! has none of the winking self-referentiality or caustic wit of Xanadu. Rather, the characters and events are played as straightforward melodrama. The layers of story and artifice in the musical are many. First, it is the film itself, and then this is followed by a number of nineteenth-century tropes of sick chorus girls, penniless artists, and life in the theater.25 The story is about the playwright Christian, who falls in love with Satine, the lead performer in the Moulin Rouge floorshow. Dramatic complications bring them together and drive them apart, before she ultimately succumbs to disease. In addition to all of the layering of story and character, the movie itself is a musical full of pop tune mashups, something that is expanded upon in the stage musical version.26

132  Types of Jukebox Musicals

The cumulative effect of these layers is clever and sometimes catchy, though it is hard to sustain a sense of personality due to all the blending and numbers can end up as a distracting game of “name that tune” that prevents the audience from investing in the stories or characters. There are two numbers in particular that exemplify the vast possibility of this musical stylization; one is a big ensemble number near the top of the show and the other is an intricate, intimate duet between the leads. The first big number in the show, “The Sparkling Diamond,” introduces the audience to the Moulin Rouge theater in all of its revelry and lasciviousness, and gives Satine a stunning entrance. At times sultry, poppy, and forceful, the song is a riot. It piles eight existing songs on top of each other, including Madonna’s “Material Girl” and Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” Rihanna’s “Diamonds” pops up for four measures and disappears.27 Satine is backed by the female chorus of the Moulin Rouge and establishes its atmosphere of sex and money. The songs in the pastiche are linked by subject matter. Another consistency is that the narrators are all women and they are either speaking to, or about, a male counterpart and the jewelry that serves as a transactional element of their relationship. The styles vary from the 1940s swing of “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” to contemporary pop. The number’s arrangement attempts to elide all of them together through harmonic blending and gradual tempo changes. The songs’ mini-narratives are themselves inconsistent with each other. Shirley Bassey’s “Diamonds are Forever” is about fickle men leaving and finding solace in jewelry while “Single Ladies” demands that the wedding ring comes before sex. The overall effect is consistent with the way the show is stitched together from parts. The characters are themselves layers of references and quotations from other sources, and their numbers follow this structure. “The Sparkling Diamond” introduces the show’s aesthetic and also discreetly acknowledges the limitations of the mashup technique as well. A more complex example of repurposed pop is “Elephant Love Medley,” a duet between Christian and Satine as he expresses his devotion to her and she slowly lowers her emotional defenses.28 The number is effective because the snippets of songs are set up as a dialogue that supports the characters’ motivations in the scene. As Christian attempts to woo Satine through tunes celebrating love, she counters with a breakup song or diss track. There are a whopping nineteen numbers incorporated into “Elephant Love Medley.” The mixture is dizzying, with some songs, such as Phil Collins’s “One More Night” being quoted through a single lyric and others being drawn out and layered in more complex fashion. The medley weaves connections between the songs and it also creates its own narrative through how it builds and juxtaposes the tunes. It gives the pastiche its own story, which is Christian convincing Satine of his love and that she should take a chance on him. He begins the medley with three songs in rapid succession: Collins’s “One More Night” followed by two measures from U2’s “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and a few from Queen’s “Play the Game.” He is testing her out, looking for her to engage in the struggle for love. She finally responds, but with

Reminiscing about the Classics 133

just a few lines from the Everly Brothers’ “Love Hurts.” Yes, she is rejecting his claim, but at least they are now in conversation and can get on the same page (of sheet music). When Christian counters with A-ha’s “Take On Me,” Satine’s riposte is to sing the refrain from Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe” before then also quoting “Take On Me”’s downbeat ending. Satine seems to have won the argument. Christian attempts to salvage his position through Donna Lewis’s “I Love You Always Forever” but Satine quiets him with Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield” and then hits him with the refrain of No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak.” The back-and-forth continues in stichomythic fashion throughout, and there are some interesting ways that the lyrics and music are connected. Sometimes it is when multiple tunes use the same metaphor, as when the “broken heart” of Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It” that Satine sings is taken up by Christian when he launches into Regina Spektor’s “Fidelity.” There are some musical elisions as well, as when Christian sings the refrain from Elvis’s “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” that ends on an A note, which is then the first one by Satine as she sings Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn.” They segue into sonic harmony by the end of the medley, signaling that their hearts are in fact intertwined. They sing excerpts from five songs together, including a misplaced “Heroes” by David Bowie, and ending on the Whitney Houston belter “I Will Always Love You.” It is an intense five-and-a-half minute song! And it captures all of the potential possibilities of the pastiche format and makes the most of it. In addition to these innovative ways of pushing the jukebox musical in newer directions, Moulin Rouge! also utilizes the tried-and-true methods of musical incorporation, with stand-alone numbers that fit the narrative. Elton John’s “Your Song” is sung as intended, and it also becomes a touchstone for Christian and Satine’s relationship. He sings it to her upon first meeting, it is incorporated into “Elephant Love Medley, “ and it is reprised at the end as she is dying. Another wonderful example is the use of Katy Perry’s “Firework” early in the show. The number itself is a bubbling pop confection of positivity, overcoming adversity, and being your best self despite what others tell you. It is full of soaring high notes that culminate in a triumphant finale. Moulin Rouge! toys with the audience’s expectations for the song to moving effect. “Firework” is a solo number by Satine as she struggles to maintain a seductive public face while also grappling with her worsening consumption. The song version’s tempo is initially described as “rubato,” or having a rhythmic flexibility, that gets “gradually steadier” as the number continues.29 But, unlike the Perry version which ends on literal and figurative high notes, this one returns to both the “rubato” shakiness of the opening as well as the song’s opening lyrics of despair—it returns to the downcast emotional state that the song is intended to dispel. This moment capitalizes on the jukebox format and overall aesthetic of the show that syncs perfectly with the character and plot. Moulin Rouge! is full of enjoyable details and, despite being sometimes confusing and sometimes overtaxing, is a fantastic take on the format. Given the careful balance of so many tricks and elements, it is a show that cannot easily be replicated.

134  Types of Jukebox Musicals

This section has focused on jukebox shows that derive their meaning and energy not only from the mini-narratives of songs but also the plots and in some cases performances from popular and cult movies. This is another way for the genre to amplify its strengths around nostalgia and audience recall for beloved stories and characters. The smartest of these shows harness expectations—like the rocket ship landing in Return to the Forbidden Planet, the roller-skating in Xanadu, or the nightclub scenes in Bullets over Broadway—while delivering a moment that is uniquely theatrical and live. The artistic and aesthetic payoffs can be significant for these shows, in creation and production.

Come What May: Jukebox Musical Innovations As a brief coda to this book, or maybe better to call it a curtain-call medley of hits, we want to look at the jukeboxes of the 2019/2020 New York season, three of which were on Broadway and one of which was at the off-Broadway Public Theater but with the promise of an eventual run on the Great White Way. This collection of well-regarded works include Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Jagged Little Pill, Moulin Rouge!, and Girl from the North Country. The production plans and runs for all of them were shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic. In considering these four together, it is interesting to note that all three categories of jukebox musical are represented. Tina is a biographical musical, Jagged and Girl are artist catalog shows, and Moulin Rouge! is an era- and genre-specific production. All of these shows have been discussed in the course of this book: Tina’s ability to convey emotion through pop songs, Jagged’s weaving of new plot with prerecorded tunes, Girl’s balance of character study and musical selection, Moulin Rouge! as a particularly dense example of adaptation. It seems appropriate to take stock of the format at the moment of pandemic pause, the COVID caesura that suspended live performance in general. Leading up to this state of suspension, there were some amazingly innovative and interesting works being written and staged. The format itself was pushing back against its structural limitations and its critical marginalization. And the emotional payoffs in these shows were immense. Actors had been ripping their guts out nightly to Bob Dylan’s “Idiot Wind,” Alanis Morissette’s “All I Really Want,” and Katy Perry’s “Firework.” This panorama hints at the possibilities and styles in the shows, and the new and unique ways of telling stories. Jukebox musicals continue to surprise and confound in different ways. In its journey from vaudeville to Mamma Mia!, from Buddy Holly to Donna Summer, jukeboxes have been met with delight and joy, and also derision and scorn. Hopefully it can also be treated with respect.

Notes 1 Philip Brandes, review of Hello! My Baby, Culture Monster, Los Angeles Times Blogs, March 28, 2012. 2 John Severn, Shakespeare as Jukebox Musical (London: Routledge, 2018), 3.

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3 The rebelling-against-authority and sticking-it-to-the-man tropes shows up in everything from John Hughes films to the video for Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” 4 Chris D’Arienzo, Rock of Ages (New York: Samuel French, 2019), 1. 5 Roger Bean, The Marvelous Wonderettes (Los Angeles: Steele Spring, 1999). 6 Larry Gallagher, Beehive: The 60s Musical (New York: Theatrical Rights Worldwide, 2017), 5. 7 Charles Isherwood, review of Motown: The Musical, New York Times, April 14, 2013. 8 David Rooney, review of Motown: The Musical, Hollywood Reporter, April 14, 2013. 9 Isherwood, review of Motown: The Musical 10 Philip Brandes, review of Hello! My Baby, Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2012. 11 Brigitte Dalinger, “Yiddish Theater in Vienna.” Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. December 31, 1999. Jewish Women’s Archive. Accessed August 5, 2021. https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/yiddish-theater-in-vienna 12 Cheri Steinkellner, Hello! My Baby (New York, NY: Music Theatre International, 2011). Accessed June 14, 2021. https://www.mtishows.com/hello-my-baby 13 Harry Tierney and Joseph McCarthy, “Alice Blue Gown,” (New York: Vanderbilt Producing Company, 1919). 14 Severn, Shakespeare as Jukebox Musical, 17. 15 Martin, Max, Miriam-Teak Lee, David Bedella, Cassidy Janson, Oliver Tompsett, Arun Blair-Mangat, and Melanie La Barrie, et al. & Juliet: Original London Cast Recording. Bill Sherman and Atlantic Records, 2019. 16 David Benedict, review of & Juliet, Variety, November 21, 2019. 17 Severn, Shakespeare as Jukebox Musical, 2. 18 Ibid., 16. 19 Bob Carlton, Return to the Forbidden Planet (New York: Samuel French, 1985), 7. 20 William Shakespeare, The Tempest, The Riverside Shakespeare, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997), 1.1.65–68. 21 Carlton, Return, 15. 22 Woody Allen, Bullets over Broadway: The Musical (New York: Music Theatre International, 2015), 22. 23 “Genie in a Bottle” on Cruel Intentions: The 90s Musical, accessed April 8, 2021, Spotify. 24 Douglas Carter Beane, Xanadu: The Musical (New York: Music Theatre International, 2007), 4. 25 Most directly, it references the novel and play La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, which was turned into the Giuseppe Verdi opera La Traviata, and has a sick courtesan at its center; and the story collection Scènes de la Vie de Bohème by Henry Murger which is best known as the source material for the Giacomo Puccini opera La Bohème, and has the rich-in-spirit artists and yet another consumptive heroine who dies in the final act. 26 Sopan Deb, “How Can ‘Moulin Rouge! The Musical!’ Upstage the Movie? With 70 Songs,” New York Times, July 17, 2019. 27 “The Sparkling Diamond,” in Moulin Rouge! Vocal Selections (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 2020). 28 “Elephant Love Medley,” in Moulin Rouge! Vocal Selections (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 2020). 29 “Firework,” in Moulin Rouge! Vocal Selections (Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard, 2020).

INDEX

“Ain’t Nobody’s Business if I Do” (The Cher Show) 24 Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations 46, 50–51, 66, 101 All Shook Up 73–74 Allen, Peter 102 American Idiot 79, 92–94 anachronism 86–92, 94 anti-war stance 46–47 Armstrong, Billie Joe 92 artist catalog musical: adaptation 86–92; anachronism 86–92; Bat Out of Hell 88; characters in 83; features of 80–83; Girl from the North Country 25, 94–95; Head over Heels 88–89; Jagged Little Pill 95–97; Lazarus 92; looser plot 94–95; mini-narratives of American Idiot 92–94; need for specificity 95–97; nostalgia 83–86; shoehorning 83–86; vs. biographical musical 80; vs. eraand genre-specific musical 83–84 Auslander, Philip 6 “Automatic Rainy Day” (the Go-Go’s) 13 Baby Boomer nostalgia 71 Backstreet Boys 5, 119, 124–126 Bat Out of Hell 22, 88 The Beach Boys 71, 74 The Beatles 7, 33, 61, 71–72, 121 Beautiful: The Carole King Story 13, 22, 27, 34, 36, 46, 49–50, 52, 75, 100, 102–103, 105–107, 111–113, 115, 121

“Beautiful” (The Carole King Story) 90, 113 Beehive: The 60s Musical 41, 121 “Believe” (The Cher Show) 113 biographical musical 16, 22, 63, 71–75, 81; Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations 46, 50–51, 66, 101; Beautiful: The Carole King Story 13, 22, 27, 34, 36, 46, 49–50, 52, 75, 100, 102–103, 105–107, 111–113, 115, 121; The Boy from Oz 35, 102; The Cher Show 22, 24, 31, 35, 51, 100, 103–107, 111–115, 121; diegetic 103; diegetic performance in 30; dramaturgical signatures of 99, 101; dramaturgy 100– 104; finales 113–116; Four Seasons 22, 71–73, 99; Hank Williams: Lost Highway 99; Jersey Boys 73–75; Leader of the Pack: The Ellie Greenwich Musical 46, 49, 102; non-diegetic 103; On Your Feet!: The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan 56, 75, 105; performance accuracy in 34–35; popularity of 111–112; progression of action 104–108; props and staging 107– 108; requirements 99; self-referential 109; Shuffle Along, or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed 109–110; storytelling 100–104; Summer: The Donna Summer Musical 6, 10, 66, 70; Sunny Afternoon 108–109; suspension of disbelief 108–111; Tina: The Tina Turner Musical 18, 55–56, 134 Birkenhead, Susan 64 Block, Stephanie J. 35, 114

Index 137

Bolton, Guy 87 Bourbon Room 27 Bowie, David 92 The Boy from Oz 35, 102 Brantley, Ben 14–15, 59, 68, 114 Breaking Up is Hard to Do 84 Buffett, Jimmy 33, 71–72, 82 Bullets over Broadway 128–129 character actions 16 The Cher Show 22, 24, 31, 35, 51, 100, 103–107, 111–115, 121 Chicago Tribune 91–92 concept albums 92 concerts 103 copyright 35–37 COVID-19 pandemic 134 Craymer, Judith 3, 4 Crazy for You 60, 65 Cruel Intentions: The 90s Musical 129–130 “Dancing Queen” (Mamma Mia!) 67–68 Davies, Ray 7, 109 diegetic songs 15–16, 26, 95, 109; narrative potential of 30–32 Disaster! 42 Disco Inferno 70 disco 16, 33, 43, 70, 84, 127, 131 doo-wop 13, 46, 48, 70 dramatic numbers 69 dramaturgy 100–104; dramaturgical, defined 15 Dreamgirls 49–51 The Drifters 112 Drowsy Chaperone 74–75 Dylan, Bob 24–26, 75, 80, 94, 97 dyslexia 112

Genre-specific musicals see era- and genre-specific musical Gershwin musical 65 Girl from the North Country 25, 94–95 “Girl group” music 48 Go-Go’s 13, 48, 89–91 God Bless the Go-Go’s (the Go-Go’s) 13 Good Vibrations 73–74 Gordy, Berry 50–51 Green Day album 79, 92, 94 hagiography 73 Hair 45–48 Hank Williams: Lost Highway 99 hard-hitting dramas 80 Head over Heels (the Go-Go’s) 13, 48, 88–91 Hedwig and the Angry Inch 11, 44–45 Hello! My Baby 36, 117, 122–123 hit songs vs. unknown tracks 80 Holler if Ya Hear Me 86 Holly, Buddy 29 Hutcheon, Linda 86 hymn-like mysticism 95 hyperemotional style 95 integrated musical 12 “It Might as Well Rain until September” (Carole King) 30, 103

Electric Light Orchestra 131 era- and genre-specific musical: adaptation and genre 123–127; campy fun 127; nostalgia of 119–123; soundtracks to cast recordings 127–134; vs. artist catalog musical 83–84 Escape to Margaritaville 18, 33, 71–72, 75, 82, 97 Everly Brothers 132–133 Everyday Rapture (Scott) 29 “Evil Woman” (Electric Light Orchestra) 131

Jagged Little Pill (Alanis Morrisette) 22, 95–97 Jane, Mary 96 Jelly’s Last Jam 60, 63–65 Jersey Boys 73–75 Johnson, Catherine 14 jukebox musical: categorical perspective 4, 5–10; categorizations for 40; core elements of 8; directors 66–67; dramaturgical perspective 4, 15–17; environment for 22–23; historical perspective 4, 10–15; history of 14–15; innovations 134; inspiration for 22; mini-narratives 23–29; movie adaptation 127–134; shoehorning 23–29; strengths and weaknesses 21–37; tagline in advertising material 32; years 1992 and 1993 60–66; year 1999 67–71; year 2005 71–75; see also artist catalog musical; biographical musical; era- and genre-specific musical & Juliet 28, 41, 117, 119, 123–126, 130

fantastical adaptations 80 finales 113–115 Four Seasons 22, 71–73, 99

King, Carole 6, 13, 30 The Kinks 7, 43, 61, 99, 108–109, 128 Kirshner, Don 30, 111

138  Index

LaJolla Playhouse 61 “Larger than Life” (Backstreet Boys) 119 Lazarus 92 Leader of the Pack: The Ellie Greenwich Musical 46, 49, 102 Lennon 71–72 Lennon, John 71 Leon, Kenny 86 “Let’s Rock: In Defense of Jukebox Musicals” (Sarah Larson) 12–13 Little Shop of Horrors 45–46 Lloyd, Phyllida 14 Lloyd Webber, Andrew 10–11, 51–57 looser plot 94–95 Mackey, Bob 24 Mamma Mia!; Abba songs 22, 33, 68–69, 80; as chick megamusical 68; establishes jukebox musical 67–71; innovations of 70; as Platonic ideal of jukebox musical 70 Martin, Max 124 Martin, Ricky 44 The Marvelous Wonderettes 70–71, 117–121, 123, 126 mash-ups 26–27 Mayer, Michael 92 McAnuff, Des 60, 61, 66, 67 McPherson, Conor 25, 94–95 Meat Loaf 81 megamixes 27 megamusical 10, 39, 51–57; comedic tunes 55; plot structure and characterizations of 54–55; vs. jukeboxes 56 metaphor 24–25, 29, 59 #MeToo movement 96 Million Dollar Quartet 51 mini-narratives 23–29, 61, 112 monotony 101 Morissette, Alanis 31, 79, 80, 81, 97 Morton, Jelly Roll 63 Motown: The Musical 121–123 Moulin Rouge!: The Musical 131–133 Mr. Rogers’ Neighbourhood 29 musical genres 10 musical theater 28; performance styles 15–16 narrativization 82 Newton-John, Olivia 130–131 Nice Work If You Can Get It 87 non-diegetic songs 15–16, 26, 93, 105, 109; narrative potential of 30–32

nostalgia 13–14, 16–17, 36; in artist catalog musical 83–86; for drawing audiences 32–33; of era- and genre-specific musicals 119–123; in vaudeville 44 nostalgic impulse 110 Olivier Awards 9 One Hit Wonder 43–44 On Your Feet!: The Story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan 56, 75, 105 parody farces 80 Paulus, Diane 95–96 Phantom of the Opera 44, 51 The Pink Floyd 61 post-curtain call 113 “Private Dancer” (Tina Turner) 55 proto-jukebox 65 public domain 36 Puccini, Giacomo 52 “real” music, as savior 17 Reddy, Helen 42 Return to the Forbidden Planet 127–128 rhythm and blues 46 The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical 10, 53 rock musical 10, 39, 45–51; Dreamgirls 49–51; examples 45; gender-bending and queerness 48; messaging in 46–47; race depiction 48–49; Rocky Horror Show 48; vs. jukeboxes 50–51; The Who’s Tommy 60–63 rock ‘n’ roll 22, 33, 45, 74, 119 Rock of Ages 26–28, 117–119, 121, 123, 126, 130 Rocky Horror Show 48 The Rolling Stones 61 Savran, David 13–14 Scott, Sherie Rene 29 script 14, 21–24, 26, 28, 29, 37, 85, 117 Sedaka, Neil 84 setup-and-gag rhythm 65 Shakespeare as Jukebox Musical ( John Severn) 13, 118, 126 Shakur, Tupac 86 The Shirelles 112, 115 shoehorning 23–29, 83–86 shoo-wop 46 show-within-a-show theatrical technique 110

Index 139

Shuffle Along, or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed 109–110 song: mini-narratives of 112; reimaging 27; toe-tapping moments 32 soundalikes 34–35 soundtracks to cast recordings 127–134 Spice Girls 124 Steinman, Jim 81 storytelling 16, 22, 100–104 Summer, Donna 29 Summer: The Donna Summer Musical 6, 10, 66, 70 Sunny Afternoon 108–109 “Super Trouper” scene 69 suspension of disbelief 24, 108–111 Swinging on a Star 14–15 synthesizer effects 127–128 Temptations 99, 101 Tharp, Twyla 24 “Three-Five-Zero-Zero” (Hair) 46–47 The Times They Are a-Changin’ 24–26 tin pan alley 18 Tina: The Tina Turner Musical 18, 55–56, 134

Tony Awards 9, 61, 74 “Too Much on My Mind” (the Kinks) 7 traditional musical 9 Turner, Tina 29, 55–56 “Vacation” (the Go-Go’s) 13 Valencia, Brian D. 15 vaudeville 10–11, 39–45; humor 42–43; music 43; nostalgia 44; songs 43 villains 28 vocal styling 34–35 “We Got the Beat” (the Go-Go’s) 89–91 We Will Rock You 52, 71, 81, 82, 84–85 whimsical comedies 80 The Who’s Tommy 60–63 Wildhorn, Frank 54 Williams, Bert 43 Williams, Hank 29 Wodehouse, P.G. 87 Wolfe, George C. 63 Wollman, Elizabeth 45, 53 writers, challenge for 23 Xanadu: The Musical 39, 130–131