Rock and Roll Dominates Tony Nominated Best Musicals


by Ryan D. Hogan - Date: 2010-08-16 - Word Count: 648 Share This!

The four productions nominated for Best Musical at the 2010 Tony Awards are definitely not your father's musicals. In fact, they're not even your weird uncle's musicals.

The most "Broadway" of all the new Broadway musicals from 2009-10 season, The Addams Family, failed to even get a nod, although it did pick up a nomination for Best Original Score.

Perhaps the show would have fared better had Gomez and Morticia given us less talk and more rock. That's because the Great White Way's best musicals of the year are all rock and roll oriented: American Idiot, Fela!, Memphis, and Million Dollar Quartet.

American Idiot is a jukebox musical featuring songs from the alternate-punk band Green Day. The show includes every song from band's 2004 eponymous album as well as a few tracks from their 2009 release, 21st Century Breakdown. Green Day frontman Bill Joe Armstrong did more than just collect a royalty check; he co-wrote the musical's book with director Michael Mayer.

This high energy production features little dialogue and plenty of teenage angst. The story revolves around three friends who take three very different paths out of adolescence and into adulthood. One stays home, one heads to the city, and the other goes off to fight in the Middle East.

Most years, American Idiot would have been the undisputed thrill ride of Broadway, but this isn't most years. Fela! is half-musical and half-concert experience. The rousing production tells the story of Fela Kuti, a Nigerian musician who combined jazz, funk, rock, and traditional African music to create Afrobeat. He was also a champion of civil rights and fought his country's oppressive military government.

Like American Idiot, Fela! is a jukebox musical featuring the real-life songs of its title character. Bill T Jones served as director and choreographer and also co-wrote the book with Jim Lewis. This exhilarating musical was produced in part by Jay-Z, Will Smith, and Jada Pinkett Smith.

Interestingly enough, Jay-Z isn't the only popular musician associated with this year's Tony nominated best musicals. David Bryan, the keyboard player for the rock band Bon Jovi, wrote the score and co-wrote the lyrics (with Joe DiPoetro) to the surprise smash hit, Memphis.

Set in the 1950's, Memphis tells the story of Huey Calhoun. He's a white DJ who falls in love with both rock 'n' roll music and a black singer during a time when neither passion was socially acceptable. Probably the most underrated of the four nominated musicals, this is another high energy production that wins over audiences with spectacular performances, great original music, and a highly touted finale.

Million Dollar Quartet is also set in Memphis in the 1950's, but this musical is based on real-life events surrounding four real-life rockers. On December 4, 1956, a quartet of would-be-legends got together for one of rock-'n'-roll's greatest jam sessions. The four men who gathered at Sun Record's store front studio that historic night were Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins.

The celebrated recording session has been dramatized for this 90-minute long production that's part concert and part history lesson. While the show is light on plot it's full of great songs like "Blue Suede Shoes," "Great Balls of Fire," "Walk the Line," "Who Do You Love?," "Folsom Prison Blues," and "Hound Dog."

Is all this rock and roll a sign of things to come? After all, Broadway was bitten by the rock bug in the 1970's and recently productions like "Next to Normal" and "Rock of Ages" have enjoyed great commercial and artistic success.

The bean counters certainly like the trend. Even though attendance was down, Broadway as a whole still earned over a billion dollars in the 2009-10 season, increasing its gross from the previous year.

As musicals become more expensive to produce and audiences more selective with their entertainment dollar, producers need music that theater goers know and enjoy. Generally, the type of music that fits that description is rock and roll.


Ryan Hogan writes for OakWebWorks Tickets, a website that sells a wide range of choice seats such as Broadway tickets to almost any other concert you'd want to attend. Also find original entertainment articles.n
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