If jukebox musicals come in waves, right now we’re experiencing a significant swell. The second cinematic plunder of the Abba catalogue, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, has made $176m worldwide in just over a week. The Go-Go’s catalogue show, Head Over Heels, just opened on Broadway, joining Summer, a musical stitched around the life of Donna Summer, which debuted in April. On the horizon looms Jagged Little Pill, one of the few jukebox musicals to win rave reviews for its early run, insuring a swift move to Broadway. Soon enough it will be joined by The Cher Show, based on the bawdy life of the ex-Mrs Bono; Tina: The Musical, a New York version of the hit from London; and a new beast called The Heart of Rock & Roll, which plumbs the Huey Lewis and the News archives for a production that opens at San Diego’s prestigious Old Globe Theatre in September.
Given that more than 100 such musicals have been created since the very first – fashioned in 1975 by Harry Chapin, titled The Night They Made America Famous – can there be any stage-worthy song catalogue left to exploit? You can bet producers, and publishers, are looking into that right now. Here’s an immodest proposal for 10 acts whose legacies have the heft, resonance and flair to earn the stage:
Pet Shop Boys
Seventeen years ago, a new musical titled Closer to Heaven opened, boasting fresh music from Pet Shop Boys. Neither the new songs nor the story wowed critics or audiences, dooming the show to close less than five months later. Why not correct that with something closer to the tried and true? The Boys’ catalogue bursts with operatically-grand songs that telegraph specific characters, including a wan observer who vacillates between witty cynicism and wary appreciation. Surely, there’s a show to be fashioned that follows the arc from the youthful conniving of Rent to the hard-won wisdom of Being Boring.
The Kinks
In the past, the Kinks took the opposite tack from the Pet Shop Boys. Four years ago, they went the strict jukebox musical route with their hit show Sunny Afternoon. It told the story of the band’s formation, weaving in scores of Kinks-y classics along the way. With its robust two-year run, the show did well enough to warrant a more ambitious follow-up. Turns out, Ray Davies and the band already have one semi-ready-made. Their 1969 album, Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), was originally supposed to be a collaboration between Davies’ music and a script from writer Julian Mitchell for a Granada TV production. The collaboration got derailed along the way, but the music found its way to the Arthur album in October of 1969, which became one of the band’s most acclaimed works. Given its wide-ranging songs, and a poignant story line that traces 100 years of British history, Arthur could yield one of the most resonant rock musicals this side of The Who’s Tommy, a work which first appeared just five months before the Kinks’ gem.
Glam rock
In 2015, the smash play Rock of Ages married a deliciously idiotic plot to the high-kitsch hits of 80s glam metal. A far more serious musical might be created from the catalogue of the first glam-rock revolution of the 70s. Think: a singing/dancing spin on the Todd Haynes’ movie Velvet Goldmine. Using songs from the Bowie/T-Rex/Mott age, a skilled book writer could draw a savvy link between that genre’s pioneering gender non-conformity and its current, more evolved, iteration.
Aretha Franklin
After years of talk about an Aretha film project, there’s finally movement behind one that’s set to star Jennifer Hudson. She’s perfect, not only for a cinematic treatment, but for a stage production primed to bring down the house. Hudson has the charisma, soul and live chops to channel the power on the Queen for the Great White Way.
Bacharach-David
The first hit scored by the chic writing team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David (recorded by Marty Robbins) has the ideal title for a play about the pair’s brilliance – The Story of My Life. There have already been successful musicals connected to Carole King (Beautiful), the team of Phil Spector, Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry (Leader of the Pack), and Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller (Smokey Joe’s Cafe). Surely there’s one to be made from the lives of the guys who created songs as arresting as Don’t Make Me Over, Anyone Who Had A Heart and Walk On By.
The Smiths/Morrissey
A highly eccentric Smiths jukebox musical was created back in 2005 by the theater company Anonymous Society under the title Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others. I saw that show in its debut in Dublin in 2005 and loved it for its sheer oddity and daring. It’s well worth re-staging the piece in the world’s artier venues. Or something new could be created that’s stays true to the post-teen angst that courses through the entire Smiths/Morrissey catalogue.
Janet Jackson
The driving force of Miss Jackson’s life – her will to emerge as a star from under the long shadow of brother Michael– has the kind of drama that writes itself. Janet’s trove of hits contains enough tension, sex and wonder to pack a show with excitement. Better, whoever gets cast in the lead role needn’t be a great singer – she just has to be a woman who knows how to take control.
Rufus Wainwright
The supremely theatrical Wainwright has already created two operas, written music for a pair of dance productions (including a ballet), and supplied music for a Robert Wilson theater piece based on Shakespeare’s sonnets. But the guy can also write a pert pop song. Surely, he has it in him to create either a spanking new musical or fashion one from work he has already recorded. As a life-long devotee of musical theater Gods like Cole Porter and Noël Coward, Wainwright seems born for Broadway. For an added lure, he could work with his father, Loudon Wainwright III, the modern master of musical satire.
Randy Newman
The sly songs of Randy Newman have already been fodder for four musicals, including two revues plus his original, 1995’s take on Faust. Somehow overlooked in all this is Newman’s brilliant 1974 concept album, Good Old Boys, a ripe-for-staging examination of American racism that’s by turns insightful, hilarious and chilling.
Biggie Smalls
Yes, the 2013 musical about Tupac (Holla if You Hear Me) bombed big time –unjustifiably in my book. But that was before Hamilton broke Broadway’s aversion to hip-hop. Biggie’s iconic rhymes feature plots eager to be enacted and characters that beg to be made flesh.
