*”Motown the Musical” is coming back to Broadway, and as Huff Post notes, the show first began performances in March 2013 at the Lunt Fontanne Theatre and closed this January after over 700 performances, routinely breaking $1 million a week at the box office.
Motown Records founder Berry Gordy and producer Kevin McCollum said Monday that the musical will “tell the story of how the record label rose and fell and then rose again.”
“Motown’ is the story about the American dream. One man, who against all odds, built a company that changed music as much as Steve Jobs changed music,” McCollum said.
The production returns to New York starting July 2016 for an 18-week stand at the Nederlander Theatre. McCollum said Gordy has been rewriting and refining the story since the musical opened cold on Broadway two years ago. ”It’s a much crisper and shorter and has a real pop to it,” he said.
For his part, Gordy said: “We tweaked a lot of stuff and the road show got tighter and tighter. And now it’s coming back to Broadway and we’re very happy about that because that’s where it started. It was raw and they accepted us and loved us, and so we’re so excited to get back to where it started when it was rough.”
85-year-old Gordy is a co-producer of the show with McCollum and Doug Morris. Their version of Motown “begins and ends in 1983 – Motown’s 25th anniversary – and travels back in time to show how Gordy helped start the careers of Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and many more.”
“This music connects so many people – white, black, young, old, rich, poor. It’s very universal and that’s why I think coming back is the right thing,” McCollum said. “This is the music that defined our country and art and civil rights. It continues to be resonant in today’s very troubling, tumultuous times.”
Directed by Charles Randolph-Wright, ”Motown the Musical” is currently on tour and will play the holidays in Washington, D.C. Early next year, it hits various cities including Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee, Ohio and Wisconsin – arriving in Shaftesbury Theatre in London’s West End in February.
“So many people tell me that they relive so much of their life through the songs and the stories. I usually let them know I’m reliving it all the time and it’s wonderful and beautiful – the good times and the bad times,” Gordy said. “I’m so glad that the love lasted between us all so strongly.”
You can get “Motown the Musical” ticket info. here.
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