Well, last night I went to see a fairly new show (this is the third regional production) called
Memphis, starring Chad Kimball (Milky White in the revival of
Into the Woods) as Huey, Montego Glover (who was in
The Color Purple on Broadway) as Felicia and Cass Morgan as Huey's Mama...among many others. The "great subject" of the show (according to the Producing Artistic Director in his notes in the program) is racial prejudice. It's basically about this white guy (Huey) who loves black music. He meets and eventually becomes involved with Felicia who is an incredible singer...and black He tells her that he'll get her on the radio and he does. He's uneducated, he can't read, he makes big promises and is a big personality, which takes them far (but not without some hurt and heartache along the way). He talks his way into a job on the radio and becomes a success by playing black music. He gets his own TV show (with integrated dancers even) and it's a success. They have the opportunity to do a national TV show in New York and Felicia has a chance at a record contract with Decca, but he is too much of a small town hick to think outside of Memphis and totally blows it all, big time. He loses the TV show, he loses the girl and by the end of the show (which is fifteen years after he first met the girl), he ends up playing music on a very small radio station while Felicia has become a very big singing star.
And that's pretty much it. But it has some very good music (and a lot of it) and great singers and dancers. The book and lyrics are by Joe DiPietro (
All Shook Up and
I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change) and the music and lyrics are by David Bryan ("Grammy award-winning keyboard player, songwriter and founding member of Bon Jovi"). I enjoyed this very much.
