The 10 Biggest Broadway Turns By Rock Stars
From Bruce Springsteen to P. Diddy to Elton John, here's a look at what happens when rock stars invade the Great White Way.
Bruce Springsteen has performed at just about every great venue on the planet: the Stone Pony, Madison Square Garden, the O2 Arena, the Hollywood Bowl, Red Rocks Amphitheater, football stadiums, state fairs, and now…Broadway? On Tuesday, the 67-year-old icon began preview performances for his scheduled four-month run at the Walter Kerr Theatre, a 975-seat room on West 48th Street whose notable productions include Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
If any rock star seems suited to the Great White Way, it’s Springsteen, whose unmatched stage presence and penchant for mid-song monologues are about as dramatic as rock music gets. But he’s far from the first bona fide rock star to attempt a takeover of the theater. From U2 to P. Diddy to Elton John, artists across genres have attempted the transition to Broadway, with varying degrees of success.
Below, you’ll find a collection of 10 such starts. To be considered, artists must have contributed original efforts for the stage and/or served as part of the creative team to mold old work to the theatre medium. Thus, not every musician who has appeared on Broadway qualified. For example, Disney kid and solo artist Nick Jonas has starred in a number of productions, including A Christmas Carol, Les Misérables, Beauty and the Beast, Annie Get Your Gun and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. But he actually made his start on Broadway, debuting onstage long before he started playing his own music with his brothers. Similarly, The Who’s Tommy, the ABBA-based musical Mamma Mia and the the Carole King-based musical Beautiful were all adapted into award-winning shows, but the scores weren’t created specifically for Broadway.
With more and more musicians interested in seeing their names on Times Square marquees, it seems we’re entering a new era of Hollywood East on Broadway. For now, here’s a look at the 10 biggest appearances by rock stars on Broadway.
10. Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark
Artist: Bono and The Edge (Lyrics)
Spider-Man marked something a midlife crisis for Bono and The Edge, which is fitting because U2 provide the soundtrack for many midlife crises. Most probably remember this show for the bad press that surrounded it—frequent injuries, the longest preview period in Broadway history, and really, really terrible reviews. The music itself, co-written by the pair, is genre-less and confusing. Overall, Spider-Man was a flop (literally, for a couple of the stunt performers), as were the Broadway debuts for the members of U2.
9. Chicago
Artist: Usher (Performer)
In the 2006 revival of Chicago, Usher joined the cast to play a greedy criminal attorney Billy Flynn. If the decision to cast the gregarious R&B singer-songwriter as an acerbic litigator sounds like a bizarre one, well, that’s what a lot of people thought. The New York Times wrote of his debut, “Usher doesn’t make the mistake of trying too hard, but it might be more interesting if he did.” Matthew Miller of Talkin’ Broadway also dug in, eviscerating him by writing, “His choices are ill formed when they’re at all discernible, his comic timing is at best rudimentary, and he never seems more natural than when fondling the eye-popping women of the ensemble.”
8. Hands on a Hardbody
Artist: Trey Anastasio of Phish (Music)
Premiering at the Brook Atkinson Theatre in April 2012, Hands on a Hardbody was the brainchild of Trey Anastasio, founding guitarist and vocalist of Phish. The show was adapted from a documentary about a real-life contest, which takes place annually at a Nissan dealership in Longview, Texas, to see who can keep their hand on a pickup truck for the longest period of time. Unsurprisingly, a documentary about perhaps the dullest, most bizarre competition known to man didn’t fare well on Broadway, but Anastasio’s orchestration was lauded by audiences and critics alike. They enjoyed himself.
7. Raisin in the Sun
Artist: P. Diddy (Performer)
It’s not difficult to see why Sean Combs, aka P. Diddy, would be drawn to the role of Walter, the troubled main character working hard to create a better life for his family, in Raisin in the Sun. Raised in a working-class family just outside of New York, Combs’s upbringing wasn’t much different from the environment depicted in the play. But it seems that the creative team of the Raisin revival weren’t totally sold, as they reportedly forced him to jump through multiple hoops before casting him in the role. Ultimately, his performance was met with lukewarm reviews, with most griping that he was unable to encompass the depth of the character. Regardless, Combs’s Walter Lee Younger lives on; this revival of Raisin in the Sun was ultimately taped for film and is still used when teaching the play to high-school students today.