“I’m attempting to get you hyped and excited,” exclaimed theater director Lileana Blain-Cruz on the Minnesota State Theatre in Minneapolis on Saturday (June 22). “I’m attempting to get a bike on stage!”
Sizzling off directing a visually extravagant, emotionally stirring manufacturing of John Adams’ El Niño on the New York Metropolitan Opera (she’s the resident director at Lincoln Heart Theater), Blain-Cruz has confirmed she’s adept at helming large, sophisticated productions. However in spring 2025 on the State Theatre, she’s going through an viewers much more passionate and exacting than New York Metropolis theater critics – Prince followers.
On Saturday, a theater filled with the “purple fam” have been handled to the primary public preview of an upcoming stage musical adaptation of Prince’s Purple Rain movie as a part of the five-day Celebration 2024 occasion within the Purple One’s hometown. And with Blain-Cruz – who repeatedly hopped out of her chair and solicited viewers suggestions whereas flaunting a flashy purple blazer – directing, it’s clear this stage musical has an advocate who can match the keenness of Jerome Benton hyping up Morris Day throughout a efficiency by The Time.
Becoming a member of Blain-Cruz throughout the preview – a panel dialogue that boasted a work-in-progress take a look at three of the musical’s stage numbers – have been guide author Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, recent off a Tony win for Applicable; music director Jason Michael Webb, whose credit embrace the Broadway hit MJ The Musical; and Bobby Z., who drums in The Revolution and lately joined the manufacturing as a music adviser alongside fellow Prince affiliate Morris Hayes. (Tony-winning producer Orin Wolf appeared on the tail-end of the hour-long panel, too.)
“This isn’t Hamilton,” joked Jacobs-Jenkins, who assured the viewers of diehards that his guide will draw on the 1984 movie’s screenplay (written by Albert Magnoli and William Blinn) with out radically remodeling it. Even so, he stated he intends to additional develop the character of Apollonia and make some needed pacing modifications to suit a stage manufacturing: “A play is a play, and a film is a film.”
Whereas the director is hellbent on getting that bike on stage (she says the picture of Prince “staring into her soul” on the Purple Rain bike is one in every of her earliest reminiscences of the genius), she acknowledges some limitations of the medium. “I can’t get a Lake Minnetonka that isn’t truly Lake Minnetonka on stage,” she jested, whereas nonetheless promising to deliver the “epic” nature of a Met Opera manufacturing “to one thing as chic as Purple Rain.”
“It’s an opera — it’s a tragedy and a triumph,” agreed Bobby Z. “I received to see Prince construct a revolution from 1977 to the Parade album [in 1986].” Much like many operas which have stood the check of time, Purple Rain comes full with an unforgettable villain – Morris Day, Prince’s real-life good friend and colleague who performed a deliciously narcissistic model of himself within the 1984 movie. For the world’s first musical preview of the Purple Rain musical, attendees of Celebration 2024 received to see performers portraying Day and Benton preen and camp it up in character earlier than enjoying a solidly grooving model of The Time’s “Jungle Love” and “777-9311.” (Morris Day himself hit that very same stage afterward Saturday to carry out an assortment of The Time classics and bust out some dance strikes.)
“There solely so many of those Black icons that we now have,” mused Webb. “Working with the Michael [Jackson] legacy ready me for the one I actually needed — which is that this one.”
Explaining that he was seeking to current a few of the songs by way of a distinct lens, the multi-talented Webb introduced out Rachel Webb to painting Apollonia and duet with him on “Take Me With U.” The music is bombastic and string-drenched on the album, however this teaser model – which began out in a sublime, stripped-down vein earlier than working as much as a full-band sound – demonstrated that these songs can soar in quite a lot of stylings (one thing hardcore Prince followers already nicely know).
Acknowledging that the soundtrack’s 9 songs aren’t sufficient materials for a Broadway musical, additionally they revealed that the Purple Rain stage musical will draw on Prince’s full catalog, together with songs that didn’t even seem within the movie. Working example: Earlier than the occasion wrapped, Rachel Webb returned to the stage with two others to carry out “The Glamorous Life” as Vainness 6. Whereas that Prince-penned music is actually well-suited to the time interval – it got here out in 1984 and reached the highest 10 of the Billboard Sizzling 100 that fall – it’s not a Vainness 6 quantity in any respect, however relatively successful carried out by Sheila E.
However why not take some inventive liberties? The staff behind this manufacturing is brazenly gunning for a Broadway run after debuting Purple Rain in Minneapolis, so the bar is excessive. So long as the songs are a sonic and thematic match for the realm of Purple Rain, who cares whether or not a tune appeared within the movie? Broadway is a tricky market, and success is much from assured for musicals based mostly on the works of pop hitmakers (although that isn’t stopping loads of artists from attempting). Prince’s wealthy, rewarding catalog deserves a large viewers, so it solely is smart for the staff behind this manufacturing to place their greatest high-heeled boot ahead as they reimagine his magnum opus for the stage.
