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“Get Ready” just about pierce the theatre’s ceiling. His high notes during “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)” and Jeremy Pope’s, (Eddie Kendrick), is the always Unfortunately, health issues lay him low. Jackson as Melvin Franklin, with a shaking the rafters’ bass, brings needed wit and much laughter as his sonorous voice emerging at the proper times, his voice sinks lower than is humanly possible. The highlights of course are the songs sung by the Temptations and a few of their early replacements.Įphraim Sykes as David Ruffin, the group’s second and most famous lead singer, sings “My Girl,” and “IĬould Never Love Another (After Losing You).” His scissor splits bring down the house. One of the musical’s sadder notes, she gets to share Thomas, who died of brain cancer at twenty-four). Nasia Thomas (Florence Ballard), Taylor Symone Jackson (Mary Wells), and Tammi Terrell (Nasia Singing chops just a wee bit are the Supremes inhabited by (Candice Marie Wood (a superb Diana Ross), As far as Motown’s female contingent, getting to show their Their replacements, this due to booze, drugs, suicide, illness, and ego problems.Īdding a dollop of historical fluff in minor roles and cameos are Motown’s Barry Gordy (Jahi Kearse), and The story mainly revolves around the group’s earliest five members and a few of With many twists and turns, the journey begins on the streets of Detroit, passes through the country’sĬivil unrest during the late sixties (think Viet Nam protests and the Assassination of Martin Luther King), tours the segregated south, visits the Temptations’ 42 top ten hits and 14 number one songs, shows aĬrack party sequence in which ostensibly Otis was the only member to not partake, and reaches the Hall Shepherd us through the history of group’s six decades. Temptations features the group’s original founder Otis Williams (neatly channeled by Derek Baskin) to Three Cher’s and three Donna’s, each representing different time period in the star’s life, the Group’s history and music, or The Cher Show, and Summer: The Donna Summer Musical, which featured Unlike the Jersey Boys, whose format had each of the band members giving their own perspective on the Had never seen or heard such singular goings on before. AddingĮxtra-high voltage were the voices of the lead “Temptations.” A few could shatter glass and affect suddenĪnd unexpected James Brown splits, all of which had the audience yelling and screaming, just as if they

On the sugary upside – an obvious embarrassment of riches – every person on stage, some playingĭouble roles, some just standing and looking good, could act, dance, and sing to a fare thee well. Yes! A vociferous standing ovation – a Broadway musical tradition for a number of decades –

In fact, for me, the only satisfying climax came at curtain call whenĪll the super-talented performers, along with the musical’s superb musicians, took their well-earnedīows. Worse! The musical’s thirty-one songs, less than a half a handful sung in their entirety, was a two and a That and he did that and then we all did that – is as engaging as bad coffee and a failed omelet on a gray Written fact-filled book based on the group’s original founder Otis William’s 1988 memoir – lots of I did The truth be told the first act is a painful 30 minutes too long, and Dominique Morisseau’s mechanically I wish that I could say that A in’t Too Proud turned me inside out and sent me directly to heaven. Noĭoubt Des and Sergio and the musical’s 43 producers (all listed in the program) are hoping to duplicate

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Not surprisingly (most likely not to its producers) it reopened eight months later Off Broadway at the New World Stages where it is currently playing to full houses.Īin’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, another jukebox musical, also helmed by theĭes McAnuff and Sergio Trujillo duo, opened this past March at the Imperial Theater on Broadway. Musical, after 4642 performances it closed in January 2017. In fact, without over taxing my brain, Jersey Boys, which dramatizes the formation, success and eventual break-up of the 1960s rock ‘n’ roll group The Four Seasons is the only jukebox musical of import that immediately comes to mind.ĭirected by Des McAnuff, and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo, Jersey Boys opened on Broadway at theĪugust Wilson Theatre to rave reviews in November 2005.

There are few examples of jukebox musicals – a denigrating term if ever – that have blown me away.

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