Musical Theatre

Prince’s hit film Purple Rain is set to become a Broadway musical.

The 1984 movie will come to the stage with a book from the Pulitzer prize finalist Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who is currently receiving rave reviews for the family drama Appropriate starring Sarah Paulson and Elle Fanning.

Music and lyrics will come from Prince and the musical will be directed by the Tony award nominee Lileana Blain-Cruz, known for 2022’s adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s dark comedy The Skin of Our Teeth.

“It’s been almost 40 years since Prince’s legendary film Purple Rain took the world by storm and we can’t think of a more fitting tribute than to honor Prince and the Purple Rain legacy with this stage adaptation of the beloved story,” said L Londell McMillan, the chairman of The Northstar Group, and Larry Mestel, founder & CEO of Primary Wave Music. “We are thrilled with our Broadway partners and creative team, who are bringing a theatricality to the film’s original fictional story. We can’t wait for a new generation to discover Purple Rain and for lovers of the original film and album to experience its power once again, this time live.”

Purple Rain won the Oscar for best original score and made almost $100m at the worldwide box office. The album was number one in the US for 24 weeks and sold over 25m copies. Songs included When Doves Cry, Let’s Go Crazy and I Would Die 4 U.

This year also sees musicals soundtracked by Alicia Keys, Huey Lewis and the News and The Who coming to Broadway.

Books about musicals in this list include:

• Here's to the Ladies: Conversations with More of the Great Women of Musical Theater by Eddie Shapiro
• Conversations in Color: Exploring North American Musical Theatre by Sean Mayes
• Purple Rising: Celebrating 40 Years of the Magic, Power, and Artistry of The Color Purple by Lise Funderburg and Scott Sanders
• Dance in Musical Theatre: A History of the Body in Movement by Phoebe Rumsey and Dustin Martincich
• African American Perspectives in Musical Theatre by Eric M. Glover
• Social Media in Musical Theatre by Trevor Boffone
• Jesus Christ Superstar: Behind the Scenes of the Worldwide Musical Phenomenon by Ellis Nassour
• Tell it to the World: The Broadway Musical Abroad by David Savran
• Contemporary British Musicals: ‘Out of the Darkness’ by Clare Chandler and Gus Gowland

During the red carpet at the Golden Globes, Cage was asked by Variety‘s Marc Malkin about a genre that he wants to work in. He replied, “Musical. I have not done a musical. I do think I could make a good Pontius Pilate in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar.'”

However, he was reluctant to provide audiences with a glimpse of what they might see of him in the role, declining to sing.

BroadwayWorld points out that this is not the first time the actor mentioned wanting to play this specific role. In an April 2023 interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Cage said that his voice would lend itself to Pontius Pilate.

"I think if I was ever going to go on Broadway, the only part that would make sense for me, because I have, over the years, blown out my voice," Cage said. "I think that might, might, lend itself to Pontius Pilate in Jesus Christ Superstar."

A theater district server was stunned to discover a patron had left her a wildly generous $500 tip so she could finally afford a ticket for her dream Broadway show.

Clair Rachel Howell, who is originally from California but has since moved to New York City, took to Instagram to share the act of staggering generosity.

The server uploaded a series of photos, including a snapshot of the customer's receipt, as well as her subsequent trip to see Merrily We Roll Along at the Hudson Theater.

She described it as a 'magical New York moment' and voiced her overwhelming gratitude for the man who gave her the 'insane and unexpected gift.'

Last month, Clair shared that the customer had racked up a bill of $232.86 before leaving a whopping $500 tip.

He also scrawled a note on the receipt that read: 'Go see Merrily! Sit in the orchestra!'

The worker dished further detail on the situation in the caption which explained: 'Sooo a magical New York moment happened to me the other day at work.

'My serving job is located in the Theatre District, so we get lots of people coming in before seeing Broadway shows. As usual I always ask them what they're seeing, and the other night I had a family going to see Merrily We Roll Along.

'Now anytime I had tables going to see this show I told them how amazing I'm sure it would be, and how badly I wanted to see it!'

She continued: 'The table left to make their showtime and I picked up their check and did about seven double takes. Even writing this now I'm still speechless.

'THANK YOU to the gentleman who gave me this insane and unexpected gift. I hope you come in again so I can thank you in person. Magic is still alive in NYC and so is love and kindness and good, GOOD people.'

Clair concluded: 'Tonight's the night and as he wished I am in the second row waiting for the show to start. I love New York City.'

“The Color Purple,” a new musical take on Alice Walker’s landmark novel, seemed to arrive as an instant hit. Awash in critical exultation, the movie rolled into theaters on Christmas Day and sold more than $18 million in tickets, a near record for the holiday. Audiences gave it an A grade in CinemaScore exit polls. Oprah Winfrey, who produced the film with Steven Spielberg, celebrated on Instagram. “I’m overwhelmed with gratitude,” she wrote, adding, “For y’all to buy tickets, dress up in purple, and show up in droves is filling me up.”

But the sizzle has turned to a sputter. “The Color Purple,” which cost Warner Bros. at least $90 million to make and another $40 million to market, collected an estimated $4.8 million from 3,218 theaters in the United States and Canada over the weekend, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. It was enough only for seventh place, behind George Clooney’s “The Boys in the Boat” — a period drama that also arrived on Christmas Day — even though “The Boys in the Boat” had only 2,687 theaters.

What happened?

In Hollywood parlance, the movie has not broadened beyond a “specialty audience.” To put it more candidly, “The Color Purple,” enthusiastically received by Black moviegoers, needs more white, Hispanic and Asian ticket buyers to give it a chance. The film’s opening-weekend audience was 65 percent Black, 19 percent white, 8 percent Hispanic and about 5 percent Asian, according to PostTrak, a service that provides studios with demographic information on ticket buyers.

Full story here: https://archive.md/aPimj

As part of a longer interview, Tim Minchin discusses the writing and reception of Groundhog Day (which will open in Minchin's native Australia later this month):

The runaway success of Matilda opened a host of doors for Minchin, and in the 13 years since, he’s been approached by just about everyone to write just about everything. But nothing captivated his attention until he and Warchus thought about the possibility of doing a musical based on the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day. However, this is not a “movie musical”, a translation to stage of the type that has taken over Broadway, the West End and our own theatres in the past decade.

“Groundhog Day is an incredible text,” Minchin says. “And I like the movie very much. But that’s not what I like. And what people seem to misunderstand is that the movie is not the text. Because there’s no Bill Murray, you can’t light it like that, you can’t shoot it.

“What is the movie? The movie is the director, the actors, the light, the camera angles, the edit, the cut, the soundtrack? They’re all absolutely useless to us. In fact, if you get addicted to the shot in your head, you’re f---ed, right? Because that’s not the lens. An audience is not a camera.”

Minchin and his collaborator Danny Rubin, who wrote the film and the book for the show, saw in the story a world of possibilities, perhaps even better suited to stage than film.

“It’s about how to live and, and it’s a redemption tale. Like A Christmas Carol, or It’s a Wonderful Life, but bigger than that. And then it didn’t take me long to think, f---, I’m writing songs for a story that allows you to lean into the idea of a life as a day. We’re born in Punxsutawney dawn... The sun rises on our musical, and actually it ends with a sunrise as well when he’s finally out ... And so we get to use a day as the central metaphor. But then we got weather, this is another huge metaphor, the clouds will come and tides will turn and all I have to offer is tomorrow. We have hope, and hope as a positive thing, but hope as a negative thing because hope is aspiration and aspiration stops you being in the present.

“And then you have all the specific things, narcissism, the idea that we’re all the centre of the musical of our lives, when we have that massive metaphor, that world is a stage and we’re all merely players.

“And we have the extension of that metaphor, which is when you’re a f---ing musical, doing eight shows a week, doing the same thing over and over again, in the case of Groundhog Day, several times a night with the same beats. It’s like hell. And if we’re all actors trapped in the musical of our life, what’s that? What can we do with that?”

What he can do with that brain-bending, fourth wall-shattering concept is an Olivier-winning show that won over virtually every critic who has seen it, including The New York Times′ notoriously difficult-to-please Ben Brantley (who called Minchin “insanely talented”).

It premiered at The Old Vic in London in 2016 to sellout crowds and returned in 2023, becoming the highest-grossing production in The Old Vic’s history. In between, though, was a troubled Broadway run that failed to find an audience, despite critical raves.

What went so wrong in New York, I ask? Minchin is, as always, unflinchingly honest.

“Broadway has a zero-sum,” he says, considering the question carefully between bites of pasta. “It can sustain at maximum two new hits, and if you come late in the season where Dear Evan Hanson and Come From Away have surprised everyone, partly because of some really good producing, throwing money [around].

“And then you’ve got Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet [of 1812] in the same year trying to find its audience with Josh Groban at the centre. And you come in, you’re just f---ed. We come in with a slightly overly thoughtful, quite dark, dense, complex, untraditional musical, you can get all the five-star reviews and Tony nominations you like, you’re just f---ed. We just got unlucky.”

The most appropriate thing for Groundhog Day to do in the face of failure, of course, was to dust itself off and try again. Its London revival was even more popular the second time around, but Minchin thinks Australians are the true target audience for the show.

“Australians got Matilda like the Brits did,” he says. “The dark and the light. And I feel the same way about Groundhog Day’s humour. Danny’s, which is this really hilarious Jewish American [sense of humour], he’s so funny. And then my slightly harder edge, slightly obsessed with death and sex. We worked very hard to make sure that felt seen.”

It’s clear he has a genuine passion for the show. “I wish you’d seen it,” he tells me. “I need people to write about it having seen it.”

An actress travelled more than 150 miles to ensure a musical went ahead after its leading lady and understudy both became ill.

Jessica Daley travelled from Middlesbrough to Leicester's Curve Theatre to star as Eva Peron in Evita at 19:30 GMT on Saturday.

The theatre, which had spent the day trying to find a replacement, described Ms Daley as a "diamond".

She received a standing ovation for her "amazing" performance.

Martha Kirby and her understudy Chumisa Dornford-May were too ill to go on, although Ms Dornford-May has since recovered and will return to the stage later.

In 2019, Ms Daley led the international tour of Evita to "high acclaim".

I love stories like this, and can only marvel at what it must have been like for the cast and crew. It's not just a matter of knowing the songs, but also somehow figuring out, with no prep time, the blocking (ie how the scene is staged - where to enter and exit, how to position yourself in relation to other people etc), music direction, costumes etc.

An interesting look at the rise and fall of movie musicals over the decades. Considers numbers of movies made, box office, critical acclaim and more. Worth a read if you're a fan of musicals or movies more general.

Some tidbits from the article:

• In the 1960s four of the Best Picture Oscar winners were live action musicals.
• Of the top 50 grossing films of all time, 11 are movie musicals (10 of which are Disney films).
• In the 1930s, around 10% of all films were musicals. Today, that number sits below 1%.
• There is a sustained drop in acclaim for films released following the 1970s (based on imdb ratings).
• Musicals are unable to produce the billion-dollar returns of action franchises, and they are not cheap enough to yield a modest profit, like that of low-budget horror films or prestige indie dramas. As such, the live-action musical is stuck in a middle ground of sorts—popular enough to hit on occasion but not a standard project for risk-averse studios
• Over the last twenty years, online searches for "Movie Musicals" have significantly decreased, despite a spike in 2016 likely spurred by Hamilton and La La Land and a slight increase in 2021 driven by Steven Spielberg's West Side Story.

Audiences are receptive to the format, with searches increasing in response to a breakthrough hit. And yet, in the absence of future musicals emerging within the zeitgeist, appeal may continue to wane. What's left is a chicken-or-the-egg problem. The genre needs more mainstream entries to stoke interest amongst average moviegoers; however, few producers want to gamble on a musical without pre-existing moviegoer interest.

Greta Gerwig, Margot Robbie, and America Ferrera are interested in bringing Barbie to the stage.

The team behind the summer blockbuster told ET that they have tossed around the idea of a musical adaptation.

"Trust me ... this is not the first time we've thought of it, yeah," Robbie said. "It's so fun when you can turn everything into a big, crazy musical number. Everything is infinitely more fun."

"A lot," Gerwig continued, nodding to Fererra as they have seemingly discussed the possibility at length. "I'm deeply [in] love [with] musicals. Also, America's performed in musicals!"

Ferrera, who played Roxie Hart in the West End production of Chicago, said that her character "has a number in her."

"I really love musicals. I mean, nothing would make me happier. So, I would love a musical," Gerwig said.

Barbie did include two musical numbers. The first was set to Dua Lipa's "Dance the Night Away," during which the Barbies and Kens had a big disco party at Barbie's Dream House.

The second came with Ryan Gosling's viral "I'm Just Ken" sequence, which featured all of the Kens feeling their "Ken-ergy" as they danced to the Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt-written song.

The film's soundtrack also boasts several songs that would fit right in on stage, including Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For?" and Lizzo's "Pink," which narrates the opening scene of the film.

Barricades is an online Les Miserables convention focused on all aspects of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and its various adaptations. The third edition of the con will be held 12-14 July 2024. The con is interested in programming ideas about all aspects of Les Misérables — the novel, the musical and other adaptations — as well as on 19th century French history and daily life, Victor Hugo’s life and the Romantic literary world, and all the ways that readers, viewers, and fans interact with the text, from translation to fanfic to cosplay.

The will feature both fanwork and academic work

Panelist/ Programming Information

• Submissions close:15 March 2024
• Notification of proposal acceptance: TBD

Ticket/ Registration Information

• Registration opens: 15 January 2024
• Registration closes: 10 July 2024

The charity partner for the con in 2024 is Black and Pink

Bradley Jaden is returning to the West End production of Les Miz for two weeks only, from 15 to 27 January 2024.

Jaden is covering for regular Javert Stewart Clarke, who will return to the role on 29 January 2024.

In November it was announced that Killian Donnelly would be returning to Les Miserables to play Jean Valjean, taking over from Josh Piterman who has returned to Australia. Donnelly is expected to play Jean Valjean to February 2024.

Uptown Music Theater of Highland Park, Illinois, will produce Les Miserables from July 26, 2024 through August 11, 2024 at the new performing arts center at Deerfield High School.

Cameron Mackintosh has personally granted an exceptionally rare and special license, based on his desire to help the community continue to heal after the 2022 mass shooting in Highland Park. To further this charitable purpose, the production will financially benefit the Highland Park Shooting Recovery Fund.

(Normally community productions of Les Miz are not permitted in territories where a professional production is playing. The US tour of the Cam Mack production is currently in progress.)

Audition submissions for the Uptown Music Theater production will be accepted through February 9th, with callback invitations to follow.

What's On Stage has produced a short video on what former West End Gavroches are doing now

The national union of stage directors and choreographers has reached an agreement with producers on a new four-year pact being called a landmark for some theater workers, the groups announced today.

The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and The Broadway League, the national trade association for producers in the Broadway and touring industry, said in their announcement that the agreement, which covers directors and choreographers on Broadway and League productions in North America and the British Isles, now includes associate directors and choreographers.

Considered a major agreement for its coverage of associates working on Broadway and companies across North America, the pact provides union protections including health and pension benefit contributions for the associate directors and choreographers.

Additionally, the agreement includes increases in compensation and benefits for covered directors and choreographers; new compensation structures for co-directors and co-choreographers; modified terms for recognized activity in the British Isles; and language codifying the parties’ mutual commitment to non-discrimination and anti-harassment.

The terms for the new contract were ratified by SDC’s Executive Board on December 26, 2023, and went into effect on January 1, 2024.

Everything's coming up Audra! Sources say Audra McDonald will be taking on the iconic role of Mama Rose in a revival of Gypsy during the 2024-2025 season.

I saw Audra McDonald in concert in 2022 and she ended Act 1 with "Everything's Coming Up Roses". It was a performance that blew the roof off the house and also blew my mind. I've been telling people ever since that if she ever wanted a seventh (!!!) Tony Award on her mantle, she should play Mama Rose. I mean, just about every performer who plays that role on Broadway wins the Tony anyway (Mama Rose is basically the Hedda Gabler of musical theatre, the role every actress aspires to), but the emotion, technical skill and ferocity with which she navigated that song was eye-watering. Especially since only seconds before she'd been joking about paying for her kids' school fees. I'm really excited that this could become a reality. Hopefully it's more than just a rumour.

Kimberly Akimbo, the 2023 Tony Award winner for best musical, will be closing on April 28.

The musical, which also took home four other Tony Awards, has been running at the Booth Theatre on Broadway since October 2022, after making its world premiere at the Atlantic Theater Company Off-Broadway in 2021. The entire original cast from the Off-Broadway run, including Tony Award winners Victoria Clark and Bonnie Milligan, has remained with the show throughout its run and will remain for the final performance.

A national tour is scheduled to follow. BroadwayDirect states it will be a 75-week, 60-city National Tour, starting at at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts this September.

The musical, which features a book by David Lindsay-Abaire and a score by Jeanine Tesori and Lindsay-Abaire, follows Kimberly (played by Clarke), a 16-year-old girl with a rare genetic condition that causes her to age rapidly, as she navigates a complicated family life and tries to fit in amongst her peers. The show was adapted from a 2001 play by Lindsay-Abaire.

In addition to Clarke, the cast features Justin Cooley, Steven Boyer, Alli Mauzey, Bonnie Milligan, Olivia Elease Hardy, Fernell Hogan, Michael Iskander and Nina White.

At the end of its run, Kimberly Akimbo will have played 644 total performances on Broadway, which puts it on similar grounding with 2015 best musical winners Fun Home, which closed after 609 total performances and 2018 winner The Band’s Visit, which closed after 624 total performances. (The 2022 winner, A Strange Loop, had one of the shorter runs for recent winners, with 314 total performances)

Like these shows, Kimberly Akimbo was critically lauded and has seen a largely healthy, though not overwhelming box office performance. The show saw its highest gross, of $736,318 two weeks after the Tony Awards (which took place June 11, 2023) and was able to come close to that, at $720,330, in the recent lucrative holiday week surrounding Christmas and New Year’s Eve. However, the show saw several weeks of lower attendance this fall and winter, hovering in the 70 and 80 percent capacity ranges. Still, with the closing date four months away, the production likely believes it can make it through the tricky winter months on Broadway, bolstered by momentum around the closing announcement.

Glynis Johns, who portrayed a singing suffragist in the Disney musical “Mary Poppins” and won a Tony Award in the musical “A Little Night Music,” where she introduced Stephen Sondheim’s standard “Send in the Clowns,” died Jan. 4 at an assisted living home in Los Angeles. She was 100.

New York Times obituary: https://archive.md/TcD9U

Washington Post obituary: https://archive.md/StKQ8

Best Musical Tony Winner Fun Home will stream two 10th anniversary reunion concerts January 8. Both the 6:30 PM and 9:30 PM performances will stream live via Stellar with in-person tickets already sold out.

Much of the original cast will be on hand to reprise their performances, including Beth Malone as Alison, Michael Cerveris as Bruce, Judy Kuhn as Helen, and Roberta Colindrez as Joan. Original cast member Joél Pérez will reprise his performance as Roy, Mark, Pete, and Bobby Jeremy at the 9:30 PM performance, with Perry Sherman (who was an understudy on Broadway) handling the 6:30 show. Emily Skeggs, who replaced as Middle Alison during the musical's Off-Broadway run and originated the role for the Broadway bow, will reprise her performance at both concerts.

They will be joined by Colette Goodman as Small Alison, Jasper Burger as Christian, and Lincoln Cohen as John. Composer Jeanine Tesori, lyricist and book writer Lisa Kron, music director Chris Fenwick, and director Sam Gold will also be on hand for the event.

Benefitting LGBTQIA+ non-profit Outright International, the concerts will mark 10 years since the musical finished its world premiere run at the Public Theater.

Based on Alison Bechdel's autobiographical graphic novel of the same name, Fun Home tracks Bechdel's unusual childhood and adolescence as a young gay woman, raised by a troubled and often difficult father who Bechdel later found out was a closeted gay man himself. Following the 2013 world premiere Off-Broadway run, which was extended into January 2014, the musical made the jump to Broadway in 2015, winning five Tony awards including Best Musical. Tesori and Kron's win for their score and book made history as the first time an all-female writing team took both categories.

Tickets for both streaming concerts, being produced by West Fulton Arts, are available at StellarTickets.com.

“Smash” is about to take another major step in its march to Broadway.

The cast and crew will gather for six weeks starting this month to mount a fully staged and choreographed workshop, with an orchestra, culminating in five performances for recruited audiences.

The new Susan Stroman-directed musical, inspired by the NBC television series of the same name, is slated for Broadway in the 2024-25 season.

The workshop cast includes Brooks Ashmanskas (“The Prom”), Alex Brightman (“Beetlejuice”), Yvette Nicole Brown (TV’s “Community”), Bella Coppola (“Six”), newcomer Nihar Duvvuri, Casey Garvin (“Some Like it Hot”), Robyn Hurder (“Moulin Rouge”), Kristine Nielsen (“Vayna and Sonia and Masha and Spike”), Krysta Rodriguez (“Into the Woods” Netflix’s) and Jonalyn Saxer (“Back to the Future”).

The full company includes Wendi Bergamini, Giovanni Bonaventura, Jim Borstelmann, Zachary Downer, Tiffany Engen, Ashley Blair Fitzgerald, Megan Kane, Caleb Marshall-Villarreal, Connor McRory, JJ Niemann, Tanairi Sade Vazquez, Brian Shepard, Sarah Sigman, Jake Trammel and Katie Webber.

Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, who wrote songs for the series, also handle the score for the “Smash” musical, which will feature tunes from the TV show as well as new material. Book writers are Bob Martin and Rick Elice.

Leading West End and Broadway producer Sonia Friedman Productions are developing a new musical based on the much loved Paddington Bear books and films.

The new musical – which has a working title “Paddington: The Musical” has a book by Jessica Swale, music and lyrics by founding member of McFly, Tom Fletcher and will be directed by Luke Sheppard (& Juliet, The Little Big Things).

The plan is to premiere the production in the UK in 2025, with further details including full creative team, casting and dates to be announced at a later stage.

Nicole Scherzinger is ready for her close-up. The “X-Factor” judge and Pussycat Dolls singer is bringing her acclaimed interpretation of legendary diva Norma Desmond to Broadway with a new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Sunset Boulevard.” She’s taking on the fading screen star — a role that was memorably played by the likes of Glenn Close, Betty Buckley and Patti LuPone. That’s intimidating company, but based on the reviews out of London, where this West End production was the toast of the town [I guess I'm not of that town], Scherzinger nailed it. The New York Times praised her “career-defining performance” and The Washington Post called her “the perfect Norma Desmond.”

But that’s not the only thing that impressed critics [I guess I'm not a critic], who also flipped for director Jamie Lloyd’s stripped-down production of Lloyd Webber’s adaptation of the Billy Wilder film. Lloyd was recently in New York with his Tony-nominated revival of “A Doll’s House.” The revival means that Lloyd Webber will be back on Broadway’s marquees after an uncharacteristic absence following the end of “The Phantom of the Opera” and the disastrously received and short-lived “Bad Cinderella.”

The 1994 Broadway production of “Sunset Bouelvard” won the Tony for best musical, but was often overshadowed by off-stage drama, such as a lawsuit between LuPone — shunted aside for Close after appearing in the London version — and Lloyd Webber. It was later revived in minimalist fashion in 2017 with Close reprising her role. The show features book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton.

Joining Scherzinger on Broadway will be her London co-stars: Tom Francis as Joe Gillis, the cynical screenwriter who enter’s Desmond’s orbit; Grace Hodgett-Young as Betty Schaefer, the object of Joe’s affections; and Olivier Award-winner David Thaxton as Max Von Mayerling, the loyal butler of Desmond. [I did like Thaxton, who I wouldn't have thought was right for the part, but who surprised me.] Producers said the date for the show’s premiere, as well as the theater it will play and additional casting will be announced shortly.

The current Broadway revival of the late Stephen Sondheim’s most notorious flop, 1981’s Merrily We Roll Along, has unquestionably reclaimed the show’s reputation, not only through the rave reviews of critics but by garnering the highest average ticket price of any show this season, with seats ranging up to $600.

With Merrily raking it in at the Hudson Theatre, last year’s acclaimed Sweeney Todd revival going strong at the Lunt-Fontanne, and the composer’s decidedly experimental show, Here We Are, garnering a mixed reception off-Broadway, it’s perhaps worth taking stock of what American musical theater has become in this era where Sondheim is both everywhere and nowhere. While Sondheim’s shows are currently playing all over New York, his influence over the modern musical itself has become somewhat harder to track.

“There’s a half-voiced fear among musical acolytes, understandable in a time in which theater itself is newly under siege,” former New York Times critic Ben Brantley recently wrote, “that on some level Stephen Sondheim represents the end of the line for a once-flourishing art form.” If that sounds dire, it’s because the stakes are high: It’s a common axiom that musicals are one of the few purely American art forms; they evolved within American pop culture to become a global export and one of our most popular, enduring forms of entertainment. But it’s also widely understood in the theater world that for all the composers like Sondheim who helped make the musical what it is, a show like Merrily — with unknown songs, a conceptual plot adapted from a little-known play, and a narrative told in reverse — could never make it to the Great White Way today. That’s because today’s successes tend to be jukebox musicals and shows based on very famous movies you already know.

This doesn’t mean, however, that musicals are doomed to wither on the vine as consumerism pushes us toward ever more derivative, watered-down franchise adaptations stacked with mediocre songs. It’s easy to assume this, and to cling to Sondheim as the last great theater composer. But perhaps there’s a different perspective on the current state of the musical: That it isn’t dying at all, that many potentially worrying aspects that seem unique to the modern landscape are as old as the medium itself, and that the artform is evolving into something new and equally interesting.

The new modern musical is arguably finding its way into a hybrid form that routinely plays with structure and genre expectations, pairs self-aware storytelling and innovative design with traditional crowd-pleasing elements, and deploys the mechanisms of social media and TikTok to bolster audience interactivity and unite shows with their core fanbases. No, it’s not Sondheim — but in a new era of storytelling, we don’t yet know what the next Sondheim will look or sound like.
Broadway shows have always relied on pop hits to drive their success

To understand exactly where we’re headed, it’s helpful to understand that the musical as we know it has been through all this before. First, think of the musical as a sum of its parts. There’s the story — the book or the libretto — and the songs that go along with the story. Regardless of whatever else you put onstage, how well these two elements mesh determines whether you’ve created something coherent.

That might sound like a foregone conclusion, but the history of the form begs to differ. The musical evolved from two totally opposite impulses: vaudeville, which paired popular songs of the day with entertaining skits and short sketches, and operettas, which had dense, sophisticated scores descended from operas. So, in one corner, shows whose songs were random and interchangeable — in the other, shows whose stories couldn’t be told without the music.

In the middle, you had Tin Pan Alley, where many of America’s most famous 20th-century songwriters churned out songs at a feverish pace. In this era, songwriters such as George and Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin thrived, churning out still-popular hits that helped form the backbone of what’s referred to as the American Songbook. Often, those songs found their way into frothy shows whose plots were negligible and served as little more than marketing for the music — which rarely had anything to do with the story. Florenz Ziegfeld’s Follies, which reigned over the 1920s, was even more vague, delivering conceptually innovative spectacle but functioning primarily as a fashion show with music.

In 1928, however, this started to change, when Ziegfeld produced Jerome Kern’s Showboat, a challenging drama steeped in the influence of operetta and teeming with social issues. Not only was Showboat’s score nearly continuous throughout, but the songs were designed to relay information and insight into the characters. In 1943, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II further codified these ingredients when they took a holistic approach to their first collaboration. In Oklahoma!, the music, lyrics, and choreography were all utilized to deepen characterization and advance the plot. But, crucially, while Rodgers’s lush score was influenced by operetta, the songs were all bangers. The songs from Oklahoma! were so popular that for the first time in Broadway history, the production made a recording to preserve the original cast, thereby turning the Original Broadway Cast Recording) into an indelible part of the musical theater experience.

For most theater lovers, the original cast recording is an introduction to the show itself, long before they ever get a chance to see it. But while these recordings are a vital marketing tool, it can decontextualize songs from the performance. Thus, ironically, at the same time Rodgers and Hammerstein were nailing home the ingredients for a fully constructed musical, their cast album was instigating the process for its deconstruction.
What even is a Broadway musical anymore? It’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer

Most recent Broadway productions fall into one of two camps. In the first camp, we have musical revues — jukebox musicals — which are loosely plotted vehicles for previously written well-known songs from pop songwriters or performers. Think Jersey Boys, Moulin Rouge, or the recent Britney Spears musical, Once Upon a One More Time.

In the second camp, we have musicals written in the Disney vein, adding songs or other elements to a previously beloved, well-known franchise. Think Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, Back to the Future, or the upcoming musical adaptation of The Notebook.

Excluding revivals, the vast majority of recent Broadway musicals fall into either category, with varying degrees of success. An ever-dwindling third category is what we might think of as the “traditional” American musical — the Hamiltons and Hadestowns, built not around a previously existing juggernaut franchise or pop hitmaker, but around an original idea or story adaptation, with a fully original score.

There are obvious limitations to these categorizations. You can argue, perfectly correctly, that shows built around previously existing franchises are also “traditional” musicals — they tend to have fully or mostly original scores with a two-act plot structure. At the same time, these distinctions have become ever more blurry in a musical landscape where shows have to appeal to the tastes of both tourists and hardcore musical lovers with sophisticated palettes and tremendous fan power. It’s increasingly common for jukebox musicals like Jagged Little Pill and the recent Neil Diamond revue A Beautiful Noise to not only interpolate their pop hits but to deconstruct, interrogate, and recontextualize them. Is that still a revue? Meanwhile, shows based on movies like The Lion King and Matilda are straightforward story adaptations, but feel fresh and transformative based on their musical and theatrical strengths.

Still, there’s a clear distinction between shows that exist to further the art form and those that exist to further expand an existing IP. With the franchise and jukebox musicals dominating Broadway, it feels important to separate the “originals” from the ever-growing crop of shows that seem to fulfill the latter purpose. It’s hard to ignore that many of these latter types of shows are not only derivative but also sloppy and creatively vapid — and that since Broadway reopened, these shows have been turning profits even at their most muddled and cringe, as other, more artistic and innovative shows close up shop early.

Applying the whole Rent sellout debate to a crop of shows that are bringing Times Square back to life nearly four years into a pandemic that debilitated the American theater, however, seems at minimum ill-timed and misguided. It also isn’t entirely accurate to say that only the derivative musicals get all the attention. Of the 10 highest-grossing shows of the last decade, only two, Beautiful — The Carole King Musical and Jersey Boys, were jukebox musicals, and only two, The Lion King and Aladdin, could be said to fit under the “franchise musical” heading. However one feels about the rest of the musicals on the list, no one can say they aren’t innovative. This was a decade that saw a steady effusion of original musicals, from Fun Home and Dear Evan Hansen to Be More Chill, and Something Rotten, many of which found passionate fanbases. And even as Broadway limped along for most of last season, the three shows that recouped post-pandemic — so far including girl-powered history romp Six, the Michael Jackson musical MJ, and the revival of Funny Girl — arguably represented a range of ideas and creative concepts rather than a narrowing of the field.

Still, the idea that Broadway should be about more than just milking cash cows feels noble. It’s hard to let go of the 20th-century dream of an elevated musical form where every song feels inextricably linked to a unique character and story brought to us by consummate songwriters. It’s also hard not to resent the Mean Girls and the & Juliets for robbing the Strange Loops of their chance to find a mass audience.

The dictum that not even Sondheim could become Sondheim in the current environment of American theater is meant to underscore the fact that culturally, we’ve moved past the age of visionary composers driving what gets a Broadway production. The current glut of jukebox/franchise shows make it incredibly difficult for less-known and experimental shows to break through. While everybody still wants to be Sondheim, only a handful of today’s musical composers have the kind of fan following and name recognition that allows them to mount a Broadway show and recoup its investment on the strength of their score. It’s not easy, as Brantley observed for the Times, “to imagine any of them ascending to the unapproachable dominance of their profession that was Mr. Sondheim’s for roughly half a century.” A side factor is that many of them have moved away from the theatrical trenches after recruitment into the Disney fold — a less risky, more lucrative career path, but not one that leads to new shows.
Radcliffe and Groff face each other with animated expressions and Mendez excitedly hits Groff’s back.
Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff. and Lindsay Mendez at the opening night curtain call of Merrily We Roll Along, October 2023.
Bruce Glikas/WireImage

But this idea — that there will never be another Sondheim to innovate and push the musical forward — also obscures the reality that most of Sondheim’s musicals barely made it to Broadway to begin with. (Merrily only ran for 16 tortured performances.) For most of his career, Sondheim dealt with critical dismissal and audiences who didn’t know what to do with his work. It took decades for many of his shows, with their famously “unsingable” scores, to become the cultural icons that established him not only as one of America’s most important composers, but a pop culture mainstay.

In other words, even Sondheim often persevered despite, not because of, the modes and means of Broadway success. For all we laud “the American musical” as a pure art form, the truth is that Broadway has always been a commercial enterprise, first and foremost, more closely tied to Top 40 pop music than to high art. The Gershwins, Cole Porter, Lerner and Loewe, even Leonard Bernstein — most of the 20th century’s venerated musical composers were primarily hitmakers.

This is a hard pill for many theater lovers to swallow. Musical theater’s relationship to classical music and opera has historically been such an incendiary subject that every few decades someone drops an impassioned rant on the public about it. The ever-present tension between perceptions of “highbrow” and “lowbrow” art means that theater composers and critics frequently wage war over which realm the musical belongs to. It also means that critics have been handwringing that the modern musical is dead for roughly 20 years — no, make that 40 years. The modern musical has allegedly been in its death throes since before many of us were born, and yet somehow these death throes have produced most of Broadway’s longest-running and lucrative shows, from The Phantom of the Opera to Wicked.

The more I consider the era we’re in, the less I’m bothered by the state of things. The current Broadway season already holds promise beyond the remnants of Sondheim: The upcoming jukebox musical Hell’s Kitchen, loosely based on the life of Alicia Keys, promises to unite the standard jukebox biopic with the thematic complexity of Jagged Little Pill. Elton John’s Tammy Faye looks like it will inject a needed amount of satirical froth into the mix. Revivals of Cabaret and The Wiz already feel like they are arriving at exactly the moment we need them most. Meanwhile, audiences continue to return to theaters — and those audiences contain fewer tourists and more locals and a more diverse, young crowd overall. In other words, nature is healing, and it wants to sing show tunes.

For those who missed the extended cinema release of Broadway's Waitress, the film of the hit Broadway musical will be available for streaming digitally on-demand beginning January 9. The digital version of the film is currently available to pre-order on Amazon and Apple for $14.99.

Take a look at what’s going to be opening in UK locations in 2024, including

• Blood Brothers
• Bonnie & Clyde
• Come From Away
• Dear Evan Hansen
• Little Shop of Horrors
• & Juliet
• Grease
• The Book of Mormon
• A Chorus Line
• Hairspray

A look at the musicals that may soon be coming to a US city near you, including:

• & Juliet
• Ain't Too Proud
• Aladdin
• Annie
• Back to the Future
• Beetlejuice
• The Book of Mormon
• The Cher Show
• Chicago
• Come From Away
• Company
• Frozen
• Funny Girl
• Girl from the North Country
• Hadestown
• Hairspray
• Hamilton
• Jagged Little Pill
• Jesus Christ Superstar
• Les Miserables
• The Lion King
• Mamma Mia
• Mean Girls
• MJ
• Moulin Rouge
• Mrs Doubtfire
• My Fair Lady
• On Your Feet
• Peter Pan
• Pretty Woman
• Shrek
• Six
• Tina
• Wicked
• The Wiz

To stimulate some discussion, here's an article summarising the top theatre (musical or otherwise) as chosen by various publications including The New York Times, Vulture, Wall Street Journal, Town & Country, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Huffington Post, The New Yorker, New York Theatre Guide, USA Today and Deadline:

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/The-Best-Theater-of-2023-Shows-that-Ruled-the-Year-20231231

The BroadwayWorld article didn't include Playbill's top list (as they're direct competitors), which is here:

https://www.playbill.com/article/playbills-favorite-theatre-moments-of-2023

For UK coverage, I've found these "best theatre of 2023" lists:

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/dec/25/readers-favourite-stage-shows-of-2023

www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/dec/24/3/dec/24/ susannah-clapp-10-best-theatre-shows-of-2023

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/dec/24/clare-brennan-five-best-theatre-shows-of-2023

https://musicaltheatrereview.com/musical-theatre-review-contributors-pick-their-top-shows-of-2023/

As for me, I was fortunate to see a lot of theatre in 2023. Personal highlights include:

Ragtime (Broadway 25th anniversary reunion concert). Ragtime is my second (sometimes third) favourite show, and while I've seen a number of productions, the atmosphere and quality of performance of this long-awaited, much-delayed concert were both electric. If I had to pick one highlight of 2023, this would be it.

Merrily We Roll Along (Broadway). Merrily is my favourite Sondheim show and I was lucky enough to see the original staging of this revival, directed by Maria Friedman, at the Menier Chocolate Factory in 2013. It's the best production of this underrated masterpiece I've seen (and I've seen a lot), filled with nuance and feeling. I actually slightly preferred the Chocolate Factory cast, venue (and very much the prices!!!!) over their Broadway equivalents, but the Broadway production is still a 100% must-see show, and I'm not surprised to see it pop up on nearly everyone's "best of" list.

Kimberly Akimbo (Broadway). The last time I fell in love with a musical on first viewing was Fun Home, another small-scale, character-focused show with music by Jeanine Tesori. The production and entire cast was amazing but Victoria Clark was beyond amazing. I would have taken to the streets in protest if she hadn't won the Tony.

Miss Saigon (Sheffield Crucible). Now this is how you do a revival. The current Cam Mack production directed by Laurence Connor is basically a cut-down version of Nicholas Hytner's original with few conceptual departures. On the other hand, this totally new production (directed by Robert Hastie and Anthony Lau), reconceptualises so many elements of the show without verging into artsy fartsy pretention (unlike certain other revivals); and almost all of these changes either work better than the Cam Mack productions or just as well but in different ways. I'm not going to go into all of these in detail for reasons of time and space, but they include having a female Engineer, Chris and Ellen both being black, the way key scenes are staged (including I Still Believe, the Act 1 finale, Bui Doi, the fall of Saigon, and other numbers) the framing device, the characterisation of Kim, the presentation of "ghosts" in the show, the various tweaks to the lyrics and dialogue, but let me just say this. As much as I love Miss Saigon, the ending has never moved me. Until this production. Joanna Ampil (who remains the best Kim I've seen but who played the Engineer in this production) was the reason I flew to the UK, but the whole production made the trip worthwhile.

Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (Sydney). I had booked to see the Broadway production of this show, but it was cancelled under very unfortunate circumstances before I arrived. I finally had a chance to see a production of Great Comet in Sydney (not directed by Rachel Chavkin, but designed to fit a much smaller venue and budget), and it's one of the highlights of my year.

Britney Spears the Cabaret (Sydney). I've seen a lot of Australian musicals, and most of them are not great. (To be fair, as Sturgeon's Law dictates, 90% of everything is crap.) Two shows stand out as being able to compete at the same level as the best international shows, and one of these is Britney Spears The Cabaret, a one-woman, one-pianist jukebox musical written & directed by Dean Bryant and starring the luminous Christie Whelan Browne. I liken this show to Hedwig and the Angry Inch - ludicrous at first glance, but a real tour-de-force and emotional roller coaster. I'm not really familiar with Britney Spears songs, but the way they were integrated into this show made it seem like they were written for the musical theatre.

Honourable mentions incude: A Strange Loop (London), Operation Mincemeat (London), Into the Woods (US tour), Beauty and the Beast (Sydney), Here We Are (off-Broadway), Shucked (Broadway), Aspects of Love (London; mainly for Laura Pitt Pulford), Groundhog Day (London; mainly for Andy Karl), Guys & Dolls (London), Next to Normal (London; Eleanor Worthington-Cox is the best Natalie, probably ever), Miss Saigon (Sydney; mainly for Abigail Adriano), 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Sydney), Flowers for Mrs Harris (London), and - as always - Les Miz (in more places that I care to list).

The show I was most disappointed by was Jamie Lloyd's Sunset Boulevard in London. I thought it was pretentious and camp and really didn't care for how Lloyd deliberately sucked any feeling or expression out of the performances (Nicole Scherzinger's Norma aside - but that's where the camp came in unfortunately). I'm also well and truly over the whole black-box-set/live-video-on-stage schtick which I've seen way, waaay, waaaaay too much of over the past couple of decades. That said, the singing and orchestra were both excellent. If they released a cast recording I'd buy it.

I had similar feelings about the Daniel Fish production of Oklahoma! (originally produced in New York) which I saw in London. The whole, constant "let's bring out the subtextual darkness and sexuality through line readings and staging" gimick came across as little (or more than a little) silly a lot of the time, but in the case of Oklahoma I at least respected the aspiration, even if a lot of it didn't work for me. I did particularly like how Fish foregrounded the fact that Curly basically literally gets away with murder (something that's always bothered me about the show), and the shock of violence at the end was quite bracing in the best way. I think Jamie Lloyd must have watched that Oklahoma (as well as any number of Ivo van Hove shows) and took away all the wrong lessons.

What were your musical highlights, lowlights and memorable experiences in 2023? Can be anything - stage, film, TV, cabaret, pro-shots etc.

The song “I’m Here” from The Color Purple musical is not meant to be sung, but roared. It’s not meant to be heard but felt.

“I’m Here” is the climax of the musical. It reframes the protagonist Celie’s narrative from victim to a triumphant woman who has overcome adversity. Up to this moment, Celie has been told that no one loves her. But she begins life on her own in a shop that she owns and realizes that she’s been loved all along; now, she chooses to find that love in herself after going through hell and back searching for it elsewhere. The song marks a new beginning—Celie declares that she’s here, and boy, are you gonna hear her.

Alice Walker’s 1982 novel breathed life into the characters of Celie, Nettie, Sofia, and the rest of the cohort of The Color Purple. Whoopi Goldberg portrayed Celie in the 1985 Steven Spielberg-directed adaptation. It wasn’t until 2005 that the movie was transformed into a Broadway musical, giving the character of Celie a striking, reflective number with “I’m Here.” LaChanze, who originated the role of Celie on Broadway, won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical in 2006, and set the standard for all Celies to come. In 2007 and 2008, Fantasia Barrino—the first American Idol winner to assume a role on Broadway—took over the role for eight months. In 2013, Cynthia Erivo was cast as Celie in an off-West End theater and brought over to Broadway to do the 2015 revival, which earned her a Tony for Best Actress in a Musical, with the show also taking home Best Revival of a Musical.

The three Celies are fundamental for understanding the power behind “I’m Here,” a song that requires every fiber of the performer’s being to sell its emotional stakes. Now, a wider audience will get the chance to fall in love with Celie as Barrino revives the role onscreen in a film adaptation of the musical, out Dec. 25. Ahead of the movie’s release, Barrino, Erivo, and LaChanze, along with the film’s director, Blitz Bazawule, spoke with TIME about bringing the song to life on stage and on the screen.

LaChanze and Cynthia Erivo set the stage on Broadway

Before LaChanze was cast in the musical on Broadway and began workshops for the world premiere of the show in Atlanta in 2003, she read the book, and her heart broke for Celie. “She was still a champion; she never faltered under all that trauma,” she says. “[Celie] was able to maintain a love for herself, her children, her sister, in spite of the subjugation she was dealing with.” LaChanze came on to the project with Regina Taylor as the writer, but when she arrived at the workshop in New York before the show’s premiere in Atlanta, Taylor was replaced with Marsha Norman—who had no book for the show because she had to rewrite it. During the workshop, they worked on a later portion of the show where Celie “decides she is going to love herself,” LaChanze says. The three composers (which LaChanze notes is why the song “I’m Here” has three distinct changes in tempo)—Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray—spoke with the actress in an adjacent rehearsal studio and asked her to describe how she was feeling.

The words began pouring out of LaChanze, she says. “I said, ‘I wanna flirt with somebody, I know I got my sister. She can't be with me. But she's still my sister, and I know she loves me and my children,’” she recalls telling the composers. “I didn’t put it together in the way they did, but my feelings, my emotions, and my thoughts about what I was experiencing as the actor embodying Celie they put in the song. So I like to say I helped write the song.”

Singing “I’m Here” eight times a week on Broadway when it came to New York in 2005 was a cathartic experience for LaChanze. Her husband died in the Sept. 11 attacks, and she was a single mother to two young children. She was able to “use Celie’s emotions as an outlet” for the pressure she felt in her life, she says, adding that she looked forward to singing the song every night because she thought about who was being changed by the words she sang. “Yes, it’s moving, it’s emotional, it’s heavy. But it’s an anthem to Black womanhood, survival, resilience, and empowerment, so it was joyous for me in the end.”

The original run of the show ended in 2008, and in late 2015, the revival came back to Broadway with Cynthia Erivo filling Celie’s shoes after starting out in the U.K. Erivo’s performance as Celie was lauded by critics. In 2016, she won the Tony Award for her role, but it didn’t come easily. “With [The Color Purple], essentially it’s two and a half hours of being thrown across the stage and being called ugly, and for me, that was eight shows a week for 14 months,” she says. “Because of the way I like to dig into characters, the line becomes really blurry between what’s real and what’s not.”

Erivo says that before she sang that song, she imagined digging her feet into the sand to ground herself, anchoring herself to Celie, as she sang. “I could feel everyone holding their breath as the song goes on,” she says. “And you can feel everyone breathe by the end of the song. I knew that when people were on their feet, it wasn’t just because of how wonderful the song was or how wonderful Celie was. It was because there was something in that song that moved people to their feet because that’s the only thing they can do.”

On days when she found it difficult to sing “I’m Here,” Erivo says she reminded herself that the song wasn’t just for her. “It’s not supposed to be an easy song to sing. There has to be a bit of a fight. The song wrestles with you, and you kind of have to surrender to it and say, ‘Okay, I’ll take the fight on.’”

How Fantasia Barrino and Blitz Bazawule captured the magic of “I’m Here” for the movie

Fantasia Barrino initially declined to reprise her role as Celie in the movie adaptation—she’d like to clarify that it wasn’t a hard no, but says that it was the director, Blitz Bazawule, who convinced her to sign on to the project by telling her Celie's imagination would be given more space in the film. “As a woman who has been through trauma, we need for people to know that we don’t just sit in our trauma; we imagine ourselves in different places and situations,” Barrino says. “We imagine things better. When we ain’t got no money, we imagine ourselves with some money.” After that, she says, she was all the way in.

When it came to filming “I’m Here,” Barrino says she sang the song live 86 times on set. There were two different setups for the film—the interior shot of Celie’s shop on a soundstage and the exterior, which was shot on location in Georgia, Bazawule says. It was freezing cold when they filmed—Barrino says what got her through was the support she was given by her castmates and crew. Halle Bailey, who plays young Nettie, and Phylicia Pearl Mpasi, who plays young Celie, came to set on their day off to watch her film her performance. At first, she was confused about why they would come to watch her shoot the scene, but after a couple of takes, she says, “They would all walk up to me and say, ‘I needed this. You blessed me. This heals me.’ I realized it was a ministry.”

Bazawule says he was looking for an earnest performance from Barrino. “The minute she looked into that camera and sang, ‘I’m beautiful,’ and her voice broke, I thought, ‘That’s it. I got it,’” he says. “I was behind the monitor tearing up, so I know that anybody watching it in a theater would tear up, and that, to me, is what this is about.”

The song “I’m Here” from The Color Purple musical is not meant to be sung, but roared. It’s not meant to be heard but felt.

“I’m Here” is the climax of the musical. It reframes the protagonist Celie’s narrative from victim to a triumphant woman who has overcome adversity. Up to this moment, Celie has been told that no one loves her. But she begins life on her own in a shop that she owns and realizes that she’s been loved all along; now, she chooses to find that love in herself after going through hell and back searching for it elsewhere. The song marks a new beginning—Celie declares that she’s here, and boy, are you gonna hear her.

Alice Walker’s 1982 novel breathed life into the characters of Celie, Nettie, Sofia, and the rest of the cohort of The Color Purple. Whoopi Goldberg portrayed Celie in the 1985 Steven Spielberg-directed adaptation. It wasn’t until 2005 that the movie was transformed into a Broadway musical, giving the character of Celie a striking, reflective number with “I’m Here.” LaChanze, who originated the role of Celie on Broadway, won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical in 2006, and set the standard for all Celies to come. In 2007 and 2008, Fantasia Barrino—the first American Idol winner to assume a role on Broadway—took over the role for eight months. In 2013, Cynthia Erivo was cast as Celie in an off-West End theater and brought over to Broadway to do the 2015 revival, which earned her a Tony for Best Actress in a Musical, with the show also taking home Best Revival of a Musical.

The three Celies are fundamental for understanding the power behind “I’m Here,” a song that requires every fiber of the performer’s being to sell its emotional stakes. Now, a wider audience will get the chance to fall in love with Celie as Barrino revives the role onscreen in a film adaptation of the musical, out Dec. 25. Ahead of the movie’s release, Barrino, Erivo, and LaChanze, along with the film’s director, Blitz Bazawule, spoke with TIME about bringing the song to life on stage and on the screen.

LaChanze and Cynthia Erivo set the stage on Broadway

Before LaChanze was cast in the musical on Broadway and began workshops for the world premiere of the show in Atlanta in 2003, she read the book, and her heart broke for Celie. “She was still a champion; she never faltered under all that trauma,” she says. “[Celie] was able to maintain a love for herself, her children, her sister, in spite of the subjugation she was dealing with.” LaChanze came on to the project with Regina Taylor as the writer, but when she arrived at the workshop in New York before the show’s premiere in Atlanta, Taylor was replaced with Marsha Norman—who had no book for the show because she had to rewrite it. During the workshop, they worked on a later portion of the show where Celie “decides she is going to love herself,” LaChanze says. The three composers (which LaChanze notes is why the song “I’m Here” has three distinct changes in tempo)—Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray—spoke with the actress in an adjacent rehearsal studio and asked her to describe how she was feeling.

The words began pouring out of LaChanze, she says. “I said, ‘I wanna flirt with somebody, I know I got my sister. She can't be with me. But she's still my sister, and I know she loves me and my children,’” she recalls telling the composers. “I didn’t put it together in the way they did, but my feelings, my emotions, and my thoughts about what I was experiencing as the actor embodying Celie they put in the song. So I like to say I helped write the song.”

Singing “I’m Here” eight times a week on Broadway when it came to New York in 2005 was a cathartic experience for LaChanze. Her husband died in the Sept. 11 attacks, and she was a single mother to two young children. She was able to “use Celie’s emotions as an outlet” for the pressure she felt in her life, she says, adding that she looked forward to singing the song every night because she thought about who was being changed by the words she sang. “Yes, it’s moving, it’s emotional, it’s heavy. But it’s an anthem to Black womanhood, survival, resilience, and empowerment, so it was joyous for me in the end.”

The original run of the show ended in 2008, and in late 2015, the revival came back to Broadway with Cynthia Erivo filling Celie’s shoes after starting out in the U.K. Erivo’s performance as Celie was lauded by critics. In 2016, she won the Tony Award for her role, but it didn’t come easily. “With [The Color Purple], essentially it’s two and a half hours of being thrown across the stage and being called ugly, and for me, that was eight shows a week for 14 months,” she says. “Because of the way I like to dig into characters, the line becomes really blurry between what’s real and what’s not.”

Erivo says that before she sang that song, she imagined digging her feet into the sand to ground herself, anchoring herself to Celie, as she sang. “I could feel everyone holding their breath as the song goes on,” she says. “And you can feel everyone breathe by the end of the song. I knew that when people were on their feet, it wasn’t just because of how wonderful the song was or how wonderful Celie was. It was because there was something in that song that moved people to their feet because that’s the only thing they can do.”

On days when she found it difficult to sing “I’m Here,” Erivo says she reminded herself that the song wasn’t just for her. “It’s not supposed to be an easy song to sing. There has to be a bit of a fight. The song wrestles with you, and you kind of have to surrender to it and say, ‘Okay, I’ll take the fight on.’”

How Fantasia Barrino and Blitz Bazawule captured the magic of “I’m Here” for the movie

Fantasia Barrino initially declined to reprise her role as Celie in the movie adaptation—she’d like to clarify that it wasn’t a hard no, but says that it was the director, Blitz Bazawule, who convinced her to sign on to the project by telling her Celie's imagination would be given more space in the film. “As a woman who has been through trauma, we need for people to know that we don’t just sit in our trauma; we imagine ourselves in different places and situations,” Barrino says. “We imagine things better. When we ain’t got no money, we imagine ourselves with some money.” After that, she says, she was all the way in.

When it came to filming “I’m Here,” Barrino says she sang the song live 86 times on set. There were two different setups for the film—the interior shot of Celie’s shop on a soundstage and the exterior, which was shot on location in Georgia, Bazawule says. It was freezing cold when they filmed—Barrino says what got her through was the support she was given by her castmates and crew. Halle Bailey, who plays young Nettie, and Phylicia Pearl Mpasi, who plays young Celie, came to set on their day off to watch her film her performance. At first, she was confused about why they would come to watch her shoot the scene, but after a couple of takes, she says, “They would all walk up to me and say, ‘I needed this. You blessed me. This heals me.’ I realized it was a ministry.”

Bazawule says he was looking for an earnest performance from Barrino. “The minute she looked into that camera and sang, ‘I’m beautiful,’ and her voice broke, I thought, ‘That’s it. I got it,’” he says. “I was behind the monitor tearing up, so I know that anybody watching it in a theater would tear up, and that, to me, is what this is about.”