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    Huey Lewis’s Music Makes ‘The Heart of Rock and Roll’

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    The new musical doesn’t take itself too seriously and has many winning moments — almost enough to eclipse the weaknesses of its story.It’s 2024, and Huey Lewis is having a moment. Just let that sink in.Lewis was an unexpected highlight of the recent Netflix documentary “The Greatest Night in Pop,” about the star-studded 1985 session where “We Are the World” was recorded. An everyman rocker, Lewis was amazed (and still is) that he was rubbing elbows with Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Tina Turner and Bruce Springsteen. He even got to sing the part originally intended for Prince.Now comes the new Broadway show “The Heart of Rock and Roll,” which is not so much a Huey Lewis (and the News) musical as the Huey Lewis of musicals: not taking itself too seriously, doing what it does well, and just happy to be on Broadway, keeping company with starrier productions.Like most jukeboxes, “The Heart of Rock and Roll” shoehorns big hits, including “The Power of Love” and “Stuck With You,” with lesser-known tracks into a plot generic enough to accommodate them.Set in 1987, Jonathan A. Abrams’s book, based on a story by Tyler Mitchell and Abrams, centers on Bobby (Corey Cott, from the underrated “Bandstand”), an employee at an ailing cardboard box manufacturer, Stone Incorporated, in Milwaukee. Bobby works on the assembly line, but he really wants to join the sales department so he can “Be Someone,” as the show’s new song puts it. Wait, no, maybe what he really wants is to rock out with his old band, the Loop. Bobby might sing “It’s Hip to Be Square,” but deep down, does he really believe it?By now you might have noticed that dreams play a big part in “The Heart of Rock and Roll.” There are numerous references to chasing the dream, making it come true and living it, but also giving it up. Sentimentality is often ladled out, along with clichés. And Bobby, whose sole personality trait appears to be “good guy,” carries more than his share of both — he hears the fateful siren call “one last show” and lugs emotional baggage related to his “old man.” At least Cott gives Bobby a laid-back charm that’s not unlike Lewis’s own, along with his emotional big Act II aria, “The Only One.”Fortunately, there is also enough good-natured goofball humor to keep Gordon Greenberg’s production from sinking into cloying goo. Much of the levity comes from amusing supporting characters, starting with Bobby’s love interest and his boss’s daughter, Cassandra (McKenzie Kurtz, a recent Glinda in “Wicked”). She is an uber-dork with a fondness for spreadsheets, and Kurtz’s Cassandra is a daffy delight that recalls Annaleigh Ashford’s performance in “Kinky Boots.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Huey Lewis and the News Musical Is Coming to Broadway in March

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      “The Heart of Rock and Roll” is a romantic comedy featuring songs by the chart-topping 1980s band.“The Heart of Rock and Roll,” a new musical powered by the songs of Huey Lewis and the News, is coming to Broadway in the spring.The show, which had an initial run in 2018 at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, is a comedy about a couple whose romance must navigate their rock band and corporate life aspirations.The musical is scheduled to begin previews March 29 and to open April 22 at the James Earl Jones Theater. Casting has not yet been announced.Marketed as a “feel-great musical,” the show features the upbeat songs of Huey Lewis and the News, a pop-rock band whose heyday was in the 1980s, and whose hit “The Power of Love” is also featured on Broadway in “Back to the Future: The Musical.”“The Heart of Rock and Roll” (that title is also the name of one of the band’s most popular songs) is directed by Gordon Greenberg (“Holiday Inn”), choreographed by Lorin Latarro (who is also choreographing a Broadway revival of “The Who’s Tommy”), and features a book by Jonathan A. Abrams based on a story by Abrams and Tyler Mitchell. Abrams and Mitchell have worked primarily in film and television.Mitchell is also producing the show with Hunter Arnold and Kayla Greenspan; the production is being capitalized for up to $16 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. More

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      in Theater

      ‘Dracula, a Comedy of Terrors’ Review: An Equal-Opportunity Seducer

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      A gender-bending play at New World Stages filters well-known characters through influences like “The Rocky Horror Show” and “Young Frankenstein.”You don’t need to have been to Transylvania to know that one way to kill vampires is with a stake through the heart. In “Dracula, a Comedy of Terrors,” a gender-bending play at New World Stages, Dr. Van Helsing calls for a “shtick” to slay her greatest foe. Or at least that’s what “stake” sounds like after it’s been mauled by Arnie Burton’s German-accented, female Van Helsing.That Van Helsing deploys (a) shtick to slay her opponent sums up the mode of this “Dracula,” which actually aims to be funny. It’s a refreshing change from all the stage bloodsuckers that have unintentionally made us laugh over the decades, whether they attempted to sing (“Dance of the Vampires,” “Lestat”) or not (cheap props and woeful ponytails made an Off Broadway “Dracula” from 2011 one of the most hilariously inept spectacles I have ever been lucky enough to catch at a supposedly professional theater).Even better is that this production — not quite enough, but often — fulfills its mission.Boatman and Burton. The staging constantly draws attention to farcical, fourth-wall-breaking devices. Matthew MurphyThe play, by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen and directed by Greenberg, had a starry audio version in 2020, processing the well-known gallery of characters through influences like “The Rocky Horror Show” and “Young Frankenstein.” Dracula (James Daly) is now a Frank-N-Furter-like equal-opportunity seducer whose manly chest is encased in what looks like a black see-through doily. (Tristan Raines did the costume design.) Naturally, the vampire proceeds to help the meek real estate broker Jonathan Harker (Andrew Keenan-Bolger) and his fiancée, Lucy (Jordan Boatman), shake off their Victorian hangups — strong Brad and Janet vibes there.As if this setup weren’t enough indication that the play pays no mind to the “terrors” part of its title, Greenberg’s staging constantly draws attention to farcical, fourth-wall-breaking devices. The sound designer, Victoria Deiorio, for example, is called upon to deploy effects shamelessly (clip-clopping horses never get old), and except for Daly, who shticks to Dracula, the other cast members constantly switch roles, regardless of the character’s gender.The most adept at this exercise is Burton, an expert ham who portrays both Van Helsing and Lucy’s sex-starved sister, Mina (“I got all the recessive genes”), as if they had escaped from a Ridiculous Theatrical Company production. A close second is Ellen Harvey as Dracula’s little helper, Renfield, and the siblings’ father, Dr. Wallace Westfeldt. At the performance I attended, Harvey landed the single biggest laugh when she shifted from one character to another in a single scream.For the show to really work, it needs more moments like that one: simple, goofy and fast. That last quality is important in farce, but unfortunately, in this case, the second half of the evening drags a bit. Some scenes even slow down enough to suggest … emotions? In this context, that’s just like garlic to a vampire.Dracula, a Comedy of TerrorsThrough Jan. 7 at New World Stages, Manhattan; draculacomedy.com. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. More