Huey Lewis and the News (Music Group)

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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 Lost His Hearing. That Didn’t Stop Him From Making a Musical.

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      “The Heart of Rock and Roll,” a Broadway show built around the songs of Huey Lewis and the News, has given the singer a reason to “get out of bed.”After Huey Lewis learned that a syndrome of the inner ear called Ménière’s disease had caused him significant hearing loss and left him unable to play or hear music, he faced the difficult task of having to tell his friends and peers.Lewis, whose wry lyrics and rumbling vocals powered Reagan-era pop hits like “I Want a New Drug” and “If This Is It,” turned to people like Tico Torres, the longtime Bon Jovi drummer, whom he’d gotten to know on golfing trips. But their conversation proved to be an unexpected source of the pragmatic philosophy that Lewis built his career on.Over a breakfast interview last month, Lewis delivered a lively, solo re-enactment of that fateful talk with Torres.“He goes, ‘Hey, Huey, how ya doing?’” Lewis recalled. “I say, ‘Tico, it’s not good.’ And I begin to explain. I said, ‘I’ve lost my hearing and I can’t hear pitch. I can’t sing.’”“I’m telling him the whole story and he’s going like this” — here, Lewis lowered his head, furrowed his bushy brows over his eyeglasses and shook his head in dismay. Slipping into an imitation of Torres’s New Jersey accent, Lewis said, “When I finish, he goes, ‘Whaddaya gonna do?’”Lewis, center, flanked by the show’s director, Gordon Greenberg, and its choreographer, Lorin Latarro, at a special presentation before the musical began performances at the James Earl Jones Theater.Peter Fisher for The New York TimesWe 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