SALT LAKE CITY — Unless we’re talking about “Hamilton” or “Dear Evan Hansen,” Broadway show tunes and popular music don’t often intersect. According to Forbes, Broadway albums rarely make the Billboard top 200, let alone making the climb anywhere near the top.
But one small place where the two meet is in the handful of musicals written by popular musicians, including Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” a production of which CenterPoint Legacy Theatre in Centerville is set to mount starting Aug. 4.
In honor of the local production, here are seven musicians — including Parton — that have written musicals.
Dolly Parton
Parton became country-star-turned-movie-star in 1980 with the release of “9 to 5,” a comedy about three women working office jobs under a chauvinistic boss. Each is slighted by the man a different way but things come to a head as they reach their final straw and together the women decide to kidnap him and run the company themselves.
Parton starred as Doralee in the film as well as wrote and performed the theme song. In 2009, Parton opened a musical adaptation of the story at Broadway’s Marquis Theatre, for which she wrote all the music and lyrics.
"Once I got into it, I found I have a little knack for it because I've always loved telling stories," Parton told The Arizona Republic. "When you write for commercial radio, you have to keep it around three minutes and limit it to a couple verses and a chorus. But writing for the stage, I could just let my mind go."
According to Parton’s website, the musical went on to receive four Tony Award nominations, 15 Drama Desk Award nominations and a Grammy Award nomination.
Paul Simon
Paul Simon, the iconic singer/songwriter who gained fame as the song-writing half of Simon and Garfunkel, is known for classics such as “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “The Sound of Silence,” and “Ceclia,” but Simon also tried his hand at writing a musical in the late 1990s. The multi-Grammy Award-winning artist wrote the music and lyrics to “The Capeman,” which tells the story of real-life Puerto Rican gangster-turned-poet Salvador Agron, who murdered two teenagers in the ’50s.
"I was aiming to write a story that would sweep you up and that examines the moral questions of forgiveness and the possibility of redemption," Rolling Stone reports Simon said at a press conference before the show’s debut. "I think I achieved that, but I don't know. I've never done this before."
The show opened in 1998 and became what the New York Times has since called a “spectacular and costly” flop and was protested heavily by family members of the real-life victims, according to Playbill.
The Times’ initial review said that although there was no doubt that Simon had spent a great deal of time and effort in producing the musical, the result was “like watching a mortally wounded animal. You're only sorry that it has to suffer and that there's nothing you can do about it.”
Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend, lead guitarist of the British rock band The Who, had always had a knack for and interest in telling deeper stories.
According to ultimateclassicrock.com, Townshend had long been interested “in crafting songs that related a short tale or painted a character portrait” and wanted to “expand beyond a quick-hit radio single.”
That desire eventually led to the 1969 release of the 24-track “rock opera” album "Tommy," which tells the story of a boy who becomes a pinball master years after witnessing a death leaves him deaf and blind.
From there, the story became a 1975 movie starring the members of The Who, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton and Elton John, and then Townshend adapted the rock opera to the Broadway stage in 1993. There are musicals that take previously existing popular music and string them together to create a stage story (think “Mamma Mia), but “The Who’s Tommy” is in a class of its own as it told the story in its original album form as well.
Variety’s review of the show calls “Tommy” “sheer rock ’n’ roll fun,” stating that “it’s also a triumph of stagecraft, a show whose only peers in delivering one eye-popping scene after another are ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ and ‘Miss Saigon.’”
Cyndi Lauper
Cyndi Lauper, the ’80s popstar behind hits such as “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “Time After Time,” teamed up with book writer Harvey Fierstein in 2013 to write a stage adaptation of the film “Kinky Boots,” which went on to receive 13 Tony nominations, winning six, including best musical and best score for Lauper, according to tonyawards.com.
The musical follows Charlie Price who, after inheriting his father’s shoe factory, starts manufacturing boots for drag queens in order to keep the company alive.
The success of the musical was a bit of a surprise to many, but not to Lauper.
“It’s because the show has a huge heart,” Lauper told Denver Center for the Performing Arts. “It’s a story about love and acceptance and friendship and overcoming obstacles, and everyone can relate to that.”
Elton John
Elton John’s career has been marked by wide success: He’s sold more than 300 million records, been inducted into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame, been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and composed the music for not one, but four Broadway musicals.
According to his website, John has worked with lyricist Tim Rice on the music for the film version of “The Lion King” as well as for the Broadway musical, and the duo also collaborated with a musical adaptation of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Aida,” which won the Tony Award for best original score in 2000. In 2006, he wrote the music for the successful stage adaptation of “Billy Elliot,” and in 2005, he composed for “Lestat,” based on Anne Rice’s “The Vampire Chronicles.”
And John is about to add a fifth musical credit to his resume. The Guardian also reported in January that John is slated to write the music for the musical version of “The Devil Wears Prada,” which does not have a set date yet.
“Re-imagining 'The Devil Wears Prada' for the musical theatre is super exciting,” John said in a statement announcing the musical. “I’m a huge fan of both the book and the feature film and a huge aficionado of the fashion world. I can’t wait to sink my musical teeth into this hunk of popular culture.”
Sting
Grammy-winning artist Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, more commonly known as Sting, wrote the musical “The Last Ship,” based on his childhood in a shipbuilding town in England. In it, a man returns to his hometown after years away to find the local economy in deep trouble and his sweetheart engaged to another man.
Despite two Tony Award nominations — best original score for Sting’s music and lyrics and best orchestrations — the musical didn’t see much success on Broadway. According to the Daily Mail, the musical received mixed reviews from critics for pretty much everything except Sting’s music and closed due to dismal ticket sales after a three-month run.
Despite “The Last Ship’s” short time on Broadway, the production has gone on to local productions, including a regional premiere at Salt Lake’s Pioneer Theatre Company in September of last year.
Sara Bareilles
Sara Bareilles, pop singer and musician and lyricist behind the musical “Waitress,” has a longstanding interest in musical theater.
The Grammy-nominated singer recognized for tunes such as “Love Song” and "Brave" starred as Audrey in her high school production of “Little Shop of Horrors, according to biography.com, and she told the Times she’s always enjoyed listening to cast recordings from shows like “Oklahoma” and “Miss Saigon.”
So when she was approached by director Diane Paulus about working on a musical adaptation of the 2007 Sundance Film Festival film “Waitress,” Bareilles jumped onboard.
And it paid off. The musical, which tells the story of a small-town waitress who hopes her talent for baking pies will help her find her way to love and happiness, garnered four Tony nominations, including best original score for Bareilles.
Bonus round
Other musicals featuring the talents of well-known musicians include:
• “Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark,” with music and lyrics by Bono and the Edge
• “Bull Durham,” with music and lyrics by Susan Werner
• “Spring Awakening,” with music by Duncan Sheik
• “Diner,” with music and lyrics by Sheryl Crow
• “Miss You Like Hell,” with music and lyrics by Erin McKeown
Musicals that take previously existing popular music and adapt them to the stage include:
• “American Idiot,” featuring the music of Green Day
• “Mamma Mia,” featuring the music of ABBA
• “Jersey Boys,” featuring the music of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons
• “Beautiful,” featuring the music of Carole King
• “We Will Rock You,” featuring the music of Queen