It Feels Like a Rocket Ship’: Behind the New Broadway Musical of Prince’s ‘Purple Rain — Billboard

RESOLVING THE LEDGER

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called….a Purple Rain musical? You read that correctly: the iconic 1984 movie (with its accompanying, now canon soundtrack album) has been adapted for the stage. After an initial 2025 out-of-town production in Prince ’s own Minneapolis, it will officially come to Broadway in spring of 2027, starting previews March 12 and opening April 12 at the Majestic Theatre. “Everything that Prince did in his career was so theatrical,” producer Orin Wolf tells Billboard . “So it’s just an organic move from the film to the stage.” Wolf has plenty of experience bringing innovative musicals with pop music origins to Broadway: he produced best musical Tony-winners Once and The Band’s Visit , as well as recent nominees like Illinoise and Buena Vista Social Club . And he’s assembled a stacked creative team that includes director Saheem Ali (with whom he worked on Buena Vista ) and Tony-winning music supervisor, arranger and orchestrator Jason Michael Webb, who most recently served as music director of the mega-successful Michael Jackson musical MJ . “There are a lot of different ways in which musicians’ catalogs get put into story form, but it’s very rare to have a story where the impulse came from the musician himself or herself,” Wolf says. “But Purple Rain really was something that came from Prince’s own imagination — not just the song and the album, but the story of The Kid, the idea of telling a story about what it was like to grow up in the mid ’80s in Minneapolis and to come up in that scene. A lot of things were inspired by his own experience as an artist and his life, but truly, this was an invention of his, and that was fascinating to me.” Shortly before announcing the Broadway production, Wolf and Webb spoke to Billboard about the work they’ve done on Purple Rain , what Prince knew of the show and what audiences can expect from it. What the thinking was behind Purple Rain needing a stage adaptation in the first place? Orin Wolf: My impulse around it started with what I thought was just this very rare opportunity with a catalog show like this. There are so few properties like that that exist, especially at this magnitude, with this kind of reach and this kind of global following. And then beyond that, as I learned more about the story of how the film was made and how the album and the songs came together, he was actually responding to the story — I mean, there were examples of songs like “When Doves Cry” that were written while they were shooting, in response to a moment in the film they needed to complete. That was very instructive in terms of what I think my assignment was as a producer, which is to really try to get underneath what [Prince’s] initial impulses were. You can love or hate the film, but the point is that it came from an artist. Was the idea of the musical something Prince was aware of in his lifetime? Wolf: By the time I got involved officially, he had passed. But one of the reasons why this conversation was able to commence was because Prince did talk about it. He talked about the idea of this being done on stage — it wasn’t something that he had gotten to do yet, but it was certainly not a secret, and it was certainly something that he understood could happen. So I think when I approached [the estate], there was an openness to it for that reason. Bobby Z, who was in The Revolution, and longtime Prince collaborator Morris Hayes, from New Power Generation, are both music advisers on the show. What has it been like getting their insights on Prince’s music? Jason Michael Webb: As a lifelong Prince music student, to work with Bobby Z and Morris Hayes, who was like Prince’s [music director] for a good chunk of years that Prince was working and knows him so intimately well….to have a window into Prince’s experience is insane to me, and such a gift. [They’ve been] giving us a window into Prince’s process, which is really shaping our process. The people who were there with him are saying, “Yeah, this feels like the energy.” Morris was an artist that Prince took a liking to and then invited on and became important in his camp. Just recently, Morris told me about how he went from being in front as an audience member watching this man, to being on the keyboards behind. So, for example, sometimes Prince might turn upstage and do a guitar solo, and whatever’s happening for Prince in that moment isn’t necessarily for the audience, but Morris got to see that man connect to his music. Just to be with someone who witnessed that connection, it encouraged me to re-focus, even when dealing with the cast, getting them to understand that yes, the music has notes and it has the lyric, but it’s actually about the connection to the music, and that’s creating the magic. Bobby, of course, was the drummer in Purple Rain , and so he knew what was important. He could recount some of the things that Prince shared with him, some of the adjustments that he wanted made. “Oh, the kick is too busy here,” “there’s not enough hi-hat here,” “there needs to be a clap for when I do this motion.” Knowing that level of detail was one of the big takeaways for me in this process. Jason, MJ must have given you some valuable experience working on a Broadway musical about an artist in which their estate is involved. How has the experience with the Prince estate compared? Webb : Well, I think they’re similar in that it’s all birthed out of this love for that material and this love for these artists and for what they were trying to do. To be placed in a position to continue that work, where that’s what’s actually driving the entire thing, we don’t run into a whole lot of issues where we’re not aligned. When we get together to talk with the estate, with both MJ and this one, I’m really amazed at how aligned everyone is whe...

It Feels Like a Rocket Ship’: Behind the New Broadway Musical of Prince’s ‘Purple Rain — Billboard | AIPROPX