Reasons To Get Excited: Broadway's Summer Openings

Things tend to get a little mellow on Broadway during the summertime. After the excitement of June's Tony Awards there's usually a few closings and word about great shows getting set to come in during autumn. There are only two Broadway productions scheduled to come in during July and August this year, but this recent hit and old favorite are sure to heat things up.

MOTOWN (July 21st): Record producer Berry Gordy changed American music when he founded the Motown label and pushed African American R&B, soul and pop artists into the forefront of radio play and album sales. In writing the book for his own bio-musical, Gordy stuffed his show with chart-topping hits by Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and The Supremes, The Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye, Martha and the Vandellas and many more. By presenting the material in chronological order, the audience gets a real sense of the evolution of his music.

When MOTOWN first hit Broadway in 2013, director Charles Randolph-Wright's cast offered a jaw-dropping display of talent, bringing back the style and panache of these music legends. In this summer's return visit, the terrific Chester Gregory (HAIRSPRAY, CRY-BABY, SISTER ACT) leads the way as Berry Gordy.

Broadway had never seen anything quite like CATS when it pounced into the Winter Garden in 1982. A little bit revue, a little bit story and a whole lot of concept, this unprecedented hit was Andrew Lloyd Webber's first Broadway venture without librettist Tim Rice. His "collaborator" this time was T.S. Elliot, who had passed on in '65. His "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" provided most of the text, but it was Trevor Nunn's staging and Gillian Lynne's choreography that gave the musical its structure.

Nunn is once again at the helm as CATS returns to Broadway, but this time Tony-winner Andy Blankenbuehler choreographs, though his work is said to be highly informed by Lynne's original. If SCHOOL OF ROCK is a return to the kind of music Andrew Lloyd Webber first became famous for, CATS is a revisit to a time when he took his art into a more classical direction.

That's all for now, but there's lots more excitement coming to Broadway when the season really starts moving in the fall.