When Top 40 gets a narrative

Some call them jukebox musicals. Others call them catalog musicals. Whatever you call them, they’re proliferating.

They’re musicals that start with the catalog of a beloved pop group or soloist from the first quarter-century of the rock age -- the mid-’50s through the ‘70s.

“From this great piece of real estate, you then build a house,” says Michael David, a Broadway producer who is overseeing the construction of two such houses: “Jersey Boys,” a musical about the Four Seasons that opens today at La Jolla Playhouse, and “Good Vibrations,” a musical that uses Beach Boys songs.

The genre does not include musicals with original rock-influenced scores (“Hair,” “Grease,” “Rent”). Nor does it include musicals without a fictional narrative (the multimedia “Beatlemania,” the revue “Smokey Joe’s Cafe”).

Jukebox musicals have new narratives -- but scores that need no introduction to potential ticket buyers. Creators of these musicals use two approaches.

They can tell the stories of the artists who provided the score. “Buddy ... The Buddy Holly Story,” a 1990 Broadway flop but a long-running hit in London and on the road, is an early example. Peter Allen was the topic of “The Boy From Oz.” “Jersey Boys” falls into this sub-genre.

The other route is to concoct a fictional tale that has nothing or little to do with the real-life pop stars whose music is being used. The champion of this category is “Mamma Mia!,” which adapted the music of the Swedish group ABBA to a story about a Greek wedding. With 11 productions on four continents and translations into German, Dutch, Japanese and Korean, the show has grossed more than $1 billion. “Good Vibrations,” which will open on Broadway in late January, follows this model with a story about teenagers on a road trip.

“All Shook Up,” a musical about teen love in the ‘50s, featuring Elvis Presley songs but lacking a character named Elvis Presley, is slated for a March 24 Broadway opening after a Chicago tryout.

Biography is expected to return with “Lennon,” based on the life as well as the songs of John Lennon. It has booked tryouts in San Francisco in April and Boston in May with a Broadway opening next summer.

Other examples of the genre include the dance musical “Movin’ Out,” which uses Billy Joel music and a fictional story, and playwright Ben Elton’s “We Will Rock You” and “Tonight’s the Night,” London hits that overcame critical disdain with original stories set to the music of Queen and Rod Stewart, respectively. “We Will Rock You” recently opened in Las Vegas.

Waiting in the wings are projects in development that draw on the oeuvres of Johnny Cash and Chicago.

An economic incentive drives the genre. Because of the high expenses of Broadway, producers often look for material already well enough liked that it will attract “a ‘yes’ audience,” says David -- people who will say “yes” to the idea of a show before it has opened.

This principle has long applied to revivals of previous stage hits and shows that are drawn from popular movies or books. Producers now realize that “yes” audiences might also come to shows based on pop catalogs.

It’s no coincidence that most of these catalogs are by artists who were popular when baby boomers were young, says Gary Bongiovanni, editor of concert trade publication Pollstar. “We’re seeing the graying of the boomer generation, who grew up on this music and now have the money to become a more significant portion of the theatergoing population.”

The costs of obtaining the stage rights to a pop artist’s collected works are generally about the same as the costs of commissioning an original score, David says. “The difference is on the potential income side, not on the expense side.”

After the rights to the Four Seasons songs were obtained, the initial idea was to create a fictional story. But co-writer Rick Elice says that when he met with two of the Four Seasons, Bob Gaudio and Frankie Valli, “it became clear that their story was the story.” Their biography has “almost classical Greek” dimensions, he says. “They achieved greatness and screwed it up. They were open to telling the story, warts and all.” Elice adds, however, that “we had to balance accuracy with drama. We had to consolidate certain characters. That it’s a true story isn’t as important as that it’s a good story.”

The “Good Vibrations” creators rejected biography. Co-producer Nina Keneally says the stories of the Beach Boys have been amply covered, including in a TV movie. “Part of our goal was to prove that their songs could be sung by others, not just by white guys in striped shirts.”

So “Good Vibrations” writer Richard Dresser, who says the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” album “had a profound effect on my life,” devised a script about six fictional teenagers in the East, half of them girls. Some of them take a road trip to California.

The story “moves through time and has the aspect of a fable,” Dresser says. “I didn’t want to lock it into nostalgia,” so he avoided slang that would sound too specific to an era.

Dresser acknowledges the songs “don’t tell a literal story or reveal character” in dramatic fashion, “but they tell an emotional story. The challenge is getting them in the right order.”

Adding drama where none exists

Joe DiPIETRO, writer of the Elvis-inspired musical “All Shook Up,” also acknowledges that pop songs “are not naturally dramatic. You have to establish who is singing them, why, and what happens to take them from point A to point B.”

He has come up with a story about a small-town girl in 1955 and a guitar-playing rebel, but to help provide narrative thrust, he is “funneling the Elvis myth through the comedies of Shakespeare.” As in Shakespeare, expect several weddings at the end.

A biographical script for “All Shook Up” was ruled out because the Presley estate thought that anyone who tried to play Presley on Broadway “would come across as a cheesy imitation,” DiPietro says.

The arrangements “will not try to replicate the Elvis sound,” DiPietro says. Many songwriters wrote Elvis songs. The show will be “a tribute more to the music than to Elvis.”

These shows aren’t universally welcomed. Miles Kreuger, president of L.A.’s Institute of the American Musical, which operates a private library and research center on musicals, says that “in a properly prepared musical, the score and book must be fused into a single unit. The songs exist to develop character and heighten emotion and grow naturally out of the dialogue.”

“When random songs by a pop singer or rock group are cobbled together with text that exists simply to act as the glue, it is obvious that this is musical theater on a far lower level, if indeed it is musical theater at all.”

From the other side of the fence, Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke also uses “cobbled” to express his skepticism about the made-up stories of some of these shows. But he points to a possible redeeming value -- as the original artists stop performing, “where else do you get to hear these songs in live performance?”

While some rock purists “will think it’s a betrayal for any rock song to be in a Broadway musical,” says Joe Levy, deputy managing editor of Rolling Stone, “rock has lasted too long to be confined to teenagers. It’s absurd to say that it’s wrong for adults to listen to it.”

Those from either side of the aisle who are appalled by jukebox musicals can take comfort from predictions that the trend won’t last. Catherine Johnson, who wrote “Mamma Mia!,” says she doesn’t plan to write any others. The ABBA songs were often written for characters and singers other than their composers, Johnson says. “There aren’t that many artists who lend themselves to this treatment.”

Catalog musicals “are in vogue now,” says DiPietro. “But I don’t think Stephen Sondheim has to worry about being out of work.”

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‘Jersey Boys’

Where: La Jolla Playhouse, La Jolla Village Drive and Torrey Pines Road, UC San Diego campus

When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays through Sundays; 7 p.m. Sundays

Ends: Nov. 21

Price: $45-$57

Contact: (858) 550-1010