David Bryan has been talking about “Memphis” for a decade.
Of course, that’s been in between several world tours with Bon Jovi, the megastar rockers with whom he’s played keyboards since the band’s inception in 1983. But Bryan is learning to master the art of juggling his creative endeavors.
The Tony Award-winning musical loosely pulled from the biography of Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips, one of the first white DJs to play black music in the racially tense 1950s, wasn’t Bryan’s first foray into writing music and lyrics for theater (that would be a tuner based on the “Sweet Valley High” series).
But his hookup with script and co-lyric writer Joe DiPietro birthed a Broadway smash that still consistently plays to about 80 percent capacity at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway, where “Memphis” opened in 2009 after nearly 10 years of development and tryouts in cities such as Beverly, Mass., and San Diego.
In October, the first national tour of “Memphis,” starring Bryan Fenkart as Huey Calhoun and Felicia Boswell as Felicia Farrell, launched in Tennessee; and on Jan. 31, the story of racial harmony instigated by music makes its Atlanta debut at the Fox Theatre.
That the show isn’t about a blithely acceptable topic is one reason Bryan thinks it’s resonated so well.
“It’s entertainment that matters,” he said recently from Houston, where he was preparing for the opening of his and DiPietro’s new theatrical outing, “Toxic Avenger.” “It’s a message that celebrates what brings people together rather than what separates us. In the '50s, it was illegal for a white person and a black person to be married. That’s kind of frightening to think about now. But this story is working like crazy across America. It’s important for people to see that you can celebrate the spirit of rock ‘n' roll, but you have to look at what came before it. For me, I understood. I grew up as a white Jewish kid [in New Jersey], and there was a lot of anti-Semitism and hate.”
Bryan, who turns 50 on Feb. 7, usually hangs out on a platform surrounded by banks of keyboards when on tour with Bon Jovi, leaving the main spotlights to celeb-magazine magnets Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora.
But while he’s still a contented background player in the theater world, Bryan is also confident and comfortable among his newer peers.
“I have three Tonys on my mantel,” he said without a hint of arrogance, but with understandable pride. “I was embraced by the industry, and I think part of it is that this isn’t a jukebox musical, but an original. I got a lot of kudos from the community for what I did. It’s not a show based on a movie; we don’t have big-name stars. It was always conceived as an original.”
The Broadway version of the show still stars Macon native Montego Glover as Felicia (this week,a DVD of the New York production is being released), and Bryan points to that kind of consistency -- the same kind that he promises will follow this road show -- as another reason for the continued success of "Memphis."
“It’s an amazing feat to get a show up every day, but I’m the first guy to turn the lights on and the last to turn them out. It’s about quality control. Joe and I went to every meeting, saw every actor for Broadway, and when it came to the national tour, I was there for rehearsal and we flew down to Memphis to open the tour,” Bryan said.
The differences between the traveling show and its Broadway counterpart are few, with onstage “traffic patterns” the biggest distinction, usually requiring different or longer musical transitions.
“Some people think tours are the lesser version of Broadway,” Bryan said. “Our show is a lateral move. It’s certainly not lesser.”
Bryan’s response to a query about how he handles his theater commitments and band responsibilities is “sleeplessly.” But then he laughs and explains that Bon Jovi’s down cycles have coincided well with the intense periods of working on “Memphis,” “Toxic Avenger” and the in-the-works “Chasing the Song,” a “fictional view of fact” about the famed Brill Building songwriters circa 1962.
While Bon Jovi is also in the process of ramping up a new album -- no timeline for completion yet -- Bryan is adamant about the support of his bandmates and also cites his rock musician background as experience he can share with the casts in his musicals.
“Bon Jovi plays two-, three-hour shows. It’s all about bringing people up and bringing them down, the way you emotionally do the ride,” Bryan said. “I know how that feels. You can explain it until the cows come home, but until you feel it, you don’t really understand it.”
Theater preview
“Memphis”
8 p.m. Jan. 31-Feb. 3; 2 and 8 p.m. Feb. 4; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Feb. 5. $28-$63. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree Street N.E., Atlanta. 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com.
About the Author
