Is motown the musical still playing

Motown the Musical is exactly what it sounds like: a Broadway musical based on a record label.

Motown the musical 2024

Few catalogs in the history of American pop music are as warmly loved as that of Motown, which dominated the radio in the 1960s and 1970s with pop-soul hits by a roster that included the Supremes, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, the Four Tops, the Jackson 5 and many more.

Now, label founder Berry Gordy has written and coproduced an exuberant jukebox musical that chronicles the rise and fall of Motown, featuring snippets from more than 50 hit songs from the label. The dialogue is hokey, the characters are thin, and Gordy’s take on history is often self-serving; the show received mixed reviews and earned no love from the Tony Awards.

But the undeniable appeal of the music made Motown the Musical once of the best Broadway shows for tourists. As in Jersey Boys, the numbers are mostly performed by actors playing the original recording artists, rather than characters expressing themselves in song; it’s like a live vers