Photo: Joan Marcus
If I said you could catch a jam session featuring four
Rock & Roll icons together, I’d probably get your attention, right?
That’s what the unusual Broadway musical, Million Dollar Quartet,
is all about — an afternoon in early December 1956 when the
not-quite-famous Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis
Presley ended up in a storefront recording studio at Sun Records in
Memphis, Tenn.
It really happened: Perkins was there for a recording
session with Lewis, who was the new kid. Presley and Cash came by
separately, and soon an impromptu jam session happened. The show was
nominated for three Tony Awards in 2010, including Best Musical, and now
it’s at Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center for two weeks. Each character is
featured in several of his best-known tunes — all in all, there’s “a
whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.” $28-$103. Tuesday-Sunday. Through March
3. Aronoff Center, 650 Walnut St., Downtown. 513-621-2787,
cincinnatiarts.org.
