Hunter Foster knows his way around the musical Million Dollar Quartet. When it debuted on Broadway in 2010, he played Sam Phillips, the legendary owner of Memphis’s Sun Records and the man behind the careers of young singers who went on to become icons of Rock & Roll music. The show recreates a fortuitous moment on Dec. 4, 1956, when the paths of Country crossover singer Johnny Cash, established star Elvis Presley, up-and-comer pianist Jerry Lee Lewis and Rockabilly singer Carl Perkins intersected at the studio. They struck up an impromptu jam session. Phillips, a born promoter, extended an invitation to a reporter at a Memphis newspaper to eavesdrop.
Robert Johnson wrote about it the next day, describing the get-together as “a barrel-house of fun.” He added, “The joint was really rocking before they got thru. If Sam Phillips had been on his toes, he’d have turned the recorder on. …That quartet could sell a million.”
In fact, the savvy Phillips was on his toes and the session was recorded. Thirty years later, portions of the recording began to see the light of day. The numbers and characters of that momentous December day were eventually assembled as an appealing Broadway show, eventually a contender for the season’s best musical. It picked up three Tony Award nominations and had a successful national tour, including a stop at Cincinnati’s Aronoff Center in 2013.
“Being part of the show as Sam Phillips, I had a lot of togetherness with the director and the writers,” says Foster. “I was really in on the creative process.”
Foster’s decade-long acting career (which began with him playing Urinetown’s Bobby Strong in that show’s 2001 Broadway debut). When he was approached in 2015 to stage the show for the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine, he jumped at the opportunity. He has now assembled productions nearly a dozen times, including one about to officially open Jan. 25 at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, after previews.
“There were things I wanted to do with the show to put my own stamp on it,” he says. “We have a completely new set, designed by Adam Koch. The Playhouse’s team is building it for the production here. It’s vastly different from the Broadway and the touring productions. I think of it as a fantasy version of Sun Studio. We can do more, opening up to a much larger space. But it’s still in the vein that it was this place that was an auto parts shop. The Playhouse production has our own spin but, of course, we do have to do the original show.”
By “original show,” he means all the songs it included and in the order they were performed.
The show includes Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes,” Presley’s “Hound Dog,” Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire” and Cash’s “Walk the Line.” Foster’s production ramps things up further by adding an intermission that required a number for the Act I finale. “We chose ‘Rockin’ Robin,’ ” he adds, a one-hit wonder from 1958 by Bobby Day that happened to be a tune in the public domain.
Given the number of productions he’s assembled, Foster has a lot of performers to choose from for the Cincinnati staging. Sean McGibbon as Jerry Lee Lewis, John Michael Presney as Carl Perkins, Sky Seals as Johnny Cash and Ari McKay Wilford as Elvis Presley have not been together before, but they’re veterans of various productions.
“They’re all great,” Foster says. “We are not looking for impersonators. I want people who bring themselves to the roles. All our Johnny Cashes have been different, but they’re all believable. The actors we’ve hired have remained truthful. This is not just a jukebox musical — it’s about four young boys on the cusp of becoming Rock & Roll icons. I ask them to play into the reality of who these people were.”
The show has a lot of appeal to Baby Boomers who recall the performers from their own early lives. But Foster says Million Dollar Quartet is also connecting with new audiences. “A lot of young people are discovering this music for the first time. They’re saying, ‘Oh my god, it’s so good!’ They’re discovering their grandparents’ music from a different era. It’s not ‘old’ music anymore — now it’s retro and it’s cool.”
Million Dollar Quartet is in previews this weekend and officially opens on Jan. 25. For tickets and more info, visit cincyplay.com.
