Jillian Mueller, Olivier Award winner Lesli Margherita, and Tony winner Lena Hall played pop icon Cher at various points of her life in a two-week staged reading of The Cher Show, now retitled Cher: The Musical, the Broadway-aimed musical based on her life and career, according to The New York Post.
The musical has a book by Tony Award-winning librettist Rick Elice (Jersey Boys, Peter and the Starcatcher). Avenue Q and Pitch Perfect’s Jason Moore directed the reading, and Flody Suarez and Hamilton’s Jeffrey Seller are producing.
A casting notice, posted in November 2016, revealed several details of the musical’s plot and structure: “In this production, the characters of BABE, LADY, and STAR represent Cher at different moments of her life— starting as a teenager who falls for Sonny Bono (BABE), a successful music star navigating the challenges of the entertainment industry (LADY) and the lady we know today with a fascinating wealth of life experience, successes, and failures (STAR).”
Jarrod Spector, who played Barry Mann in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, played Cher’s longtime partner, Sonny Bono.
In addition to Cher’s parents, the show’s breakdown named Bob Mackie, David Geffen, Gregg Allman, Robert Altman, Rob Camilletti, and Sigmund Freud among its characters.
According to previous reports, the show will include Cher’s hits, including “I Got You Babe,” “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,” “Take Me Home,” “Believe,” and “If I Could Turn Back Time,” among others. Tony winner Daryl Waters is musical supervisor.
Cher appeared on Broadway in the short-lived production of Ed Graczyk's Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, a role she later repeated on film. She earned the Academy Award for her performance in Moonstruck.
No timetable for a full production of the musical has been announced.
