A New Wave of Rock Musicals: Go-Go's, Grateful Dead and More

Rolling Stone: Christine Russell, one of the producers of the hit Carole King Broadway musical Beautiful, remembers her first reaction when she was pitched on a new pop-oriented production. The show is based on The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, a 16th-century tale of mistaken identity and jealous lovers that was later turned into a play, The Arcadia. The twist of the show, starting with its name, Head Over Heels, is its score: It's entirely set to songs by the Go-Go's. "I thought, 'Huh, really?'" Russell says. "I asked [Go-Go's guitarist] Charlotte Caffey about it and that it seemed so left field, and she said, 'That's why we like it – it's weird and off the wall, just like our band.'"