‘Purple Rain’ Musical Headed To Broadway In 2027 — SkimNews
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- The Purple Rain musical will open at Broadway's Majestic Theatre with previews beginning March 12, 2027, and opening night set for April 12, producer Orin Wolf announced Monday.
- The production will feature more than 20 Prince songs including "When Doves Cry," "I Would Die 4 U," "Take Me with U," and "The Beautiful Ones."
- The Broadway creative team is largely overhauled from the 2024-2025 Minneapolis premiere: Peter Duchan (Dogfight) writes a new book replacing Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and Tony nominee Saheem Ali takes over directing from Lileana Blain-Cruz.
- Music supervisor Jason Michael Webb (MJ the Musical) and choreographer Ebony Williams (Sneakerella) return from the original, alongside Prince's former bandmates Bobby Z and Morris Hayes as music advisers.
- The source material — the 1984 Warner Bros. film — grossed more than $70 million worldwide, won the Academy Award for Original Score, and was added to the National Film Registry in 2019.
- No cast has been announced for the Broadway transfer; the Minneapolis run starred newcomer Kris Kollins as The Kid, Rachel Webb as Apollonia, and Leon Addison Brown as The Kid's father.
Why it matters: Wolf is betting that Prince's catalog — 150 million records sold and a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction — can sustain a Broadway transfer after a single Minneapolis tryout season. The wholesale creative team swap signals the producers are substantially rebuilding the show for a national audience rather than simply relocating it, raising the stakes on a $70-million-grossing film with a notoriously devoted fan base.
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