In another, Otis follows Motown head Berry Gordy into a theater’s men’s room in order to meet him.

In one, their new, aggressive manager, madder than hell at them, flies off the stage in a gorgeous, gleaming convertible. They put up with rickety old tour buses, argued with their early manager and thirsted for fame. and debated, as all African American music groups did, about what should they do, as high profile people, to help the Civil Rights Movement. The black group could not stay in white hotels after appearances in the South, suffered through the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The story of the Temptations mirrored the story of America in the 1960s and ‘70s. They went through several names before settling on The Temptations, grabbed their song sheets and headed for the stage. He gets singers from his high school and neighborhood, bass Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams, Eddie Kendricks and flamboyant lead singer David Ruffin. The play, written with great style by Dominique Morisseau, starts in 1967, the time of the Detroit riots, as Detroit’s Otis Williams is trying to sign up singers for his new music group. They charmed you not only with their fine tunes and silky voice, but with that smooth, gorgeous choreography which served as a show in itself.īut there was also a lot of drama in the lives of the Temptations, all of them, and that is the heart of this terrific new play and the reason that it works so well. They had huge hits with My Girl, Get Ready, If You Don’t Know Me by Now, Ain’t Too Proud, Papa Was A Rolling Stone and other tunes in a career that has stretched more than 50 years.

45th Street.Įverybody remembers the Temptations, voted the greatest Rhyme and Blues group of all time. Now, following in the footsteps of the ones that worked, comes Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations, an out and out hit, and a great window on entertainment history. The play opened last week at New York’s Imperial Theater on W. That’s because the ones that failed had lots of memorable music but no story. There have been a number of so-called “jukebox musicals” in theater over the years, but few, such as The Jersey Boys and Beautiful: The Carole King Story, succeeded.

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