A new musical, five years in the making, from Pat Benatar and her husband and musical partner, Neil Giraldo, has had its world premiere. Invincible – The Musical from the multi-platinum, chart-topping and GRAMMY® Award winners, opened on Dec. 2, 2022, at the Wallis Center in Beverly Hills, Calif. The inventive new work weaves their legendary catalog and new songs throughout a reimagining of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Invincible – The Musical is set in the modern, war-torn metropolis of Verona where the newly elected Chancellor Paris vows to destroy the progressive resistance and return the city to its traditional roots. The star-crossed lovers’ story, exploring how love and equality battle for survival in times of great transformation, envisions peace in a divided world.
“This is not a jukebox musical,” Giraldo told The New York Times. “Wouldn’t do that. This isn’t ‘Jersey Girls.’” The production does, however, include 28 Benatar songs. “The only thing that relates to this being a jukebox musical is that these songs were once played on a jukebox,” added Benatar.
“I’ve heard those records we did enough,” said Giraldo in an interview with Variety. “We’ve even changed some of the structure of some of the melodies, keeping partially what they are, but twisting them a little bit, to have some more fun with it. We didn’t [want] the exact same songs the way they were. … I was excited about doing the orchestration, because I wanted to have polyrhythms of polyrhythms and string sections doing a lot of the hard stuff.”
Neither Benatar nor Giraldo appear in the musical. And no future runs for the production have been announced yet. Nevertheless, it’s been a big year for the pair; on Nov. 5, they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Class of 2022.
Watch Benatar and Giraldo, along with the principal cast members of the production perform a special rendition of “Heartbreaker” on The Late Show With James Corden
The production continues through Dec. 18. To purchase single tickets and for more information, call 310-746-4000 (Monday – Friday, 10 am to 6 pm) or visit TheWallis.org.
Invincible – The Musical is directed by Tiffany Nichole Greene (resident director of Hamilton), with a book by Bradley Bredeweg (Creator of TV series The Fosters and Good Trouble) with orchestrations and arrangements by Giraldo.
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