A Bunch of Rihanna Stans Put On a Legit Musical About Her
It’s tough to find someone who doesn’t love Rihanna. It’s not difficult to find someone fucking obsessed with Rihanna either. In fact, an entire group of Rihanna obsessives in NYC got together and made a musical about Rihanna’s life an career.
You may think I’m kidding, but I’m not. And it actually looked pretty dope. Plus, for $15, it was way cheaper than a Rihanna concert.
The musical, Good Girl Gone Bad, aimed to tell RiRi’s story (and ~10 year career) through her most popular songs. The show’s writer and director, Alex Tobey, called it a “bioconcert” to Broadly, which alludes to the fact that it’s sort of a fake-Rihanna concert with dialogue sprinkled in.
“I am a Rihanna super fan, first and foremost,” explained Tobey to Broadly. “I love Rihanna; I have always loved Rihanna.”
He continues:
“What I love about Rihanna, too, is that she’s been around forever. She’s under 30 and she’s already had a ten-plus year career. Just thinking about all the changes—she switches so seamlessly from one style to the next, from one album to the next. She’s covered so much ground. She’s such a diverse artist, and she’s constantly reinventing herself.”
Unfortunately, the musical stopped running two weeks ago, so you may never be able to see Barbadian actress Nicolette Stephanie Templier sing Rihanna tunes at the HERE Arts Center, where the musical was previously running. But maybe, if there’s enough interest, they’ll return to the stage so we can bump along to “Birthday Cake” and “S.O.S” and watch actor Roger Casey simultaneously play Jay Z/Chris Brown/Eminem/Drake in one production? Or you could just listen to Rihanna’s anthology on your own time, like you already do regularly.
All photos by Hunter Canning
