“Springsteen on Broadway” is a unique evening with Bruce Springsteen, his guitar, a piano, and his very personal stories. Based on his worldwide best-selling autobiography 'Born to Run,' the show's original run in 2017 and 2018 included 236 sold-out performances at Jujamcyn's Walter Kerr Theatre and earned Springsteen a Special Tony Award.
He yelled and casually cursed a bit more, and certain reminisces - which are based on his 'Born to Run' autobiography - have been abridged, rushed or extended, as would anyone who's telling the same story for the 237th time. He also changed up his delivery on several songs in a singalong-defying way: 'Growin' Up' had jittery strumming; 'Born in the U.S.A.' is even more of a gospel-blues holler, played with a slide on 12-string guitar; he sang 'Thunder Road' in his Woody Guthrie-esque semi-Southern accent.
But the most notable addition to the show was Springsteen's inclusion of 'American Skin (41 Shots),' the song he wrote in 2000 after the NYPD killing of Amadou Diallo, a 23-year-old unarmed Black man. Bathed in a red spotlight as he sang 'You can get killed just for living in your American skin,' Springsteen updated his Broadway show with a 21-year-old song that, tragically, could have been written just last summer.
| 2017 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
| 2021 | Broadway |
Broadway |
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