Minnesota-based film star and Hollywood writer go 'Back to the Future' with Broadway musical

Marty McFly is back in the DeLorean. And he's zooming across America at 88 mph.

When "Back to the Future: The Musical" opens Tuesday at Minneapolis' Orpheum Theatre, Harry Waters Jr. will be in the audience, welcoming the show. The retired Macalester College professor played Marvin Berry in the 1985 film, singing a rendition of "Earth Angel" that has become even better known than the original by the Penguins.

"The show has become iconic and people just love it," Waters said. "I've traveled all over from New York to London for 'Back to the Future Days' so it's nice to have it come here to my home in Minneapolis."

Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis, who co-wrote the screenplay for the film that began the "Future" trilogy, also co-wrote the book for the musical. That continuity of adapting a work from one medium to another has happened relatively rarely in the past — think Mel Brooks and "The Producers."

"It's unusual that we would even have the theatrical rights to the first film," Gale said.

The idea for the screenplay hit Gale like a proverbial lightning bolt when he had gone from Los Angeles, where he was living, to his native St. Louis to help his dad pack up his childhood home. He was in the basement when he saw his father's high school yearbook for the first time. Gale later graduated from the same high school.

"I asked myself, if I had gone to high school with my dad, would we have been friends?" Gale recalled. He wrote "Future" to find out.

The story is set between the year the film came out — 1985 — and 1955. Marty gets thrown back in time after a mishap in an experiment with scientist Doc Brown. Time traveling in a DeLorean, he meets his parents before they even got together and gets to influence not only their destiny but the history of music. He gives the idea of "Johnny B. Goode" to Chuck Berry and invents heavy metal.

"We had a lot of fun," Gale laughed.

Long gestation

The creative team began working on the stage adaptation in 2006. They initially considered updating the setting to 2011, a year after they brought in a director who thought that the show would play well then. But Gale is glad that they didn't make that change. For starters, the musical did not hit the stage until 2020.

"And with a story like 'Back to the Future' it's always going to be a period piece," Gale said. "People want to see the characters that they love from the movie and there are certain things in it that just resonate."

The musical, fans have told him, is "comfort food." It has enough of the essence of the humor and gags from the film to thrill diehard fans who go to conventions but also enough new material to invite newcomers.

Besides, keeping things in the past allows for humor based on how much more we know today.

"When Marty first arrives in 1955, we have characters singing the praises of asbestos, DDT, cigarette smoking," Gale said. "Those are jokes we could not have done back in '85."

The creative team's major challenge was translating the action from one medium to the other by playing to the strengths of each. On film, the camera goes everywhere and can zoom in to carry us deep into a thought or emotion.

Theater allows for the story to get more emotionally expansive. "The equivalent of the close-up onstage is a song," Gale said.

Stunting the stunts

Marty's skateboard stunts from the film got red-penciled, partly because the total skill set required for the role would have made it hard to fill.

"We would have had to find an actor who can sing, dance, act and be funny. But if he has those four skills, what are the chances he's going to be able to do skateboard stunts?" Gale said. He added that in the post-"Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark" era, he also didn't want to risk cast injuries.

"The idea of putting them on a skateboard night after night — he's going to break his ankle," Gale said. Instead, the team replaced it with a chase with an allusion to the skateboard.

The musical also changes out the Darth Vader gag from the film in which Marty plays an alien from the planet Vulcan. There's a practical reason for that, and Gale again referenced "Spiderman," where those playing the title character wear a full mask.

"Wait a minute — how is he going to sing through that?" Gale said.

The character of Marvin Berry, who is critical to Marty's journey, gets his hand cut while trying to open the trunk of a car in the film. But onstage, that development happens because of the lid of a trash dumpster.

That's not the only change with Berry. One of his most famous lines — "Chuck! Chuck! It's Marvin! ... your cousin Marvin Berry!" — was left on the cutting room floor.

"We tried so hard to make it fit, but it just didn't," Gale said.

The Minnesota connection

Waters is not mad at the musical for leaving out that line, even though it's become iconic. As someone who works with theater artists of all stripes, including originating roles in Tony Kushner's landmark work "Angels in America," he understands the necessity of serving the story.

Still, he will be in the audience mouthing the lines to "Earth Angel" when Cartreze Tucker, who plays Marvin on the tour, renders the number.

"Of course — I can't help it," he said. "I actually was invited to sing 'Earth Angel' with the guy who played it on Broadway and in London after the curtain and Bob Gale introduced us at both. Amazing!"

Marvin in the musical is cast for a tenor. Waters is a lyric baritone.

"This moment in the movie is iconic, and it's where his parents have to kiss so Marty doesn't disappear," Waters said. "I tell people that I was only onscreen for a few minutes. They tell me it was essential to the story."

Tucker, an Atlanta native who initially wanted to be a doctor, is nervous and excited about the Minnesota engagement. While he has toured with "Hair," "The Color Purple" and "Motown: The Musical," where he played Stevie Wonder, this is the first time he's met an actor who originated the role he's playing.

"I can't wait to meet Harry Waters Jr.," Tucker said. "He created something that's lasted through the ages."

Tucker said he has been obsessed with "Future" — and has not only seen the all the films. When he was a youngster, his family regularly went to Universal Studios in Orlando so that he could go on his favorite amusement: the Back to the Future ride.

"I grew up watching the films and having a great time," Tucker said. "This has been a full circle moment."

'Back to the Future: The Musical'

Where: Orpheum Theatre, 910 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 2 & 7:30 p.m. Sat., 1 & 6:30 p.m. Sun. Ends Sept. 22.

Tickets: $50-$149. Hennepinarts.org.