This month at the Marquee State Theatre in downtown Minneapolis, an adaptation of Prince’s 1984 star-turn blockbuster film Purple Rain raised its curtain as a stage musical. Full of hits from the movie’s multiplatinum soundtrack (“Let’s Go Crazy,” “Take Me With U”), some anachronistic add-ons (“Kiss,” “Partyman”) and fan-favorite deep cuts (“Empty Room,” “Electric Intercourse”), Purple Rain spawned unfair criticism from the moment the jukebox musical was first announced last January.
Some immediately confused updating the 1984 film into a Broadway play with an attempt to tell Prince’s life story. (Purple Rain, written by screenwriters Albert Magnoli and William Blinn, was never a biopic.) Others felt the casting of Prince—one of the most prolific, über-talented musicians of our time—could never be pulled off.
The week of Purple Rain’s premiere, I planned a getaway weekend in Prince’s chilly hometown: attending the play, partying with DJ Anderson .Paak at famed nightspot First Avenue & 7th Street Entry (the main location of Purple Rain, the movie) and taking a VIP tour of Paisley Park, Prince’s recording studio complex slash residence, where he ultimately passed away nine years ago at 57.
Be warned, there will be spoilers.
From Shakespeare to Rain
Before this essay gets into the weeds, consider how many Shakespeare adaptations there are in popular culture—Romeo and Juliet alone spawned West Side Story; Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet for the 2022 musical & Juliet and more. If classics from one of the greatest playwrights in history can be remixed, Purple Rain—high camp, full of inexperienced actors, sometimes cynically seen as a string of music videos—shouldn’t be considered sacrosanct.
For the uninitiated, the essential story of Purple Rain centers on The Kid, a sexy, magnetic rising star on the Minneapolis music scene, fronting his multiracial, mixed-gender band, The Revolution. He competes against rival group The Time and its lead singer, Morris Day, while jockeying for the love and attention of Apollonia, a beautiful new singer in town who also hopes to make it big. Underlying all this, The Kid lives in the basement of his parents’ house, where an abusive relationship rages upstairs regularly.
The new musical casts 22-year-old singer-songwriter Kris Kollins (in his theater debut) as The Kid with the strong-voiced Rachel Webb (of the aforementioned & Juliet) as Apollonia. Pulitzer-winning playwright Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins (of the phenomenal Tony-winning Purpose) more than capably updates Purple Rain for 2025.
Rain Versus Rain
For the initiated, here are the spoilers: the First Avenue (known here as The First) club promoter Billy Sparks is now Morris Day’s uncle and a former lover of The Kid’s mom! Revolution bandmates Wendy and Lisa actually leave the group, as threatened in the original movie, to join Apollonia 6 in forming an all-female band of actual musicians! Apollonia doesn’t go topless, purifying herself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka (no surprise there, actually)! The Kid’s father doesn’t attempt suicide!
A major challenge in adapting Purple Rain for the stage in the mid-2020s is addressing its 1980s-era sexism and misogyny, as well as rounding out the characters. Prince struck an enigmatic figure in 1984, trading on charisma and sex appeal in lieu of much expository dialogue. In contrast, Kris Kollins’ The Kid says a lot, maybe too much at times. He’s verbose compared to Prince’s mysterious The Kid as he is taller than Prince’s high-heeled version.
Purple Rain, the film, ages poorly when Morris Day’s valet, Jerome, famously tosses a confrontational former lover into a street dumpster for laughs. As a corrective, the play’s Morris (a flamboyant Jared Howelton) sings “Gigolos Get Lonely Too” from a trash receptacle—seems the joke’s on him this time.
In the Purple Rain stage incarnation, The Kid’s talented, antisocial victimizer gets rationalized a bit through the lens of mental health. Apollonia gets a name—Nicole (aka Nikki for “Darling Nikki” fans)—as well as the backstory of fleeing an abusive father, only to land in the arms of a lover with the same issues.
The Kid also gets a name: Roger, echoing the real-life Prince Rogers Nelson. And instead of writhing suggestively in lace camisoles to the likes of “Sex Shooter,” the Apollonia 6 pop trio transform into a Klymaxx-like band called The Six, putting some clothes on in the process and performing the Prince-penned Sheila E. hit, “The Glamorous Life.”
Aside from the question of Prince fanatics who consider Purple Rain a holy grail and casual theatergoers who barely remember its thin storyline, is the new stage version at least fun? Absolutely.
“Wake up, you’re in a cult!” quips Revolution guitarist Wendy (Grace Yoo) when storming out of First Avenue, dialogue that plays hilarious double duty for a Prince fanbase who takes its allegiance a little too seriously sometimes. When first presented with the major chords of “Purple Rain,” The Kid derides it for sounding like a Journey song—which isn’t altogether untrue if you give a listen to “Faithfully.” (Prince made sure his signature song’s chord progressions weren’t plagiarism-worthy in 1984 by calling the rock band’s keyboardist before its release.)
What’s missing from Purple Rain is the pathos provided in the film by Clarence Williams III as The Kid’s father. The most seasoned actor in the story’s original iteration, Williams’s haunted Francis L. and his attempted suicide—and its effect on The Kid—gives emotional heft to the entire movie that the play doesn’t achieve in its two hours and 45 minutes. The play’s closing “Purple Rain” performance won’t put the lump in theatergoers’ throats that the movie once did; it almost falls flat, something the movie could never be accused of.
Before a rumored Broadway debut in April 2026, maybe the production—including music advisors Bobby Z and Morris Hayes from Prince’s original bands—will work out the kinks.
After the Rain
Hanging out at First Avenue moments after taking in Purple Rain at the State Theatre was a surreal experience. Anderson .Paak, aka DJ Pee .Wee, deejayed courtesy of Red Bull Directions that night, an “interactive DJ set” where the crowd approved or disapproved his choices by signaling with blue or red lights on distributed electronic wristbands. Or at least in theory.
There weren’t any objections to cuts like Kendrick Lamar’s “Squabble Up,” Salt-N-Pepa’s “Push It,” Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” and the rest. Shaking his retro bob wig, .Paak smiled his way through a Prince set of “When Doves Cry,” “Nasty Girl” and more. If the Gen Z and Gen X crowd, full of miniskirts and hoodies, were at all tired of hearing their local hero yet again, nobody let on. Practically a central character in Purple Rain, First Avenue felt as lit in 2025 as it looked in 1984.
Some 45 minutes away, Paisley Park serves as a museum to Prince’s legacy, offering three price tiers of tours to the public. Taking the VIP Experience means getting a guided tour of the main floor and its recording studios (though not Studio B, where I once had the privilege of interviewing Prince for EBONY in 2015); soundstage access and a performance area where Prince’s favorite cheesecake, lemonade and other treats are offered.
Along with a stop at Prince’s favored Electric Fetus record store (I picked up FKA twigs’ Eusexua on vinyl) and a photo op at the Schmitt Music Mural recreating a famous 1977 Prince photo, my pilgrimage to the land of Prince felt complete.
Should Purple Rain, the musical, make its way out of Minneapolis, don’t be afraid to judge for yourself.
Purple Rain, the musical, is playing at the State Theatre through November 23.