‘Memphis’ traverses ’50s racial divisions

“Memphis” is no jukebox musical.

It’s not “Buddy” or “Million Dollar Quartet” – shows built around popular hits of a bygone era. Instead, this Tony-winning effort uses original music to explore a story of race and love set in the early days of rock ’n’ roll.

Written by Joe DiPietro (“Nice Work If You Can Get It”) and David Bryan, the keyboard player for Bon Jovi, “Memphis” centers on Huey Calhoun (loosely based on real-life Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips), who begins playing music recorded by African-Americans on local radio. He falls in love with Felicia, a talented black singer, and together the two must navigate the racial divide prevalent in the Jim Crow South.

The show just launched a new leg of a national tour that arrives in Spokane on Thursday as part of the Best of Broadway series.

Zuri Washington, who plays Felicia, said she saw the show on Broadway and was intrigued that Felicia is an atypical character.

“I find that roles in music theater written for black women all tend to come from the same cloth,” she said. “And there’s something refreshing about Felicia in that she’s more vulnerable than most female black characters in theater. It’s great that we have a lot of strong characters to choose from, to audition for, but sometimes it’s nice to be an ingenue, a softer character.”

Because Felicia is not meant as a stand-in for any particular woman in music history – she represents “a whole culture” – Washington said she hasn’t modeled her performance after a single person. Still, she added, “I do kind of see her as like a ’50s Diana Ross-esque character,” she said. “It’s not that the situation has changed much today in terms of what women and black women in particular have to go through to get critical acclaim.”

The music is based on early rock ’n’ roll and R&B but has “contemporary flair,” she said. “It’s not your grandparents’ style of musical,” she said. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, cool. Elvis.’ It has some contemporary stylings that allow it to be accessible to the millennial generation.”

Her favorite song to sing – at least her favorite on the day we spoke – is “Colored Women,” which appears midway through the first act.

“It’s such a good song,” she said. “I remember when I saw it on Broadway, I said ‘I need this song in my book. I need to sing it first thing.’ ”

Despite the heavy themes featured in the show, Washington said viewers can expect to have a good time at “Memphis.”

“People have been very supportive and excited during the show. We’ve gotten a really great response,” she said. “But I think on top of having a great time and loving the music, I hope they can enjoy the message in it. I don’t think it beats you over the head with it, but I think it’s very apparent. It’s about race relations in the 1950s in the South. So it’s kind of unavoidable. I love theater because it really reflects society and even though it is a society from 60-plus years ago, there are still things that we have to work on as a country and in the world in general.”