EXCLUSIVE: The critically acclaimed, Nashville-set Off Broadway musical Music City, featuring the music of multi-platinum hit songwriter J.T. Harding, has found a new home weeks after plans to begin performances at a custom-renovated Times Square area venue were dashed days before performances were to begin.
Gabrielle Palitz tells Deadline that Music City now will begin performances on Monday, June 15, at St. Luke’s Theatre, also in the Times Square/midtown theater district, with an opening night set for Wednesday, June 24.
Set in the fictional Nashville honky-tonk The Wicked Tickle, Music City features original and existing songs by Harding, including hits recorded by such artists as Uncle Kracker (“Smile”), Keith Urban (“Somewhere In My Car”) and Blake Shelton (“Sangria”). Harding has also written hits for Darius Rucker, Dierks Bently and Florida Georgia Line.
The musical originally opened in a small performance space on the second floor of a historic church on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in November 2024, extending three times until closing in March 2025. Producers then planned to move the show into a vacant 42nd Street building that once housed New York’s Playboy Club, but after extensive renovations that turned the venue into a working Nashville-style honky-tonk bar, the run was scotched days before previews were to begin last March.
Palitz said at the time that, as the show was preparing to go into tech, producers “were made aware of legal issues with the venue that have proven to be challenging.”
Today, Palitz said in a statement, “Like life in the best country songs, Music City has had to navigate a few unexpected turns, but we’re thrilled to share that our critically acclaimed production has found a new home at St. Luke’s Theatre. We’re deeply grateful to Out of the Box Theatrics and their founder Liz Flemming for opening their doors to us with such generosity and enthusiasm. Their support ensures that our wonderful cast can continue telling this story, and that audiences will experience the heart and soul of Music City. We can’t wait to welcome everyone back to The Wicked Tickle.”
As was planned for the 42nd Street venue, St. Luke’s Theatre on W. 46th Street will be transformed into an East Nashville barroom, with the immersive space invites “audiences to step inside a country bar where music, storytelling, and nightlife collide.”
The synopsis: “Music City follows two young singer-songwriters into The Wicked Tickle, an East Nashville bar that serves up cheap beer, open mics, and dreams of big breaks. The bar regulars bravely pursue love and music in the face of addiction, poverty, and haunting pasts. But in Nashville, heartbreak is the only thing they hand out for free. Music City is an intimate, gritty, and thrilling take on the world of beers, guitars, sawdust, and sunshine.”
Returning to their roles are original cast members Drew Bastian, Jonathan Judge-Russo, Julianne B. Merrill, Leenya Rideout, Andrew Rothenberg, Casey Shuler and Stephen Michael Spencer.
The musical features an original book by playwright Peter Zinn and is directed by Eric Tucker, artistic director of the Bedlam theater company where the musical originated.
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