Five Guys. One Dream, and an extraordinary journey from the mean streets of Detroit to the great Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, this is the electrifying new musical that follows The Temptations’ thrilling story of brotherhood, family, loyalty and betrayal set to the beat of the group’s treasured hits, including your favorites, “My Girl,” “Just My Imagination,” “Get Ready,” “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” and so many more. Now Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations is on tour at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco and it’s your turn to Rock & Roll in the isles! Get your tickets here.
“Dazzling & electrifying!” – The Washington Post
“Pretty close to perfection!” – The New York Times
“Stunning and full of energy.” – The Daily Beast
Ain’t Too Proud, featuring the unforgettable music of multi-talented and multi-award-winning sounds, performances, and dapper suits of The Temptations. From the groups initial formation in 1960s Detroit through the release of a long series of wildly successful singles and albums with Motown Records in the 1970s, their music has earned the group 3 Grammy Awards from their 4 Billboard Hot 100 number 1 singles and 14 R&B number 1 singles and a staggering 42 Top Ten songs during their enormously successful career. The Temptations were the first Motown recording act to win a Grammy Award, for the song, “Cloud Nine” in 1969, 3 of their recordings, “My Girl”, “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)”, and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”, are among The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. Their 1973 recording of, “Papa Was a Rollin Stone” won the Temptations their second Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Group, and their 1984 recording of the single “Treat Her Like a Lady” became their biggest hit success since 1975, finally in 2013 the group received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. With their career spanning over 50 years and having sold tens of millions of albums, the Temptations are among the most successful groups in popular music, and their recording of “My Girl”, is still their signature song to this day, and the group were pioneers of the psychedelic soul movement and were also hugely instrumental in the evolution of R&B and soul music genres.
The unforgettable, award-winning music of the Temptations is reproduced in a 2018 musical, Aint Too Proud; The Life and Times of the Temptations, a jukebox musical with music and lyrics by The Temptations, the story is based on the book of The Temptations by Otis Williams. Ain’t Too Proud, was written by three-time Obie Award winner Dominique Morisseau, directed by two-time Tony Award winner Des McAnuff, and features choreography by the now Tony Award winner Sergio Trujillo, bringing the untold story of this legendary quintet to irresistible life on stage.
The musical opened to huge acclaim in a variety of off-Broadway venues, starting at Berkeley Rep in October 2017, the show moved to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC where it ran from June 2018, through to July, from there it appeared at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, California where it ran from August, until September, 2018, and following its run at the Ahmanson, the show moved to the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, Ontario where it ran from October until November 2018. The musical finally got its well-deserved opening on Broadway in 2019, where it was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and winning the Award for Best Choreography.
Ain’t Too Proud—The Life and Times of The Temptations Review for TimeOut NY by Adam Feldman
“It is Motown the Musical by way of Jersey Boys, with a soupçon of Dreamgirls in the Act One finale that makes you wish that the intragroup dynamics were more fully developed throughout. But Des McAnuff and choreographer Sergio Trujillo, who also collaborated on Jersey Boys, keep things speeding along: The conveyer belts and turntables of Robert Brill’s set are hardly ever still, and the dancing represents a highly amped-up version of the Temptations’ actual moves (sometimes at a slight cost to vocal precision). The songs do their work, and the ensemble casts shines whenever it gets a chance; Rashidra Scott makes an impression as Otis’s ex-wife, for example, as does Saint Aubyn as Ruffin’s peevish replacement, Dennis Edwards. As musical theater, Ain’t Too Proud could generously be described as shameless. But as an evening of musical entertainment, it ain’t too shabby.”
“It makes for slick, straightforward, tuneful and altogether pleasant entertainment.” – amNY
After breaking house records at Berkeley Rep, The Kennedy Center, CTG’s Ahmanson Theatre, and Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre, Ain’t Too Proud, written by three-time Obie Award winner Dominique Morisseau, directed by two-time Tony Award winner Des McAnuff, and featuring choreography by Tony nominee Sergio Trujillo, now brings the untold story of this legendary quintet to irresistible life on stage.
As befits a show about the Temptations, the most infectiously rhythmic of chart-topping R&B groups, “Ain’t Too Proud” keeps time in style.
