The Cher Show
Rick Elice (Book); Various Artists (Music & Lyrics)
Broadway San Jose
Born in El Centro, California of an Armenian-American truck driver father with drug and gambling problems and a mixed-European-heritage, actress and model mother (parents who divorced when she was ten months old), Cheryl Sarkisian was mocked at school in the 1950s as a “half-breed.” After several more marriages and divorces by her mother and with such family financial issues that she had to use rubber bands to hold together her shoes, Cheryl left home at sixteen to make it on her own.
And make it she did. The story of her remarkable life and her more than six decade career as singer, actress, and overall world-known idol is the subject of Rick Elice’s 2017 Broadway award-winner, The Cher Show, now in its second year of a national tour and landing for just a short stay at Broadway San Jose’s Center for the Performing Arts. With thirty-five of the songs spanning her long career and dozens of the eye-popping, Bob Mackie outfits that made her unique — and often boldly risqué — look known worldwide, The Cher Show is a fabulously fun jukebox musical that also tells Cher’s incredible story with humor and heart.
Please continue to Talkin’Broadway for the rest of my review.
Rating: 4.5 E
The Cher Show continues through March 23, 2025, in a two-hour, thirty-minute production (plus intermission) in a touring production presented by Broadway San Jose at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255 Almaden Boulevard, San Jose, CA. Tickets are available Tuesday – Saturday, 12 – 5 p.m. at the San Jose Civic Box Office, 135 W. San Carlos Street, San Jose (phone, 408-792-4111) or online at https://broadwaysanjose.com/.
Photo Credit: Meredith Mashburn Photography.
