All Shook Up

by: Joe DiPietro

“All Shook Up” is a 2005 musical by Joe DiPietro, author of “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” and “Over the River and Through the Woods.”  The show’s entire score is from the works of Elvis Presley, many of his most popular songs including “Jailhouse Rock,” “Hound Dog,” “Love Me Tender,” and “Blue Suede Shoes.” The music is set to a hilarious book that is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

The musical is set in a twenty-four hour period, during the summer of 1955, in a small obscure town somewhere in the Midwest.  Chad, a roustabout, rides into a depressing town on his motorcycle. The arrival of Chad soon causes many of the individuals in the town to fall in love with all the wrong people.  Jim, who recently lost his wife, secretly thinks about dating again, but finds love in an unusual place.  Two teenagers try to weather a forbidden love.  Chad soon catches the eye of the town’s mechanic, Natalie, who dreams of finding love and seeking life on the open road.  Chad has eyes only for the town’s intellectual museum curator.  But she only has eyes for a mysterious new man in town.  The play is about finding love in the most unusual places, and no matter what, fighting for it and never letting go.

“All Shook Up” deals with a small town in the 1950’s still struggling with segregation.  The original Broadway cast, and most subsequent casts, feature both African-American and white performers.