According to Joe DiPietro, it all started with a producer who came to him with an idea -- an irresistibly tantalizing idea -- “about these early rock n’ roll DJs playing R&B music for white teenagers. And I thought, ‘This is a really important story to tell.’”  

Yet as he began translating the concept into book and lyrics for a new musical, he couldn’t stop thinking, “I know a lot of great theatre composers but I wish I knew a rocker.” At which point he had an agent circulate the script.  

“And one day I got a call from David Bryan who had somehow gotten a copy and said he wanted to make it happen.”

DiPietro credits timing as having something to do with Bryan’s response. “It was about seven years ago, just when rockers were getting interested in writing musicals,” recalls DiPietro, who got “a nice, normal guy” vibe from Bryan. “I told him there were several dummy lyrics in the script and asked him to pick one and write something. A couple weeks later, ‘Music of My Soul’ [now the second number in the show] arrived -- and that was it.” The unforeseen, apocalyptic moment in which two artists from opposite ends of the entertainment spectrum converge, click and go on to create something remarkable.

Until recently, author/playwright DiPietro’s acclaim rested largely two projects: his record-breaking Off-Broadway musical I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change and its global offspring, and his first Broadway venture: the jukebox musical All Shook Up, which debuted on the Great White Way in 2005 with a score made up of Elvis Presley hits.  

Flip to Bon Jovi founding member Bryan (keyboard/vocals), who found himself bathed in the rock limelight from the mid-1980s, when the band hit mainstream gold -- and where he flourished exclusively until he connected with DiPietro and discovered several layers of common ground.

“I consider myself a comic writer and David’s really funny, which is unusual for rockers,” says DiPietro. “Plus, we’re both close to the same age and we both grew up in New Jersey, so we have the same cultural references for comedy,” he continues, citing comic greats as Mel Brooks, Woody Allen and Bill Cosby.

Which explains why, while Memphis was still in pre-Broadway mode, DiPietro and Bryan let their maniacal inner children out of the playground so they could collaborate on the hit Off-Broadway musical The Toxic Avenger, a cult masterpiece that is rapidly turning into the 21st century’s answer to Rocky Horror.

And it’s because DiPietro and Bryan complement each other’s artistic mindset so vividly that Memphis -- a visionary work exploding with passion and nostalgia -- has found its way to Broadway following two blockbuster West Coast runs (La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego and Seattle, Washington’s 5th Avenue Theatre).  

The storyline for Memphis, inspired by a actual events, centers on Huey Calhoun (Chad Kimball), a young, white radio DJ who becomes caught up in the R&B music coming out of the underground dance clubs of Memphis during the 1950s, and falls in love with an up-and-coming black singer, Felicia Farrell (Montego Glover). So in addition to the full-bodied musical numbers -- theatrical and high-energy jitterbug, blues, early rock n’ roll -- and a smattering of cameos representing stars of the day (Perry Como, Dick Clark, Elvis), there exists an underlying hotbed of taboos: “colored” music, an interracial relationship and the first ripple of discontent that would eventually turn to public protest.  

It’s no wonder theatergoers have responded so emotionally to Memphis’s potent message, staging and score.

“I’ve yet to see a performance in which the audience hasn’t jumped up and cheered at the end,” observes DiPietro. “It’s a show that really reflects our times from the perspective of the past. People see themselves in these characters and their reaction is joyous. They leave the theater dancing.” 

Memphis began previews at the Shubert Theatre (225 W. 44th St.) on Sept. 23rd and officially opens on Oct. 19th. For reservations call 212-239-6200 or click here.