Marvin Gaye's music is filling Atlanta's Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre this weekend as Marvin: The Marvin Gaye Musical opens Saturday, October 10, bringing the Motown legend's life story to the stage with Chae Stephen in the lead role. The touring production follows the late singer's rise through hits like “What's Going On” and “Let's Get It On” before his death in April 1984. Stephen takes on Gaye's persona for audiences across the city.
The show carries weight beyond a typical tribute act. According to Urban Insite, the musical was co-created and produced through a partnership between playwright-producer Je'Caryous Johnson and Marvin Gaye's eldest son, Marvin Gaye III, who collaborated to help ensure an authentic behind-the-scenes account of his father's life. That family involvement gives the production a kind of blessing that few jukebox musicals can claim, grounding the glitzy stagecraft in a more personal retelling of Gaye's rise and fall.
Stephen's casting is no accident either. Per The Rogers Revue, the actor has spent years studying and embodying Gaye on stage, having previously starred in the 2019 touring musical Pride & Joy: Motown's Untold Love Story of Marvin Gaye and Anna Gordy Gaye, as well as discussing his own Marvin Gaye musical review. That long runway of preparation is part of what the production is leaning on as it introduces Gaye's catalog to a new generation of theatergoers.
A Motown Soundtrack With Real Rights Behind It
None of Gaye's biggest songs would make it to the stage without proper clearance, and the production says it has that covered. The musical's score features Gaye's greatest hits and classic Motown songs authorized through an arrangement with Sony/ATV Music Publishing, according to the Je'Caryous Johnson Official Website. The creative team steering the production includes director J. Kyle Manzay, music supervisor and orchestrator Kenny Seymour, and music director Donnie “D-Major” Boynton, bringing veteran musical-theater and live R&B direction to the show.
Atlanta wasn't actually the tour's first Georgia stop. The national tour held an early preview show on October 9 at the Clayton County Performing Arts Center in Jonesboro before moving to two scheduled performances at Cobb Energy Centre on October 10, giving regional audiences a broader look at the production's Georgia premiere before it settled into its main metro Atlanta run.
Inside the Cobb Energy Centre's 2,750-Seat Hall
The venue hosting the show has its own local history. Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, located in northwest Atlanta, opened in September 2007 at a cost of $145 million and houses the 2,750-seat John A. Williams Theatre, making it the first major performing arts center built in the area in five decades. Theatergoers attending this run can also take advantage of the Skyline Lounge, a premium pre-show food and beverage space at the venue.
The Atlanta dates are just one stop on a much larger itinerary. Je'Caryous Entertainment's national tour is scheduled to travel across the United States through late 2026 and early 2027, with stops in Charlotte, Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston. It's the kind of multi-state run that puts the production inside major theater venues nationwide rather than treating Atlanta as a one-off engagement.
Producer Je'Caryous Johnson has built something of a specialty out of adapting music legends' lives for the stage. He previously collaborated with Mathew Knowles to develop Survivor: The Destiny's Child Musical, part of a broader track record in urban theater and touring biographical stage shows. Marvin slots neatly into that lineage, pairing a producer known for bio-musicals with a performer who has spent years preparing to carry Gaye's legacy into theaters across the country.
