The Who's Tommy from Rock-Opera to Broadway and Beyond
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The next main issue to tackle in the Broadway staging of Tommy was naturally the music. The key component would have to be how the music would translate to Broadway. As Pete Townshend said when he initially wrote Tommy, "Pop is a light medium. A pop song about the horrors of war is out of place. This means the sick things have a pre-emphasis. We hope that people's pre-conceptions will get screwed around by this" (Sanders).

Not surprisingly, the music translated wonderfully. While there were a few evident hurdles such as seeing how shorter pop songs would translate to stage and also finding a woman to play Mrs.Walker that could sing in a lower Roger Daltry-esque voice, the Broadway music maintained the power of its original recording. This should have been no surprise to Pete Townshend as when he was first talking about Tommy in 1970 he said, "It really does show how flexible rock and roll is, and what a lot of bullshit is talked about, what it can and can't do. Although the sound itself has limitations, it has flexibility and malleability" (Sanders). In fact, the most exciting aspect of it being on Broadway for Townshend was the realization that he could now view himself as a legitimate composer. It excited him to know that he had written songs of Broadway value.

The final thing that Townshend and McAnuff had to deal with was the ending of the production. As Townshend said, "There was no ending. In rock & roll you don't preach" (Brown). Tommy, the musical, needed an ending that would bring the production full circle and show the audience that it was Broadway worthy. The final added scene was a crescendo of emotion with all of the characters that intended to bring the audience into the performance in a way that Tommy never had before. The director Des McAnuff described the final sequence as having to do with, "making a connection between what's been going on onstage and the audience" (Brown).

While Pete was ever-confident in his endeavors, the rest of band was worried that a one night stand on Broadway would tarnish the legacy that Tommy had created. Luckily, that wouldn't be the case. Tommy went on to win five Tony awards in 1993, an accomplishment that legitimized the theatrical potential of the original concept album. It was also applauded for its drawing a younger crowd to the theatre. Broadway warmly welcomed a new generation of theatergoers. As McAnuff explained, "I think that the Broadway theatre has to awaken to the fact that it's gradually losing touch with younger people. And Tommy's an antedote for that and is hopefully part of some long time solution." (E! On Broadway)

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