Throwback Thursday: Remembering That Other Bob Dylan Musical on Broadway

Girl From the North Country, Tony nominee Conor McPherson’s new musical set to Bob Dylan’s songbook, starts previews February 7 on Broadway, but it wasn’t the first musical to bring Dylan’s songs to the stage. Let’s take a moment to remember Twyla Tharp’s 2006 take on Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin'. 

Starring Michael Arden, The Times They Are A-Changin’ marked a big return to Broadway for award-winning choreographer Tharp, who had opened her Billy Joel musical Movin’ Out four years earlier to great critical acclaim. The Times They Are A-Changin’ was set inside a traveling circus (featuring onstage trampolines and acrobats). It told the story of a tyrannical circus master named Captain Ahrab and his son Coyote, who's unsure about whether to take up his father’s reign over a cast of clowns. To express his discontent, Coyote sings, unfiguratively, the title song. Unlike Movin' Out, The Times They Are A-Changin’ chose a more literal path with a popular singer-songwriter's work. After all, there are “jugglers and clowns” in “Like A Rolling Stone."

The musical closed after 28 performances at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Take a look at video footage of Arden—who’d go on to forge a successful Broadway career as a two-time Tony nominated director—and the cast of The Times They Are A-Changin’  below.