Catherine Ariale, Morgan Scott, and Ella Perez Photo by Meredith Mashburn Photography

And make it she did. The story of Cher's remarkable life and her more than six decade career as singer, actress, and overall world-known idol is the subject of Rick Elice's 2017 Broadway award-winner, The Cher Show, now in its second year of a national tour and landing for just a short stay at Broadway San Jose's Center for the Performing Arts. With thirty-five of the songs spanning her long career and dozens of the eye-popping Bob Mackie outfits that made her unique–and often boldly risqué–look known worldwide, The Cher Show is a fabulously fun jukebox musical that tells Cher's incredible story with humor and heart.

The many highs and lows of Cher's life and career are portrayed not by one, but by three Chers who often consult, console, and sometimes contradict each other as events, turning points, and celebrations/sorrows flow across the stage. Ella Perez is Babe, the girl of ten through the twenty-something Cher. Catherine Ariale is Lady, the Cher of the 1970s, while Morgan Scott is Star, as Cher becomes a super-star in the '80s and '90s. Each actress has a striking resemblance to the Cher we all know, and each superbly intones that distinctly sultry, velvety, and androgynously contralto voice that is recognizable within just a few notes sung. They all deliver her wide range of song types–folk, rock, ballads, disco, soul, and more–with conviction and confidence, with the musical becoming a songfest of many of Cher's best-known hits from the more than 100 million records sold to-date worldwide.

As increasingly popular bio-musicals often are–Tina, MJ, The Boy from Oz, Rick Elice's Jersey Boys, to name just a few of dozens–much of the draw and fascination comes not just from the recapping of famous music but from the revealing of previously unknown facts, events, relationships, and frankly gossip that provide a much fuller picture of the performer(s). That is certainly true of Elice's two-hour, thirty-minute (plus intermission) whirlwind journey through Cher's life.

We see her from the age of ten when she visits Hollywood's Grauman's Chinese Theatre and decides, "I am going to sing and act and be famous" (with Babe and Star singing a lovely and heart-stirring "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes"). Cher's mother Georgia (Kristen Rose Kelleher)–a supportive force throughout her life–joins Babe with rousing, powerful vocals in "Half Breed," telling Cher something Georgia will remind her again and again, "You go sing those words right back at them" (i.e., all those who harass and ridicule her). (Kelleher briefly commands the stage later as the brassy Lucille Ball.)

We see and hear how Cher meets at a tender sixteen Sonny Bono, the man who helps her to become a back-up singer for Phil Spector groups like the Crystals ("Da Doo Ron Ron") and the Ronettes ("Be My Baby")–a couple among other snippets of '60s group songs that we get to enjoy. But for those of us in the audience old enough to be long-time fans of Cher, it is when the distinctive nasal tenor of Sonny Bono (Frankie Marasa 5th) joins Babe's lower, darker voice in "I Got You Babe" that we know we are as close to Cher Heaven as we are likely to get any time soon. Even better is when we witness short reenactments from their 30-million-drawing "Sonny and Cher" TV show. We not only revel in their singing but in the comic routines where Cher wears the highest of heels to tower over the diminutive Sonny as she spouts a flood of her purposively and hilariously cynical 'short jokes.'

But many in the audience probably know that there is upcoming heartache and deception for Cher in relation to Sonny. That troubled history's climax plays out in a cluster of Act One finale numbers including a stage-filling, extravaganza "Bang, Bang" in which both Lady and Star blast their rage as a bare-bottomed, g-stringed troupe of leather-wearing dancers cavort about in wild and erotic moves (just one of the showstoppers choreographed by Antoinette Dipietropolo).

Other future, short-time husbands enter and fairly quickly exit the scene: singer and songwriter Gregg Allman (Zack Zaromatidis sporting a mixture of rock and country in "Midnight Rider/Ramblin' Man") and bagel-baker Rob Camilletti (an attractively voiced Brooks Andrew joining Star in "I Found Someone"). When exes Sonny and Gregg join in a duet of "Dark Lady" surrounded by a stage of seductive tango dancers, Sydney Rose (understudy for the regular Emma Jade Branson) receives one of the evening's loudest applause in her breathtakingly sensual, surface and aerial dance as the Dark Lady.

"Less is more" certainly describes the dazzling display of Bob Mackie fashions–the production's Tony-Award winning costume designer–as a stage of many Chers parade in deliciously outrageous and increasingly skin-revealing creations while Mackie (a delightful and well-voiced Tyler Pirrung) and the three Chers sing a toe-tapping "Ain't Nobody's Business."

While many of evening's highlights occur when all three Chers are onstage together–their voices triumphantly belting in numbers like "If I Could Turn Back Time" or beautifully blending in a ballad like "Believe"–Morgan Scott as Star particularly proves time and again to be exactly that. Scott is the most memorable star of this non-Equity touring production much like Stephanie J. Block was when she won the Tony Award for Lead Actress in a Musical for the same role. In numbers like "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves" and "The Way of Love," all you have to do is close your eyes to imagine the real Cher's alternatingly fiery and mesmerizing, vibrato-rich voice is the one being heard.

There is nothing short-changed in the modern touring versions of Broadway shows as there was twenty-plus years ago. This production's ever-changing, massive sets by Kelly James Tighe; lighting magically invoking Hollywood, New York, and Las Vegas designed by Charlie Morrison; and videos that bring back to life the TV days of Sonny and Cher on as many as a dozen, various-sized screens (Jonathan Infante and Kelly James Tighe, designers) are all proof that one does not have to go to New York City in order to enjoy the full Broadway experience.

For sure, many parts of the "Goddess of Pop"'s life are short shrifted in a musical like this (for more details, read the first volume of her two-part "Cher: The Memoir") and only a minority of the thirty-five songs are allowed a full length presentation. But, Rick Elice's The Cher Show under the direction of Casey Hushion is overall highly entertaining, insightful, and a musical heyday for Cher fans. It is a shame that its stay in San Jose is so short.

The Cher Show runs through March 23, 2025, at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, 255 Almaden Boulevard, San Jose CA. For tickets and information, please call 408-792-4111 or visit broadwaysanjose.com. For information on the tour, visit thechershowtour.com.