Donny Osmond says no to Marie, yes to Minneapolis
Donny Osmond starred in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" at the State Theatre in Minneapolis so many times in the 1990s — 152, to be exact — that the theater gave him a key to the stage door. He won't need that key when he returns to the Twin Cities on Sunday because he's graduated to the Orpheum Theatre.
"That's maybe across the street, down Hennepin," said Osmond, who remembers Minneapolis fondly, especially the long-closed Palomino restaurant.
He is bringing his full Las Vegas show, so he needs the bigger stage of the Orpheum.
"My manager, my accountant, my agent, everyone's telling me, 'Donny, you've got to pare it down so you can make some money on the road,'" Osmond said in a recent phone interview. "If I'm going to take an award-winning show on the road, I want people to see an award-winning show."
The show surveys Osmond's 60 years in show business. It includes a 10-minute rap covering his entire career as well as such numbers as "Puppy Love" and "I'll Make a Man Out of You" that he sang in the animated movie "Mulan." To help stage the production, Osmond enlisted director Raj Kapoor, who has helmed the Oscars, Grammys and Emmys, as well as choreographers from "So You Think You Can Dance."
The concert includes a request segment in which Osmond asks an audience member to pick one song from any of his 65 albums.
"A few weeks ago, this lady picked a deep album cut of, like, when I was 13 years old. I don't remember recording the song. I said, 'I don't know the lyrics.' She said, 'I've got them on my phone.' So I sang them from her phone."
Osmond's popular show even earned a shoutout from Mick Jagger when the Rolling Stones played in Vegas last month. Jagger thanked the Stones fans for coming when they could have opted for other shows in town, namely "Donny Osmond, who I always liked."
"That was kind of cool, wasn't it?" Osmond said. "I had to pay him a couple thousand bucks to do that but at least I got top billing above Santana and Justin Timberlake. Ha, ha, ha."
Osmond feels Jagger was indebted to him from about 50 years ago. Young pop star Osmond appeared at Earl's Court in London, where he flew over the audience on a system rigged by the stage wizard who flew Peter Pan on Broadway.
"The press came out and ripped me apart for being too slick. No more than I think three weeks later, Mick Jagger does the same thing at Madison Square Garden and they called it cool. Ha, ha, ha. So I've had a personal vendetta against Mick until the other night when he shouted out."
Osmond's career has had its ups and downs. In the 1970s, he sang with his brothers, the Osmonds, and became a teen idol thanks to the solo hit "Puppy Love" before moving on to the variety show "Donny & Marie" with his sister Marie Osmond. His career ebbed in the '80s before he bounced back with "Soldier in Love" in '89. He toured in "Joseph" in the '90s (and starred in the movie version) before settling into a talk show with Marie.
After hosting "Pyramid" and other TV shows, Osmond competed himself, winning on "Dancing With the Stars" in 2009 and finishing runner-up (to T-Pain) as the Peacock on "The Masked Singer" in 2019. Meanwhile, he and Marie teamed up in Vegas, doing a hugely successful 11-year residency.
Through it all, Osmond, unlike many former teen stars, stayed grounded.
"I'll give all the credit to my wife, my family, my parents, my faith," said Osmond, 66. "Here's the honest answer. I lost my career. In the '80s I couldn't get anything going. I couldn't even get a record deal. Years earlier, I was filling arenas; I couldn't even half-fill a high school gym. I lost everything financially. In hindsight, it was one of the best things that happened to me. Horrible to go through but to rebuild a career to what I've got now, you appreciate it more. Now it really means something to me."
And he's always been Donny, not Don.
"Would you go buy a Steve Wonder record? I'm always going to be Donny."
And with Donny, there's often "and Marie." They last performed together in November 2019 to end their Vegas residency. Don't expect them to work together again soon.
"I don't think we'll ever do a huge production like we did in Vegas," he said with no hint of sadness. "To do a one-off, you have to rehearse for the same amount of time as you do for a residency. It's a lot of work. I don't want to do one show with Marie and then it's gone. Maybe a television appearance but a big tour or something like that, I don't think that will ever happen. Who knows? You have to be ready for anything any day."
Meanwhile, after his U.S. concert tour, Osmond will be getting ready for a return to "Joseph" in the United Kingdom in December but not in the lead role.
"After doing 2,000 shows as Joseph, now I'm the Pharaoh. Can you imagine the juxtaposition of me as the Pharaoh standing next to whoever is going to be Joseph? They're auditioning [for] him now. You know the opportunity to break that fourth wall, I'm going to take advantage of. It's going to be funny."
Donny Osmond
When: 8 p.m. Sun.
Where: Orpheum Theatre, 910 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls.
Tickets: $79.50 and up, ticketmaster.com.