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Slippin’ Through the Cracks: The Bobby Rush Musical, the new musical based on the life of Grammy Award-winning living legend Bobby Rush, will have its world premiere this fall at New Stage Theatre in Jackson, Mississippi. The production will play a limited engagement from October 20 through November 1, 2026, only at New Stage’s Jane Reid-Petty Theatre Center. Casting and additional creative team will be announced soon.
Slippin’ Through the Cracks: The Bobby Rush Musical features a score by the iconic Bobby Rush, is conceived by Stephen Lloyd Helper, and features a book by Rush and Helper. The production is co-directed by Helper and Matthew Johnson Harris, who will also choreograph.
Slippin’ Through the Cracks is a world premiere musical that tells the foot-stomping and funky blues story of Bobby Rush – from a sharecropper boy sneaking into juke joints, through the equally segregated, hot blues scene of Chicago alongside Muddy Waters and B. B. King, to the freedom of the worldwide stage. Blending live music with storytelling, the show traces Rush’s journey through American history and the blues, grounded by a message of perseverance, resilience and joy.
To learn more about the man who inspired this new musical, watch King of the Chitlin’ Circuit, a new documentary on Bobby Rush’s seven-decade career. It premieres on Mississippi Public Broadcasting in August 2026 before airing nationally on PBS starting in late November. Directed by Al Warren and produced by Taiwo Gaynor, the film offers an intimate look at Rush’s life and cements his status as a blues icon.
