Foreigner musical 'Feels Like the First Time' to debut at LIU Post

A troupe of some two dozen students gathered in a studio at Long Island University’s Post campus in Greenvale on a recent Friday afternoon to rehearse a dance number set to a well-known rock song. Moving to a staccato refrain from a keyboard player, the company alternated between complex arm movements and exaggerated full-body poses.

"So the first pull is big," chorographer Lorna Ventura instructed two of her main dancers, thrusting her arms out dramatically and arching her back to demonstrate, "and the second pull is even bigger."

The song under review: Foreigner’s "Urgent," a strutting rock number from 1981 that’s twice as old as the kids performing it. "Urgent" is a centerpiece of Foreigner’s the new jukebox musical, "Feels Like the First Time," featuring a cast of mostly LIU students under the direction of Broadway veteran Adam Pascal. Following its April 17 world premiere at the university’s 134-seat Little Theater, the show will hold a weeklong run that ends April 26. How one of rock’s biggest-selling acts wound up debuting a musical on Long Island is a story that stretches from the United Kingdom to New York City to Greenvale. And if the show’s locally based creators have their way, the story won’t end here.

"I’m very sure this piece would work on the road, and I think a big regional theater coming on board would help," Phil Carson, Foreigner’s longtime manager, said. "It’s also a very lively ensemble piece that would work in the nonprofessional arenas as well. So we want to explore those avenues before we try taking it to Broadway."

How it all began

"Feels Like the First Time" takes its title from a song that holds a special place in the Foreigner canon. In the mid-1970s, English guitarist Mick Jones had recently left the Leslie West Band and was looking to assemble his own group. First to join was Queens-born keyboardist Al Greenwood, who decided to stay when he heard Jones play "Feels Like the First Time" on a guitar. "I said, ‘I think we’ve got something here,’" recalled Greenwood, 74, who now lives on the North Shore of Long Island. The band used that song to audition something like 50 lead singers, Greenwood said, until Jones invited Lou Gramm, a Rochester, New York, native, to stop by Manhattan’s Hit Factory studio for a tryout.

From the first verse, "we knew he was the one," Greenwood said of Gramm. "Feels Like the First Time" led Foreigner’s self-titled 1977 debut album, served as the band’s first single and became a No. 4 hit. "So, a lot of firsts there," Greenwood noted.

So named for its 50-50 split of English and American members (including former King Crimson guitarist Ian McDonald, drummer Dennis Elliot and bassist Ed Gagliardi), Foreigner specialized in radio-friendly, hook-driven songs that bridged the gutsy rock of the 1970s and the modernist pop of the 1980s. Though often criticized as faceless or generic, Foreigner became one of the bestselling acts of its era, racking up nine top 10 singles — on a par with Fleetwood Mac.

Though the hits stopped coming by the early 1990s and Gramm departed in 2003, Foreigner lately has been on something like a comeback trail. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2024; a version of Foreigner is currently touring, albeit without any original members; and there’s a new live album, "In the Eye of the Storm," recorded during the band’s concert on Ellis Island last year, arriving July 17.

Meanwhile, Carson had been struggling to launch a jukebox musical for his band.

The unlikely inspiration was Diana Ross, according to Carson, who said Jones met the disco diva at an airport while waiting for a delayed flight. "He was astonished when Diana knew all of Foreigner’s songs," Carson said, adding that she further suggested: "Your songs should be the story of a musical." (Jones, who has Parkinson’s disease, was not available for interviews, Carson said.)

From zero to 'Juke Box Hero'

A first attempt came with "Juke Box Hero," titled after Foreigner’s 1981 single. Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, the revered British comedy writers known for their work with Peter Sellers, Tracey Ullman and the Alan Parker film "The Commitments," fashioned a story of two brothers in love with the same girl, Carson said. "Juke Box Hero" held a short but successful run of seven shows at Toronto’s Mirvish Theater in February 2019.

Broadway agents and producers, however, were not impressed. Their main objection: "The book just doesn’t work," Carson said. "So we went with our tail between our legs."

Flash forward several years later, when Carson, who lives part time in Locust Valley, began talking with Tom Dunn, executive and artistic director of the Tilles Center. Carson wanted to restart his stalled musical; Dunn had been talking to Pascal about becoming LIU’s first artist-in-residence, with an eye to leading a student production.

"The stars really aligned," said Dunn, who is also dean of the College of Arts and Design at LIU Post. "I had this lighting-strike moment."

Pascal, who had pursued rock and roll before launching his Broadway career as a star of "Rent" in 1996, said he "jumped at the chance" to direct the Foreigner show. Pascal, who grew up in Syosset, recalled training his teenage vocal cords on an eclectic playlist of Billy Joel, Iron Maiden, Barry Manilow and Foreigner. "You know — put my headphones on and scream my head off," he said. "And ‘Feels Like the First Time’ was always on that list."

Enter David Abbinanti, vice president of content development at The Licensing House, and playwright Stephen Garvey, who had both previously worked on yet another version of the Foreigner musical that never got fully off the ground. (Abbinanti’s company holds the rights to the play, he said.) Once the LIU production became a reality, Abbinanti, a Massapequa Park native and resident, retapped Garvey, a Manhasset native and Huntington resident, to write a whole new book.

Suddenly, last summer ...

Over the space of two months last summer, Garvey came up with a story about three suburban families living on the same block in the 1980s, one of whom has won a backyard concert from Simon Bash, the hottest rock singer of the era. Garvey said he took inspiration from MTV’s famous contest featuring John Cougar Mellencamp and drew from his own suburban upbringing.

"We talk of it as a comedy with some shades of drama and a ton of nostalgia," Garvey said. "Anyone who grew up in the '80s is going to recognize the world this show is set in."

One trick, according to Abbinanti, who also serves as the show’s arranger and orchestrator, is figuring out which songs can be reworked and how. "Say You Will," a moody, midtempo rocker, has become a "very light, airy type of song," he said, while the hard-driving "Double Vision" gets stripped down to an acoustic guitar.

"And then there are other songs like ‘Juke Box Hero’ that you better not mess with," Abbinanti said. "There are expectations that you do need to meet."

Much of the music, and its cultural backdrop, was unfamiliar to 21-year-old Mikey DeGraci, an LIU senior who plays the show’s nerdy hero, Marshall Davis. "I could sing a few of the songs for sure, but if you had asked me who they were by, I would say, ‘Oh, man,’" DeGraci said. "I'm not super familiar."

A fellow student put together a helpful list of '80s slang and definitive moments that was circulated among the cast. DeGraci said his favorite expression was "buggin.’ " Assistant stage manager Jack Lewinger, also 20, said he was pleased to finally learn the full, detailed history of New Coke.

"I was always fascinated," Lewinger said. "Now I want to try it."

Greenwood said he recently stopped by the LIU campus to watch rehearsals and found himself moved by the experience. Seeing his band’s familiar songs in a new format, "and the kids singing, it just lit me up again," Greenwood said. "It’s just amazing that, after 50 years, we're still relevant and people still love the music."