A story teller begins: "Once upon a time, so long ago that New York City hadn't even been bankrupt once, there lived a young man in the music business named Albert Peterson, who loved his secretary, Rose.
His only client, a rock-n-roll idol known as Conrad Birdie, was being drafted into the army, and Rose wanted Albert to give up the music business, marry her, and become...an English teacher!
Alas, Albert's mother--a frail and gentle old lady with many of the same endearing qualities as Snow White's stepmother--opposed the match.
But love triumphed, Conrad vanished, the mother was banished, Albert married his Rose and became an English teacher and they all lived happily ever after.
Birdie disappeared 18 years ago, and Albert has been offered $20,000 if he can get him to perform on a TV Grammy Award special, along with other giant recording stars of yesterday.
In Forest Hills, Jenny, the Petersons' 16-year-old daughter, has her own plan for leaving home ("Movin' Out" and "Half of a Couple".)
Rose reluctantly agrees to help Albert find Conrad, but for ten days, and tells the children that they will stay in New Jersey while they are away.
In the bus terminal Albert has arranged "a spontaneous demonstration by the youth of America demanding the return of Conrad Birdie."
Mtobe, who will do anything for a fee, appears to sing "Bring Back Birdie", the song Albert has written for the occasion.
Instead, Jenny, angry that her mother has vetoed her plan to live with her boyfriend, is intrigued by a saffron-robed lady, who says, "Come march with the Reverend Sun, sister, and find fulfillment."
In the black desert rear Bent River Junction, Arizona, while Rose struggles with their luggage, Albert assures her ("Baby, You Can Count on Me").
They find the El Coyote Club, a noisy Western saloon, site of Conrad's last gig, and the bartender turns out to be Mae Peterson, Albert's long-lost mother, who, true to form, insults Rose at every opportunity.
They book him to appear at a rock concert the following night at University Stadium, and manage to cram the corpulent Conrad into the old gold suit and shove him on-stage, where he begins one of his old numbers.
But the 1981 kids boo him off the stage - they've come to hear the new punk rock group Filth and don't want a 1962 retread like Birdie.
Her concern deepens when she discovers that, disguised in pink hair and dark glasses, the guitarist for Filth is none other than Albert Jr.!
Grabbing her son and interrupting the concert, Rose angrily tells Albert she's going to find Jenny, "who's gone off ringing bells somewhere," reunite the family, and go home.
Albert suddenly realizes the mess he's in: he's signed a contract to deliver Conrad, who has run away, he's being sued right and left ("Middle Age Blues").
Back in Bent River Junction, Rose Two has faked the death of Conrad to evade NBC's wrath.
Rose Two prevents this by locking Conrad in a closet, and we hear the Tucson Tabernacle Choir, led by Mtobe, in "There's a Brand New Beat in Heaven".
And Mae steps in and saves the Grammy show with her singing and dancing rendition of her 1925 hit, "I Love 'Em All".
In his review for The New York Times, Frank Rich wrote that the musical was "depressing" and "tired", while praising Chita Rivera: "far more effective" and noting that the score had "a few sprightly melodies".
[3] In his book Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops, theater historian Ken Mandelbaum wrote that the show "may rank as the worst Broadway musical ever to be created by top-level professionals," with, among other things, a "tasteless and ridiculous" book and a score that contained "grotesque gospel and punk numbers" and "retreads of songs from the original [Bye Bye Birdie].