Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox books The National for March 30

The band that recasts pop hits as swing, ragtime and doo-wop plays Broad Street's 1923 theater on Tuesday, March 30, 2027. Tickets are on sale now through AXS.

There aren't many rooms in Richmond better suited to a band that dresses like it's 1925 than a theater that actually opened in 1923. On Tuesday, March 30, 2027, Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox brings its vintage-cover show to The National on East Broad Street.

Doors are at 6:30pm and the show starts at 7:30pm. The date was announced Oct 27, and tickets are sold through AXS. The National holds 1,500, which is a large room for a jazz and soul revue on a weeknight. Postmodern Jukebox has earned it.

If you don't know the name, you probably know the idea. Postmodern Jukebox takes contemporary hits and plays them in older styles like ragtime, swing and doo-wop, with the cast dressed for whatever decade they're borrowing from. Bradlee started the project with college friends in his basement apartment in Astoria, Queens. The breakthrough came in 2013, when a "grandpa style" cover of "Thrift Shop" went viral. The Inlander puts the count at more than 300 pop hits remade as throwbacks since then, sung by a rotating cast that has toured six continents. Bradlee told the story in a 2018 memoir, *Outside the Jukebox*.

The rotating cast is the point of the live show. You don't buy a ticket for one singer. You buy it for a revue: a band, several vocalists and usually a tap dancer or two, moving through decades of style with songs you know from the radio. That's why the room matters, and The National is a good one for it.

The theater opened on Nov 11, 1923, built for stage shows, vaudeville, music and the new movies. It was part of the Broad Street stretch once called Theatre Row and is the only one of its original auditoriums still standing. It later ran as a cinema, went dark in 1983, was saved by the Historic Richmond Foundation and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. A vaudeville-era hall hosting a modern take on vaudeville-era entertainment is a neat fit.

A vaudeville-era hall hosting a modern take on vaudeville-era entertainment is a neat fit.

This is a big-week announcement for Richmond. Postmodern Jukebox has been on the road all year with The Future Is Vintage tour, which went through Europe, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The March date gives local fans a reason to circle a Tuesday in early spring.

What to know before you go: it's a weeknight with a 7:30pm start, so dinner downtown beforehand is realistic and you'll be home before midnight. Lots of people in this crowd dress up, so if you've been waiting for an excuse to wear the suspenders or the pearls, this is it. Tickets are on AXS through the link above.

It's a lot of fun to hear a song you're sick of come back as a Prohibition-era torch song, and a 1923 theater is a good place to hear it.

Sources: Scott Bradlee — Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org); From YouTube to the stage: Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox — The Inlander (inlander.com); National Theater — Historic Richmond (historicrichmond.com); National Theater — Virginia Department of Historic Resources (dhr.virginia.gov); The National (theater) — Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org); Postmodern Jukebox Bringing THE FUTURE IS VINTAGE Tour to Australia — BroadwayWorld (broadwayworld.com); AXS tickets — Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox (axs.com); JamBase listing (jambase.com)