Stage musical adaptations of movies and TV shows are buyer-beware propositions.

It’s, over the years, proven not easy to capture such productions in the flesh, with songs added. The ratios of success to failure largely tilts in the latter direction, with a fair number of attempts also follow under the category of “meh.”

So “Back to the Future: the Musical?” As Doc Brown would say, “Great Scott!”

With an emphasis on the great.

At the Detroit Opera House through Nov. 9, the treatment of the hit 1985 sci-fi comedy — which premiered days before the pandemic shutdown during 2020 in England and on Broadway in 2023 — ticks off all the boxes that make for a winning musical of any kind, regardless of its source material. The songs — by Alan Silvestri and Glen Ballard, save for those couple of H

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