All Shook Up

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

All Shook Up is a Jukebox Musical featuring the songs of Elvis Presley, whose story is essentially a re-telling of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream with a Twelfth Night subplot.

When Chad, who is absolutely not Elvis Presley rolls into town, he is appalled to hear that mayor Matilda Hyde has banned anything even remotely "indecent" -- no tight pants, no public kissing, no loud music. He sets about loosening the uptight town, while getting caught up in a whopper of a Love Dodecahedron.

Notable for having a two-option script: a sub-plot can be focussed on racial segregation, or class segregation, with alternative dialogue provided for however the musical will be played.


Tropes used in All Shook Up include:


  • All Love Is Unrequited: Until the end, everyone except for Dean and Lorraine.
  • Ambiguously Bi: Chad, who professes "a love for the ladies," falls for Natalie while she's cross-dressing as Ed, decides that he loves Natalie after all, but admits that he kind of likes Ed better.
  • Angry Mob Song : "Devil in Disguise", wherein Mayor Matilda whips the church council into an anti-Chad frenzy.
  • Beta Couple: Dean and Lorraine. While they do have major problems surrounding their relationship, the two are the only people who stay a consistent couple and manage to side step the Love Dodecahedron.
  • Black Best Friend: Sylvia to Jim, Lorraine to Natalie (depending on whether the show chooses to cast Sylvia and Lorraine as black that is).
  • Brainless Beauty: Averted with Miss Sandra, who bemoans the lack of culture in the town.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall : Chad does this after kissing Ed.
  • Counterpoint Duet: First, Chad sings "Teddy Bear" to woo Miss Sandra ; then, Miss Sandra sings "Hound Dog" to show just how disinterested she is ; finally, the two of them reprise their numbers in counterpoint, backed up by Dennis and Natalie.
  • Dating Do-Si-Do: Chad loves Sandra but ends up falling for Natalie Meanwhile, Dennis loves Natalie, but ends up falling for Sandra. And Jim also falls in love with Sandra, but ends up loving Sylvia. Not to mention how Sandra loves Ed, but marries Dennis when finding out his true identity. The only couple that didn't fall for other people the whole play were Dean and Lorraine.
  • Deadpan Snarker : Sylvia tends to be this.
  • December-December Romance: This could be Sylvia and Jim or Matilda and Earl, depending on the casting.
  • The Dragon: Sheriff Earl to Matilda, though only out of love, ironically.
  • Epic Song : The arrangement of "Can't Help Falling in Love" which closes act one builds from a solo to an ensemble for the principal characters to an all-out gospel number for the entire company complete with several key changes and a big, long, high note at the end.
  • Everyone Can See It: Lorraine and Dean. Chad points this out right before 'That's All Right'.
  • False Start: This happens to Dennis a lot.
  • Fourth Date Marriage: Sandra and Dennis.
  • Freudian Excuse : Mayor Matilda justifies being the way she is because Dean's father was a musician who she had a one night stand with. And, depending on the version, he was also black.
  • Getting Crap Past the Radar: The show is loaded with this.
  • "I Am" Song: "Roustabout" for Chad.
  • Jukebox Musical: The songs of Elvis Presley
  • Large Ham: Chad is this intentionally.
  • Love At First Sight: Practically the whole town... Natalie with Chad, Chad with Miss Sandra, Miss Sandra with Ed, Jim with Miss Sandra, Dean with Lorraine, Lorraine with Dean. This is the entire point of the song "One Night With You."
  • Love Dodecahedron:
    • Dennis loves Natalie
    • Natalie is in love with Chad, and dresses up as "Ed" to spend time with him.
    • Chad is in love with Miss Sandra
    • Miss Sandra is in love with Ed
    • Jim (Natalie's Dad) is also in love with Miss Sandra
    • Sylvia is in love with Jim
    • Lorraine (Sylvia's daughter) is in love with Dean
    • Dean is in love with Lorraine, but his mother is Matilda, the mayor who has outlawed public indecency.
    • And while it is more of a knee-jerk pairing at the end of the show, Earl, Matilda's (until now, SILENT) sheriff, confesses his love for Matilda.
  • Oblivious to Love: Natalie to Dennis, Sandra to Jim, Matilda to Earl.
  • Oedipus Complex: Sheriff Earl confesses that he loves Matilda specifically because she reminds him of his mother.
  • One of the Boys: Natalie takes it Up to Eleven.
  • Pair the Spares: In the penultimate scene, the Love Dodecahedron gets solved neatly, with most of the pairings making some sort of sense. However Dennis and Miss Sandra, the two spares left over after all this (and who have barely even been in the same place before, let alone spoken) form an instant bond due to a love of Shakespeare.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Subverted with Natalie. She is able to fool characters like Chad and Miss Sandra with her Ed disguise because they're both new in town and barely know her. However she isn't able to fool people who've known her her whole life, like Dennis.
  • Running Gag: Lots of characters fall in Love At First Sight. Each time they do, they sing "One Night With You", though the amount of the song they sing reduces drastically after the first rendition.
  • Say My Name: Several scenes contain passages of dialogue which consist entirely of characters shouting or saying each others' names, normally for comedic purposes. Each of the principals also yells out the name of their beloved during "Can't Help Falling In Love".
  • The Silent Bob: Sheriff Earl
  • She Cleans Up Nicely: Everyone in town is shocked at the sight of Natalie in a dress.
  • Shout-Out: The play makes several of these to Shakespeare's work, usually through Miss Sandra.
    • "Is that a guitar I hear? Play on! Play on! Play on!"
    • And when Natalie revelas her true identity, Sandra yells "Oh I am fortunes fool!"
  • Small Town Boredom: Natalie
  • Sweet on Polly Oliver: Natalie disguises herself as Ed in order to spend time with Chad. Miss Sandra promptly falls in love with this new 'guy' in town, while it takes a while for Chad to develop romantic feelings for 'Ed', eventually admitting that he prefers Ed to Natalie.
  • Sweet Polly Oliver: Natalie, natch.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Natalie with Lorraine and Miss Sandra.
  • The Quiet One: Sheriff Earl
  • Wrench Wench: Natalie