"Motown the Musical" is that rare show that makes you tingle with joy and want to buy every artifact you can at the concession stand.

Charles Randolph-Wright's excellent production transcends the jukebox musical. It quickens memories formed around the songs of the vast catalog of an era-defining record label.

The national tour, which landed Tuesday at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis, is creating new memories even as it evinces the relevance and staying power of now-classic songs rendered by such superstars as Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and the Jackson Five.

This high-gloss, polished Broadway musical orbits the life of label founder Berry Gordy, the hard-driving visionary who once dreamed of becoming a boxer. Gordy, played with Delphic reserve by Julius Thomas III (who acted in "The Scottsboro Boys" at the Guthrie a few years back), is a man who rarely shows any emotion.

He leaves his wife and children to pursue his dream. He falls in love with his leading superstar, Diana Ross (Allison Semmes). And he charges ahead in an industry that reflected the racial power structure of the larger nation, grooming acts that will eventually be poached by major labels.

Gordy wrote the book for this show, which elides many of the things we know about him and that era. "Motown" opens with the 25th-anniversary TV concert where Michael Jackson introduced the moonwalk. Gordy, his company in debt and most of his stars signed to other companies, does not want to participate in the NBC special. The musical then flashes back to his early life before winding its way back to the TV special.

We go to a show like "Motown" not for the story but for the music, which is interpreted with reverence and a vitality that suggests that this show is as good as the real thing. A case in point is Semmes' Diana Ross. It's not just that Semmes has Ross' cadence, pitch and intonations down pat. She also has the pencil legs, the gait and the aura of the superstar who inspired Beyoncé.

Semmes is stellar as Miss Ross, a character that goes from dreamy high school senior to silhouetted diva.

Semmes is clearly gifted, but she is surrounded by stars. Jarran Muse projects the strength, the charisma and sex appeal of Marvin Gaye as this character goes from romantic hero to socially conscious superstar.

Other standouts include Reed Shannon's stirring and vibrant Michael Jackson and Jesse Nager's cool Smokey Robinson. The cast also includes Christian Dante White, an actor of tremendous range and skill who also was in "Scottsboro Boys."

The show's design is simple but clean (David Korins did scenes, Esosa did the costumes and Natasha Katz lights). Scenes open and close like time-lapse images of flowers. Such artful and efficient transitions, plus the fact that the creative team packed 40 songs into the evening, make this "Motown" a show to be savored.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390