‘Purple Rain’ cast and crew make pilgrimage to Prince’s Paisley Park

Four days before the musical adaptation of “Purple Rain” goes into previews for a world premiere at Minneapolis’ State Theatre, the cast and crew of the show took a VIP tour of Prince’s Paisley Park, the music icon’s recording studio, concert venue and home.

The 60-strong party traveled in two bus coaches Sunday to Audubon Road in Chanhassen to the museum that doubles as a shrine to Prince’s legacy. They brought wide eyes, big hearts and celebratory voices.

Co-star Rachel Webb, the Broadway actor who plays Apollonia, choreographer Ebony Williams and Tony-winning costume designer Montana Levi Blanco were among the visitors.

Notably absent was lead actor Kris Kollins, who stars as The Kid, the semi-autobiographical stand-in for Prince. Kollins had a scheduling conflict, theater officials said, and will be taking a Paisley Park tour at a later date.

Here are some highlights from the day:

Fans will be fans: The actors and creative team members may be accustomed to holding the light at center stage, but they were gaga to be in the place where Prince lived, worked and ultimately died. Split into two equal groups, they often broke into song, providing live (and beautiful) harmonies to film excerpts of Prince’s concert performances.

Jason Korn, who alternates with Kollins as The Kid, said just walking those same terrazzo floors where Prince had walked and hearing his own footfalls gave him chills. “That gives me a very visceral connection to him,” Korn said.

“No way,” she said more than once. “They’re so tiny and onstage he was 12 feet tall.”

Christina Jones, who plays Apollonia’s bandmate Brenda, said she, too, was taken with the scale and intimacy of icon’s office.

“The things he has in there makes it seem like he was an ordinary man, like my grandfather,” Jones said. “But, of course, he was Prince.”

In the main recording studio: The group hung onto every word of Paisley Park guide Jeff Greenwood, who told how Prince bought his Hohner guitar for $30 from a gas station and used it prominently in the film.

Prince would use a similar make and style of guitar throughout his career, often tossing them dramatically at the end of shows, Greenwood continued. In all, Prince used some 250 guitars. Paisley Park has 178 of them catalogued and stored.

Seeing double?: “Purple Rain” has picked Prince bandmates Bobby Z and Morris Hayes as special music advisers. Near the end of the tour, producer Orin Wolf called out drummer Bobby Z, who has been in rehearsals, and the actor playing him, Gían Pérez. Pérez considered it a gift to be able to talk the living person he plays onstage, even as he admitted that he feels intimidated and a little scared.

Vroom vroom: The motorcycle Prince rode in “Purple Rain” sits behind ropes at Paisley Park. But there’s a replica of the bike in an adjoining room. Members of the cast gathered around this hog, posing and singing Prince tunes.

Carriers of Prince’s legacy: The tour concluded with a pep rally of sorts by Wolf and L. Londell McMillan, a principal of Prince Legacy LLC that co-manages Prince’s estate. Fresh from the airport after jetting in from New York, McMillan told the performers they are the new generation to bear witness and embody Prince’s legacy. “You all are now deputized legacy partners of Prince,” McMillan said. “Prince evolved into becoming Prince king. He became a giant.”

McMillan also talked about Prince’s competitive spirit. “In 1983, Michael Jackson came out with ‘Thriller,’ a music video that looked like a film,” he said. “Prince answers by making a film that looks like a music video.”

Now, he intimated, the musical version of “Purple Rain” has taken the competition full circle. Its team includes arranger and music director Jason Michael Webb, who did similar work for “MJ the Musical.”