Nobody would ever suggest that the creators of a Broadway musical are supposed to make members of an audience work while watching the show.

But that’s exactly what happens when you go see "Motown The Musical" that opened Tuesday night at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts.

The work is to fight the incredible urge to sing along with almost three hours worth of some of the most familiar pop music anyone has ever heard.

The musical is, of course, the story of Berry Gordy and his incredible development of Motown, the hit parade maker located in a little house in Detroit. The list of artists and hits that came out of that small studio is the stuff of legends.

The show is set in 1983 on the night when his stars gathered to celebrate 25 years of Motown.

And this show is full of those legends. Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell, Mary Wells, Jackie Wilson, The Temptations, The Contours, the Four Tops, Martha and the Vandellas, Gladys Knight and the Pips, The Marvelettes, Junior Walker and the All Stars, Stevie Wonder (both little and big), Rick James, The Jackson 5 and Martin Luther King all make appearances in this show, although the book, by Gordy, is kind enough to make sure we know he didn’t create King.

Gordy did go to pains to point out that Motown did release two LPs (If you don’t know what an LP is you are too young to see this show) of King’s speeches.

There are two very distinct parts to this musical, even though Gordy tried to wrap them into one cohesive evening.

One part is the story. It is about as wooden a script as one could ever find. It reminded me of nothing so much as a horribly overwrought soap opera on a cable channel that nobody watches.

To say that Gordy set out to create a hero – himself – would be a mild understatement.  At one point he calls himself "the giant who controls their (his stable of singers) lives." He paints himself as a major force in breaking down racial barriers in America and as a loving and tender father to his children, all of the artists on his label.

Many books and interviews have alleged that Gordy was a cutthroat businessman who often took advantage of his artists. To this day the archives of a trail of lawsuits, some he filed and some filed against him, take up a lot of space in Wayne County storage.

Many of his artists grew to be huge stars under his demanding tutelage, and many of them left. The most loyal was Robinson, Gordy's first artist and the one who is still with him today.

But despite the constant preaching and praise in the book, there is, as there always has been, the music.

The show opens with a dance/singing battle between The Four Tops, who sing "I Can't Help Myself" and "Reach Out I’ll Be There" and The Temptations, who sing "Ain’t Too Proud to Beg and "I Can’t Get Next to You." It is an electric start to a show filled with spectacular singing and dancing and performances that are wonderful impressions of the real thing.

After the opening that gets every head in the place bobbing, the hits keep on coming, although most are not performed in their entirety, but rather as snippets that range from a few bars to a few verses and a chorus.

There are more than 50 songs from Hitsville in this show and it is a raucous paean to a force that blended some of the hallmarks of rhythm and blues with a decidedly pop sound that Gordy unleashed on America (and the world). And once it got started, the embrace of his music never ended.

Gordy, who created this musical based on his 1994 autobiography could not resist the temptation to make a great store of music even better with two original songs he wrote to  slide into this story, songs that might best have been left on a typewriter somewhere. They are corny and sappy and full of the kind of emotional drag that you find in bad television commercials.

While Gordy was busy building his empire, his smooth recordings were in stark contrast to the raw soul music of Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and James Brown. While it took years for them to cross over into the hearts of white kids, Gordy had a formula that was embraced by everyone.

Despite the script, the show is well worth your time, just for the music. See if you can resist singing along with the string of hits.

"Motown The Musical" runs through July 12 and information on showtimes and tickets is available here.