Review Roundup: Alicia Keys Musical HELL'S KITCHEN Opens Off-Broadway

The world premiere of HELL’S KITCHEN is now playing at The Public. The musical features music & lyrics by 15-time Grammy winner Alicia Keys and a book by Pulitzer finalist Kristoffer Diaz. 

Loosely based on Alicia Keys’ personal experiences growing up in Hell’s Kitchen, HELL’S KITCHEN features both newly created music and the soulful, iconic songs of New York’s own Alicia Keys.

The musical officially opened on November 19. Read the reviews for Hell's Kitchen here!

Jesse Green, The New York Times: But because those hits are hits for a reason, there is still pleasure in hearing them. The singing, arrangements and orchestrations (by various hands including Adam Blackstone, Tom Kitt, Dominic Follacaro and Keys herself) are thrilling, if strangely unbalanced in Gareth Owen’s sound design. The fire-escape sets (by Robert Brill), expressive projections (by Peter Nigrini), saturated lighting (by Natasha Katz) and often hilarious costumes (by Dede Ayite) are all Broadway-ready.

Tim Teeman, Daily Beast: The production, directed by Michael Greif, has a through-line of sweetness that overrides a roughness of New York City living it implies but never delivers on—and spiritually never wants to dwell in. Its mean streets are not that mean, its central romantic storyline never rises to a passion that the audience feels invested in, and its family dramas are of the safe, after-school special kind. This is, at its heart, a warm bath of a musical; Camille A. Brown’s fabulous choreography supplies a welcome and impressive swagger.

Peter Marks, The Washington Post: In “Hell's Kitchen,” they've crafted a perfectly nice musical out of the soul-fired songbook of Alicia Keys.

Sara Holdren, Vulture: Hell’s Kitchen-the new musical spearheaded by the multi-Grammy-winning R&B singer-songwriter Alicia Keys—is chocolate-chip cookies: Its shape and taste are familiar, and when it’s best, it’s because there are some extremely high-quality ingredients in the mix.

Frank Scheck, New York Stage Review: It’s a familiar tale, not very interestingly told via the underwhelming book by Pulitzer-finalist Kristoffer Diaz (The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity). But much like Keys, who overcame modest beginnings to become a pop star who’s sold tens of millions of records and multiple Grammys, the musical ultimately triumphs thanks to the soul-stirring music. By the time this production terrifically staged by Michael Greif reaches its conclusion, you’ll definitely be in an empire state of mind.

Melissa Rose Bernardo, New York Stage Review: In other words, this is a standard-issue family drama—not the Alicia Keys story. Yes, it’s Keys’ music, a score full of her chart-topping hits and lesser-known gems, plus a few new, largely forgettable, songs. (In the uninspired “Seventeen,” Jersey sings, of Ali: “I once was her/ So I try to stop it/ Cause she ’bout to step in some shit.”) But if you’re heading to Hell’s Kitchen hoping to see a portrait of an artist, you’ll be greatly disappointed.

Juan A. Ramirez, Theatrely: There are times during Hell’s Kitchen where it is easy to see how Broadway and the pop charts once worked hand in hand. The music is current and endearing, further enlivened by a cast seemingly unspoiled by conservatory training or the idea that a stage voice should have all its kinks and character ironed out. With an embarrassment of vocal riches undergirding her life’s work and story, Keys might well soon cement her own cred on the theatrical street which traces her home neighborhood's horizon.

Lauren Mechling, The Guardian: Hell’s Kitchen, Alicia Keys’s live-wire theatrical adaptation of her own hit list, puts the rest of the genre to shame. Over a dozen years in the making, the show, which makes its off-Broadway debut at the Public Theater (where Hamilton had its original run), is no rewarmed songbook. It’s a surprisingly loose-limbed and rousing celebration of love, music and a pre-TikTokified New York City, directed by Michael Greif (Rent, Dear Evan Hansen) and overseen by Keys, who had a hand in everything from the fly-girl dance routines to the casting of understudies. A recent preview performance had members of the audience losing their minds, raising their arms in the air mid-song and wiping tears from their eyes between numbers.

Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post: In trying to be a paen to New York, a love story, a mother-daughter drama, an exploration of Keys’ biracial identity and an artist’s origin tale all at once, “Hell’s Kitchen” does justice to none of those aspects. The show succeeds largely as a concert.

David Cote, Observer: In contrast to its intimate domestic scale and relatively subdued dramatic stakes, Hell’s Kitchen is slick and aggressively commercial; Keys, also the producer, has made no secret of her desire to transfer uptown. Ending with the earwormy urban jingle “Empire State of Mind” more out of fan service than anything story related, this feel-good empowerment fable hungers for a home on Broadway. And why not? Tourists are not going to nitpick about where a neighborhood begins or ends. They probably won’t even visit.

Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater: Yes, Alicia Keys songs are organized to tell a story loosely based on a moment in Alicia Keys’ life: At the age of 17, Ali (portrayed by Maleah Joi Moon, making an impressive professional debut) pursues a boy and discovers the piano while rebelling against her strict mother, Jersey (Soshana Bean.) But the story is not what’s most fresh or distinctive about “Hell’s Kitchen,” and enough of the details have been altered to turn Ali into a fictional character: Keys’ passion for the piano was ignited by age six, for example, not 17 as in the show; her largely absent father was a flight attendant, not a pianist.

Diane Snyder, The Telegraph: Featuring mostly catalogue songs of hers, it’s an aural explosion of powerful ballads and pop tunes infused with R&B, soul and hip hop. The fact that the characters in Kristoffer Diaz’s book appear to be enacting a fable of street life, designed to teach, inspire and give audiences a chance to hear Keys’ rich tunes sung to the hilt, may lessen the story’s heft, but Michael Greif’s spirited production is still a crowd-pleaser that seems destined for Broadway.

Aramide Timubu, Variety: With absolute powerhouse vocals from the cast and songs written by Keys with orchestrations and arrangements by Emmy and Grammy winner Adam Blackstone, “Hell’s Kitchen” moves beyond Ali’s teenage experiences. The play also showcases Jersey’s perspective as a single mother determined to get her daughter to make different choices from her own. Though Keys’ iconic music is used throughout, Diaz and Blackstone don’t haphazardly sprinkle the tunes across two acts. Instead, tracks like “You Don’t Know My Name” and “Fallin” come thundering forward from surprising characters at unexpected times.

Dan Rubins, Slant: Isolate any 30 seconds of Hell’s Kitchen’s musical numbers and you’re probably looking at—and, more importantly, listening to—something marvelous. Choreographer Camille A. Brown keeps the ensemble engaged throughout in heart-pounding conversation with Keys’s music. If Robert Brill’s set, a real “concrete jungle where dreams are made of,” isn’t attractive in itself, it’s enlivened by Natasha Katz’s lighting and Peter Nigrini’s projections, especially in effectively channeling Ali’s elevator rides. Under the music direction of Dominic Fallacaro, the cast sounds tremendous, with sizzling vocal performances from Moon, Dixon, Shoshana Bean as Ali’s mom Jersey, Kecia Lewis as a dying piano teacher, and Jackie Leon as Ali’s supportive friend Jessica.

Gillian Russo, New York Theatre Guide: Leave it to Alicia Keys, the writer of evocative songs like 'Fallin'' and 'If I Ain't Got You,' which make everyday emotions feel like momentous revelations, to make a New York local see Midtown anew. I'll admit, after living on both the north and south outskirts of Hell's Kitchen for a combined four years, that particular part of the city began to feel a little less fiery, the streets no longer making me feel brand-new, but same-old. But as portrayed in Hell's Kitchen, under Michael Greif's direction, Keys's home neighborhood is a living, pulsing, vibrant soundscape.

Average Rating: 74.0%

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