k.d. lang 'Off the Charts Excited' to Make Broadway Debut in AFTER MIDNIGHT

As previously announced, After Midnight, which opened last night at the Brooks AtkinsonTheatre, will welcome k.d. lang February 11 through March 9. BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge chatted with her on the red carpet about making her Broadway debut in the show and she revealed: "I love the music so much and I'm so excited to see Fantasia and Dule [Hill] and all of the young artists that are doing the show. I'm so excited to have three months in my head to absorb how I'm going to fit in, but as I said earlier, I don't expect to go in and change myself but just let the music do the talking and really sing my heart out. To be honest, I didn't expect to be on Broadway ever. It wasn't really in my realm of thinking. But I'm really excited now that I'm here and after the show I'm sure that I'm gonna be off the charts excited."

On the show's music, she continued: "It's one of the most fundamental parts of American music, and world music actually. Jazz is such an important thing to a singer especially. Just to be able to understand, emotionally, the music of Duke Ellington and the Cotton Club era is so important to singers."

Grammy Award winner Fantasia (The Color Purple) makes her highly anticipated return to the stage alongside Emmy Award nominee Dulé Hill ("The West Wing") in After Midnight, the Broadway production of Encores' critically acclaimed Cotton Club Parade. With 25 sensational singers and dancers and an exciting roster of Special Guest Star headliners, this heart-pounding new musical brings the sexy, smoky glamour of Harlem's Golden Age to a whole new generation

The evocative After Midnight takes the sexy, smoky glamour of the original Jazz Age and catapult it into a whole new era of heart-pounding, mind-blowing entertainment for modern Broadway audiences. Refracted through a contemporary lens, After Midnight will celebrate Duke Ellington's years at the Cotton Club using his original arrangements and performed by a world-class big band of 17 musicians hand-picked by living jazz legend, Wynton Marsalis. The timeless tunes set against a narrative ofLangston Hughes poetry will provide an authentic backdrop for an array of cutting-edge performances by 25 sensational vocalists and dancers, including special guest stars, whose interpretations will shatter everything you think you know about music, nightlife and Broadway.