Grammy Award-winning artist Alicia Keys and Pulitzer Prize finalist playwright Kristoffer Diaz bring their exhilarating coming-of-age musical HELL’S KITCHEN to The Public this fall.
In a cramped apartment hanging off the side of Times Square, 17-year-old Ali is desperate to get her piece of the New York dream. Ali’s mother is just as determined to protect her daughter from the same mistakes she made. When Ali falls for a talented young drummer, both mother and daughter must face hard truths about race, defiance, and growing up. Ali feels trapped, until the sound of a neighbor playing piano opens the door to an unexpected friendship and a radically different future.
Choreographed by Tony Award nominee Camille A. Brown and directed by Tony Award nominee Michael Greif, HELL’S KITCHEN is an unforgettable new show featuring both newly created music and the soulful, iconic songs of New York’s own Alicia Keys.
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.
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.
| 2023 | Off-Broadway |
Public Theater Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
| 2024 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
| 2025 | US Tour |
US Tour |
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | The Lortels | Outstanding Choreographer | Camille A. Brown |
| 2024 | The Lortels | Outstanding Featured Performer in a Musical | Kecia Lewis |
| 2024 | The Lortels | Outstanding Featured Performer in a Musical | Shoshana Bean |
| 2024 | The Lortels | Outstanding Lead Performer in a Musical | Maleah Joi Moon |
| 2024 | The Lortels | Outstanding Musical | Hell's Kitchen |
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