Broadway is seeing trees of green and red roses too. The story of American icon Louis Armstrong is being told onstage in A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical. The production is led by Tony winner James Monroe Iglehart.
Louis Armstrong’s innovative musicianship and incredible charisma as trumpeter and vocalist would lead him from the early days of jazz in his native New Orleans to five decades of international stardom. A Wonderful World tells the story of Armstrong’s blazing musical career from the perspective of his four wives, who each had a unique impact on his life. It features beloved songs he recorded and made popular, including “What a Wonderful World” and “When You’re Smiling,” among many other favorites.
Louis Armstrong (1901–1971), widely known by his nicknames "Satchmo," "Satch," and "Pops," was a legendary American trumpeter and singer. A towering figure in the world of jazz, Armstrong's career stretched over five decades, encompassing multiple pivotal periods in jazz history. He earned numerous honors, including a Grammy Award in 1965 for Hello, Dolly! and a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1972. Armstrong’s influence extended beyond jazz, impacting various musical genres and earning him inductions into prestigious institutions such as the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.
The musical's premiere was presented by Miami New Drama in 2021 at the Colony Theatre in Miami Beach, Florida. It later played in New Orleans at the Saenger Theatre and in Chicago at the Cadillac Palace Theatre in 2023.
If you love bio musicals, American history, and jazz music, this is the musical for you.
A lack of clear intention is, itself, perhaps a common bio-musical trope too. Even when shaded with a firmer angle, the overriding message behind most of these productions tends to be, simply, that a great musician was great. Squire, to his credit (it’s easy to blame a book writer for everything in a musical; the flaw here seems deeper), does push toward commentary, but what he comes out with are really four books for four different shows. I’d much rather have this thing cut down to size and watch a show just about Louis’s early days in Chicago and the financial predation of the jazz scene, or one just about him in Hollywood dealing with racist producers. Film biopics often fare better when they narrow their focus: Think of Pablo Larraín carving depths from slivers of a life in Jackie or Spencer. Or, take the model of something like Jelly’s Last Jam and go whole-hog with a concept like putting your lead on trial in the afterlife — that recent Encores! production does, unfortunately for A Wonderful World, hang in comparison to this jazz-icon musical. If we all know the melody these shows always follow, it’s long past time for some variations. But in this case, for an open run on Broadway, we get the whole shebang played as straight as possible. Don’t drop your sheet music. Improvisation is not so welcome here.
However, the orchestrations and arrangements (by Branford Marsalis) are rich and delicious; the choreography and musical staging by Rickey Tripp similarly slick. Perhaps this is enough for Armstrong devotees; a boisterous “Hello, Dolly!” which returned Armstrong to fame later in life and a restrainedly luminous “What a Wonderful World” both bring the evening to a resounding close. But have we gotten to know Armstrong as a musician, husband, cultural force, his politics, his passion for music, his strengths and frailties? Not fully—this is a soft biography, with a soft landing, leaving us feeling just as fuzzily-good as Armstrong’s lovely voice leaves us feeling on the stroke of midnight every new year.
| 2020 | Regional (US) |
Colony Theatre World Premiere Regional (US) |
| 2024 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical | James Monroe Iglehart |
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