NEW YORK (AP) — Alicia Keys’ semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age Broadway musical is all grown up and leaving the nest. And, like all comfortable father or mother, Keys might go to it each every so often.
A brand new “Hell’s Kitchen” forged has assembled in Cleveland for a nationwide tour that may take them to the South, Midwest and West on a 28-city parade by 2026.
“It feels so good to know that it’s going to go across the country and this cast, let me tell you, is out of control. They’re so good,” Keys says. “Obviously, everybody can’t get to New York City. Everybody can’t go to Broadway.”
Those that catch the musical on the street might also get an additional deal with. Keys says she’s liable to point out up on some stops as a fairy godmother because it crosses the nation.
“I love, as an artist, bringing my energy to other artists. That’s really a fulfilling feeling. So, I’ll be fairy godmothering. You never know where you’ll see me.”
A coming-of-age story
“Hell’s Kitchen” is about 17-year-old New York piano prodigy fueled by Keys songs like “Fallin’,” “No One,” “Girl on Fire,” “If I Ain’t Got You,” in addition to a number of new songs, together with “Kaleidoscope.”
It facilities on a younger girl named Ali, who like Keys, is the daughter of a white mom and a Black father and is rising up in a sponsored housing growth simply outdoors Occasions Sq. within the once-rough neighborhood known as Hell’s Kitchen. She learns to hone her music abilities, falls in love and reconciles together with her generally overbearing mother.
Keys hopes audiences will come for her music, the story and the varied forged: “It’s really exciting to be able to go somewhere and see yourself on the stage or to see your experience played out.”
The Ali on tour is 18-year-old Maya Drake, a latest highschool graduate from San Jose, California, who endured a protracted, rigorous audition course of. She was a fan of Keys earlier than the musical popped up on her radar.
“The fact that I get to be in a show with somebody else’s music and, of all the people, it gets to be her — I got so lucky with that,” says Drake. “Just to have that connection is so special, and it makes the show feel 10 times more enjoyable.”
As a part of her audition course of, Drake got here to New York to look at “Hell’s Kitchen” on Broadway, starring Jade Milan as Ali. “It’s a lot seeing it for the first time and she never leaves the stage,” says Drake, who remembers considering: “To be a part of something that big would just be crazy.”
After the tour forged was introduced, the actors have been invited onstage on the Shubert Theatre to cheers after a efficiency, and Drake bought to fulfill and communicate to veterans like Jessica Vosk and Kecia Lewis, who received a Tony Award within the present.
“That was a really special moment,” she says. “Sharing advice and getting insight from the people that are currently doing the show helped us understand what you’re about to get into and some things that can help.”
The tour coincides with the publication of “Hell’s Kitchen: Behind the Dream,” a photo-heavy e-book that charts the present’s 13-year evolution — from crafting the present with e-book author Kristoffer Diaz and director Michael Greif to how it could find yourself with costumes, casting, choreography and staging.
Life on the street
After Cleveland, the tour goes to Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Denver, Oklahoma Metropolis, Los Angeles, Salt Lake Metropolis, Las Vegas, San Diego and different cities.
Drake is, naturally, trying ahead to the present going to California, particularly the cease in San Francisco, the closest cease for family and friends from San Jose. She’s additionally excited to be on the street.
“I really have not traveled a bunch of my life, which is kind of ironic because I’m about to do a lot of traveling,” says Drake, who skilled on the Kids’s Musical Theater San Jose. “I’m definitely excited to go everywhere.”
Keys, who watched the present win two Tony Awards and the 2025 Grammy for finest musical theater album, thinks the musical about her outdated New York neighborhood can thrive away from the Massive Apple.
“This is a story inspired by my experiences growing up in New York City, for sure. And, yes, it is a New York story, 1,000%. The thing is, though, the story truly is timeless,” she says. “It’s such an emotional, honest, raw, authentic story that it doesn’t matter if it’s in Cleveland, or if it’s in Detroit, or if it’s in Manhattan or Atlanta.”
