A (0:00)

Are you noticing your car insurance rate creep up? Even without tickets or claims, you're not alone. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry handles the legwork by comparing quotes side by side from over 50 top insurers so you can confidently hit buy. No spam calls, no hidden fees. Jerry even tracks rates and alerts you when it's best to shop. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Don't settle for higher rates. Download the Jerry app or visit Jerry AI Libsyn Today. That's J E R R Y AI Libsyn.

B (0:47)

In my opinion, there is never a bad time to immerse yourself in the music of Alicia Keys. So even if the packaging around such timeless songs as Fallen, if I Ain't Got yout, Girl on Fire, and no One leaves something to be desired, at least you know that the music will make the endeavor worthwhile. Especially if they are being sung by some of the best vocalists you are likely ever to hear performing them. Welcome to a review episode of the first national tour of the Alicia Keys musical Hell's Kitchen, playing at the Dr. Phillips center for the Performing Arts in Orlando, Florida through Sunday, March 8th. My name is Matt Tamnini. Tuesday night was my fourth time seeing this show, dating back to its Off Broadway premiere at the public theater in 2023, then the original Broadway cast in 2024 and again last fall when Hamilton favorite Christopher Jackson joined the cast. Now, I have been very clear throughout those viewings about my antipathy for the show despite the dramatic and marked improvements that it underwent on its transfer uptown. While all of my reservations and concerns remain based on the core issues found in the script and production, fortunately, this cast is giving the best, most entertaining version of the show that I have yet to see from the outside. You could be forgiven for assuming that Hell's Kitchen is a bio musical telling the story of Alicia Keys life growing up in New York City. After all, the show follows a 17 year old named Ally who in the mid-1990s lives in Hell's Kitchen with her single mother in the federally subsidized housing complex of Manhattan Plaza. Her mother is white, while her mostly absent father is black. During the show, Ally develops a passion for playing piano thanks to the influence of an older woman who became both a teacher and a mentor. All of those facts are true of both Ali in Hell's Kitchen and Alicia in real life, but the story found in the musical is fictional, though the connections are obvious even before you start, including nearly two dozen songs written and recorded by Keys. What you see on stage is a duller, more confused, far less human story than what we would have gotten if they had simply opted to go the bio musical musical route Instead, Hell's Kitchen attempts to operate in two worlds without fully earning either. The musical wants to embrace the toughness and danger of the New York streets before the Disneyification of Times Square, while also being a show with colorful, high energy dance numbers seemingly taken out of bubblegum pop music videos. This dichotomy always seems to leave the cast and in turn the audience unsure of how to approach the material, especially the more unsavory elements that are not part of Keyes actual biography but have been unnecessarily shoehorned into the show nonetheless. While every cast of Hell's Kitchen that I have seen has been immensely talented, I do think that I enjoyed this group the most for one very specific humor. While there have always been little jokes and playful moments in Christopher Diaz's book, the tour's principal cast from top to Bottom was able to break through the awkward friction of a big, busy, colorful musical trying to masquerade as something more grounded and gritty. Instead, they were able to play it far more like a traditional musical comedy, which allowed me to let go of many of my misgivings surrounding weakness and baseness of the story that seemed more important when the cast was approaching it with a performative, overly dramatic sincerity. This subtle shift in tone started at the top with Marley Soleil, who played Ally on Tuesday night, the show's protagonist and narrator. Normally, Soleil is in the role of Ally's friend Jessica, while Maya Drake is the show's lead, but the role was in this understudy's wonderful hands on opening night in Orlando as Marley was warm, vulnerable, as I said, funny, and perhaps most importantly, sang the score with a crispness and clarity that let you see the depths of Allie's heart. In the show, Ally clashes with her mother, Jersey, as many teenagers do with their parents, because she wants to hurry up and live a big full life in New York City, while Jersey, played by the stupendous Kennedy Coggle, is afraid of watching her daughter repeat the mistakes that she made at her age. At a moment when the mother and daughter tensions are reaching a boiling point, Ally meets Ms. Liza Jane, played by the regal Roz White, a pianist who lives in her building and helps Ally channel all of the teenage emotions that she is experiencing and into music. These stories and relationships with Ally and Jersey and Ally and Ms. Liza Jane are what breathe the most life into Hell's Kitchen. This show should be about daughters and mothers, the one we are born with and the ones we find along the paths of living. It should be about making art out of pain and about how letting go and giving up are not always the same thing. And in many cases that is what the musical is about, especially in the second act. That is when we see Coghill, the third former Elphabetta, take on this role following Shoshana Bean and Jessica Voska on Broadway absolutely whale on Keys's Pawn at all. Without getting too hyperbolic, which I have been known to do, her rendition of that song is as close as you will ever get to having a religious experience at a jukebox musical. The second act also allows White to both soothe and inspire Ally's heart and by proxy, everybody in the audience is as well as she delivers. Authors of Forever unfortunately, the majority of the first act is spent on an uncomfortable and frankly inappropriate love story that goes essentially uncommented on by the show. 17 year old Ally is infatuated with decidedly not 17 year old Nuck, played by an excellent John Avery Worrell, who gave the best performance in that role I have seen. Yet despite being rebuffed numerous times, Ally pursues and eventually wins over Knuck without ever telling him her actual age. Now I understand the logistical need to have some sort of romance in the show in order to be able to integrate Alicia Keys iconic love songs and the introduction of Ally's father Davis, played by the extremely talented Desmond Sean Ellington, an original Hell's Kitchen Off Broadway and Broadway cast member, does give the show some nice opportunities for that. But the mishandling of a frankly unnecessary and salacious storyline between Ally and Nuck gets to my biggest issue with the show. Keys was incredibly involved in the creation and development of Hell's Kitchen, so who am I to question her judgment? But in telling the story of a young black woman, I don't know that I would have opted for a middle aged Latino man, the aforementioned Pulitzer Prize finalist Diaz to write the script, or an even older middle aged white man, five time Tony nominee Michael Greif to direct. Despite having the glorious music of Alicia Keys catalog and star turning performances across the principal cast, Hell's Kitchen suffers from a muddled, needlessly sensational story, lazy, unfocused direction and Camille A. Brown's disjointed and disconnected choreography that chaotically inserts ensemble members into songs where they just frankly do not need to be. For me, Hell's Kitchen is a show that will always allow talented performers to turn in goosebump inducing performances thanks to the strength of Keys music. Whether you know all of her songs coming in or not, but it is ultimately a case study in missed opportunities and Alicia Keys Musical should have you leaving the theater inspired by the power of art and music to help us navigate and understand life's most difficult chapters and how some bonds not only withstand but get stronger during those most trying of times. Unfortunately, aside from otherworldly vocals like Coggles, I never found myself in the feels from this show. However, based on many people sitting around me at Dr. Phillips center on Tuesday night, I realize that this is not not a universal opinion and as our own Peter Felicia is fond of saying, I would much rather you have a good time at the theater than agree with me. So if the music of Alicia Keys has played an instrumental part in your life, or you are especially drawn to complicated mother daughter relationships, there's a very good chance that the power of those elements found in Hell's Kitchen will supersede the trickier literary issues I get hung up on. And if nothing else, you are in for a treat watching a uniformly talented cast sing some of the best songs written in the past quarter century. The national tour of Hell's Kitchen is playing at the Dr. Phillips center for the Performing Arts in Orlando, Florida through Sunday, March 8, before heading to Fort Lauderdale and Tampa for extended stops into the first week of April. That is all that I have for you. Thank you so much for supporting Broadway radio, and if you want more Broadway radio, head over to patreon.com broadwayradio thanks for listening. This has been Matt Tamminini and I'll talk to you soon.