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One of Broadway’s newest musicals, Hell’s Kitchen, is based on Grammy-winning singer Alicia Keys’ life. PHOTO BY WARWICK SAINT

Hell’s Kitchen is an intimidating name for a neighborhood. There are several stories about how the area in New York City—roughly between 34th and 59th streets, west of Eighth Avenue—was christened with such a title, most pointing to the late 1800s when the neighborhood was a tenement district full of gangs and crime. It’s an expensive, wildly desirable nabe today, but its past gritty reputation carried on for decades. However, residents define a neighborhood, and brilliance, beauty and love are always there to be found.

Singer-songwriter extraordinaire Alicia Keys is one of Hell’s Kitchen’s brightest natives, and she’s sharing her intimate love for the neighborhood through a new musical frankly titled, Hell’s Kitchen.

The theater piece, which has been in development for over a decade, had its world premiere off-Broadway at New York’s Public Theater last November, proving itself to be a crowd-pleaser. The audience’s ravenous excitement prompted an immediate transfer to Broadway. Preview performances will begin on March 28 at Shubert Theatre with its official opening night set for April 20. Alongside Keys, legendary director Michael Greif (Rent, Dear Evan Hansen) and iconic choreographer Camille A. Brown (Choir Boy, the 2022 revival of For Colored Girls…) worked together in a very considerate way.

Director Michael Greif and composer Alicia Keys in rehearsal PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS

“As soon as I knew that Hell’s Kitchen was going to have a wonderful movement component, a wonderful choreographic component,” Greif shares, “Camille was the person that I dreamed about and proposed to the writers of Hell’s Kitchen—Alicia Keys and Kristoffer Diaz—who immediately thought that was a spectacular idea.”

Brown was thrilled to be ushered into the A-team by Greif: “It has really been a joy to collaborate with Michael because I feel like he really believes in what I do. And I think when you’re in a space of collaboration and trust... that’s something we can only pray happens in rooms.”

Hell’s Kitchen director Michael Greif MICHAEL GREIF PHOTO BY MATT HEW MURPHY

With Brown in place, the musical began to peel back its many layers and reveal its core.

“The show really found itself in the fall of ’22, when we spent a month together with Camille, seeing the energy and the vibrancy that the show could hold when there was dance connected to those incredible Alicia Keys songs,” Greif notes. “When Alicia brought in that dancing community, and they started interacting with our acting-singing ensemble, we all started feeling like we really got what the show is. This show is about this community.”

A thrilled Keys during rehearsal. MUSICAL PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS

Specifying, Grief says, “Of course, it focuses on this character and that character, but everyone on that stage is being represented in a way that we find vital and exciting.”

And though not biographical, the show is personal to Keys, as well as to Greif and Brown: They are all native New Yorkers (Greif is from Brooklyn, Brown from Queens).

The musical coming to life onstage MUSICAL PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS

“I really found Hell’s Kitchen as a great opportunity to tap into what I know New York City to be. Everybody has their own interpretations of what that is, but it was great to see it through my lens,” Brown shares.

And, of course, Hell’s Kitchen doesn’t exist without Keys’ blockbuster, award-winning catalog of songs.

“I think the music works so well because she writes ‘story songs,’” explains Greif. “People act on each other in her songs. They have dramatic points of view. [The songs] align themselves very fully to character and dramatic action.”

The musical makes its official Broadway debut at New York City’s Shubert Theatre on April 10. POSTER COURTESY OF POLK & CO.

As Hell’s Kitchen prepares to light Broadway on fire, openness and trust are ongoing themes in the lessons Greif and Brown have held dear through the creative process.

“People say such nice things about the dancing, but it’s Michael who gave me the opportunity to actually create those ideas,” Brown states. “He could have said, ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so.’ He could have stuck to whatever the plan was, but because he was so open and because he trusted me, I’m just really thankful.”

Choreographer Camille A. Brown PHOTO BY JOSEFINA SANTOS

Greif replies, “When you’re doing your thing like that, it’s really easy and beneficial to all of us.”