Reasons to see 'Hell's Kitchen' off Broadway

The new musical blends Alicia Keys's songs, a version of her coming of age, and vibrant movement into a bustling portrait of city life as a young Keys saw it.

There's nothing she can't do. Since releasing her debut album, Songs in A Minor, in 2001, Alicia Keys has amassed 15 Grammy Awards, written and performed songs for blockbuster films, and become one of the world's bestselling music artists. But before all that, she was a young girl growing up in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, coming of age under the watch of a single mother and, soon enough, discovering her passion (and natural gift) for music.

That story is the loose basis for the new musical Hell's Kitchen, making its world premiere at The Public Theater. Keys's hit songs and an ace cast — including newcomer Maleah Joi Moon as a young Ali and Shoshana Bean as her mother, Jersey — revive the Midtown of the '80s and '90s, when the area was widely seen as a slum. But Keys shows us her neighborhood as a thriving hub of artistic inspiration, passion, love, and people who are much more than they seem. Her Hell's Kitchen is worth visiting — off Broadway through January 14, and on Broadway beginning in March — and here's why.

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Hell's Kitchen has a mother-daughter story at its center.

Though billed as the (loose) story of Alicia Keys's coming of age, Hell's Kitchen is just as much the story of her single mother learning to overcome her past regrets and mistakes so she can foster a better relationship with her daughter, who in turn learns to accept her mother's care even as she willfully forges her own path.

A few romances come and go throughout the musical, but the mother-daughter love story of Jersey and Ali is the one that matters most, culminating in a touching rendition of Keys's "No One": "You and me together through the days and nights; I don't worry 'cause everything's gonna be alright," they sing. It's a moving scene, and show, for parents and children to witness together — I happened to see Hell's Kitchen with my own mother, who at that point grabbed my hand as if to silently say those words, too.

Alicia Keys turns Hell's Kitchen into a vibrant soundscape.

Hell's Kitchen depicts the title neighborhood, and the city at large, through Keys's eyes — or rather, ears. The set, composed solely of metal scaffolding alongside collaged projections, is fairly simple and abstract, so the details of city life manifest as a soundscape instead.

Ali, the stand-in character for Keys, captures the diversity of her neighborhood in terms of the gentle piano melodies floating through the ground floor of the artists' residence where she lives, the operatic stylings of the couple on the 17th, the fiery melodies and footsteps from the dance class on the 27th, and the thumping beats of the bucket drummers on the street. And of course, woven among these everyday symphonies are Keys's hits, with an equally evocative fusion of R&B, pop, and soul that captures the many sounds of the city.

Camille A. Brown captures New York City life in motion.

Camille A. Brown simply does not miss. The choreographer's most recent Broadway ventures were the play Choir Boy and the choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, in which she impressively captured deep, passionate emotions in simple, pedestrian choreography. But she gets to go fully explosive in Hell's Kitchen.

Much like Keys's music, Brown's dance fuses styles — hip-hop, contemporary, and modern among them — and, without a word, captures yearning, rage, ambition, sorrow, and more. Her choreography for the opening number, "The Gospel," and an original new song, "Kaleidoscope," are standouts, capturing the wild, energetic city as seen from a spirited teen's point of view.

Get tickets to Hell's Kitchen off Broadway.

Hell's Kitchen takes audiences to a bygone, often misunderstood era of the city and celebrates how it gave rise to the career of a talented musician. When it's all over, as you step back out of The Public Theater into the streets, you'll leave with Keys's New York soundscape ringing in your head.

Get Hell's Kitchen tickets now.

Photo credit: The cast of Hell's Kitchen at The Public Theater. (Photo by Joan Marcus)