'Hell's Kitchen' review: Alicia Keys inspired musical hits the sweet spot

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Jukebox musicals are a strange and volatile corner of live theatre. As Broadway and Hollywood grow increasingly dependent on recognizable IP and familiar brands, these shows are multiplying fast. The problem is not that jukebox musicals cannot work. It is that their quality control is wildly inconsistent, so walking into one often feels like a coin toss. You might get a creatively invigorating reinvention, or a lazy greatest hits concert wearing a thin plot like a Halloween costume.

I will admit upfront that I am not a devoted Alicia Keys follower. My familiarity mostly begins and ends with omnipresent tracks like “Girl on Fire,” “No One,” and “Empire State of Mind” during their cultural peak. That distance actually worked in this show’s favor. “Hell’s Kitchen” is so alive, so muscular in its theatricality, and so confident in its reinterpretation of familiar material that it pulled me in almost instantly. The semi-autobiographical framework of Keys’ 1990s adolescence on Manhattan’s west side gives the piece a sense of specificity and lived-in detail that many jukebox musicals struggle to fake. It has the emotional DNA of “In the Heights” and the kinetic drive of “Bring It On,” but with a grit and bruised vulnerability that is distinctly its own.

The book is handled by Kristoffer Diaz, with direction from Michael Greif, while Keys supplies the music and lyrics. What separates this show from the pack is not just that it uses her catalog, but how boldly it reshapes it. The creative team refuses to treat familiar songs as museum pieces. They feel like raw material. “Fallin’,” typically performed as a buoyant breakup anthem, is transformed into something quieter, more wounded, and more devastating, shifting tempo and emotional texture entirely. The show leans heavily into mashups, medleys, and reorchestrations that feel purposeful rather than gimmicky. This should be the standard for jukebox musicals. If you are going to rely on pre-existing songs, you owe the audience new ideas about how those songs can function inside a story.

The narrative centers on seventeen-year-old Ali, played with remarkable magnetism by Maya Drake, who has only just graduated high school and is already anchoring a national tour with startling confidence. Ali aches for independence, stuck between her creative ambitions and the suffocating protection of her mother, played with raw authority by Kennedy Caughell. The streets of New York are rendered as both playground and pressure cooker, thanks to Robert Brill’s sleek, fluid scenic design that allows the city to breathe and pulse around the characters.

Ali’s romantic fixation on Knuck, portrayed with quiet intensity by JonAvery Worrell, feels familiar by design. He represents danger, desire, and escape, while also embodying the cycle of choices that once trapped Ali’s mother. Desmond Sean Ellington delivers a strong turn as Ali’s father, a man who drifts in and out of her life, charming and unreliable in equal measure. Roz White arrives like a bolt of theatrical electricity as Miss Liza Jane, the wise tenant and piano-shredding guardian angel of the building, who pushes Ali toward discipline, self-belief, and craft.

None of these story beats are revolutionary. They are genre staples, and the show does not pretend otherwise. Where “Hell’s Kitchen” distinguishes itself is in texture and personality. The opening image of Ali in oversized FUBU shirts and baggy pants is not just costuming, it is character. The neighborhood kids drumming on buckets do not just fill space, they create a rhythmic backbone for the entire show. Camille A. Brown’s choreography explodes with contemporary snap and percussive precision, while Adam Blackstone’s musical supervision keeps the score propulsive without ever flattening its emotional peaks.

The more daring musical choices are where the show truly earns its credibility. “Fallin’” being reassigned away from Ali and reframed as a volatile conversation between her parents is a gamble that pays off emotionally, even if purists might miss a more traditional rendition. It is proof that the show does not exist to serve nostalgia. It exists to serve story. The newly added material, especially the infectious “Kaleidoscope,” lands with clarity and intention and feels like a true narrative engine rather than filler padding.

Drake’s performance is the center of gravity. She sells Ali’s hunger, confusion, and humor with a naturalism that makes the heightened theatrical world feel grounded. As narrator, she carries transitions that could have easily felt clunky. I typically dread this kind of storytelling device, but her control and charisma make it feel necessary and organic. She does not just guide the audience. She earns our trust.

The finale, built around “Empire State of Mind,” is as big and as obvious as you expect it to be. It is designed to lift the room to its feet, and at Detroit’s Fisher Theatre, it did exactly that. The predictability of the closing image is also the show’s limitation. You can see the emotional destination almost from the opening number, and that lack of structural surprise keeps “Hell’s Kitchen” from entering the highest tier of modern musical theatre.

Still, what it may lack in narrative originality, it makes up for in character, soul, and creative courage. It is a jukebox musical with real swagger, real identity, and real theatrical risk baked into its DNA. It does not feel like a cynical cash-in. It feels like a show made by people who care about the form and understand its potential.

This girl is on fire, indeed.

HELL’S KITCHEN continues through December 14th. Tickets can be purchased here.