Alicia Keys’ Book Details Creation of Hell’s Kitchen Musical Opening on Broadway

Alicia Keys drops a book on Nov. 11 that traces the 13-year creation of Hell's Kitchen, a musical that debuted on Broadway at the Shubert Theatre on March 28, 2024. Hell's Kitchen: Behind the Dream was co-written with Lise Funderburg and published by Penguin Random House.

The GRAMMY Award winner kicked off this project in the early 2000s out of frustration with what she saw on stage and screen. "The main spark for Hell's Kitchen was frustration, because in the early 2000s, what I was seeing on Broadway and television and film was quite distant from life as I knew it," said Alicia Keys, according to Playbill. She wanted to see more stories about people from different backgrounds who weren't stereotyped.

The show tells the story of Ali, a 17-year-old girl who lives with her overprotective single mother in Manhattan during the 1990s. Ali finds her purpose through piano after meeting a neighbor who becomes her mentor. The production is set in Hell's Kitchen, the neighborhood where Keys grew up.

Keys founded AKW Productions with the slogan "the business of inspiration" to create stories across film, television, theater, and music. She wanted to give audiences a different perspective on life. "I wanted to create diverse stories, preferably stories you haven't quite seen and haven't quite heard," Keys told Playbill.

The show is only loosely based on the singer's life. Keys was clear from the start that audiences would see the main character only during her seventeenth year. "From day one, I was very clear that you would see the main character only in the seventeenth year of her life. It would not go beyond that," she said to Playbill.

Hell's Kitchen won two Tony Awards and received a New York Times Critic's Pick designation. Michael Greif directed the production, with choreography by Camille A. Brown. The show features new songs and hits from the 16-time GRAMMY winner's catalog.