After Midnight
Tickets from $60 Buy Tickets
Cititour.com Review
Ninety minutes of pure joy, After Midnight is a most welcome addition to the Broadway season. Twenty-five performers, backed by the 17-member Jazz at Lincoln Center All-Stars, toot, croon and tap their way through the songs of Duke Ellington, Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh, Ted Koehler and Harold Arlen, and many more jazz-age classics. It’s not simply a “greatest hits” feast; this is a meticulously wrought production that recognizes the special care and handling required to make these numbers sensational.
Credit Jack Viertel, the artistic director of musical-theater concert series Encores!, with the conception, and director-choreographer Warren Carlyle and musical supervisor Daryl Waters with the first-rate execution. Songs tell their own story, but there’s no overarching narrative; the connective device is Dulé Hill, best known for TV roles on Psych and The West Wing but also an accomplished dancer from the Broadway cast of Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk, spouting the poetry of Langston Hughes as he takes us back to Harlem’s Cotton Club of the 1920s, when the joint didn’t get rolling until the wee nocturnal hours.
After Midnight gets rolling with its opening number and never lets up. Even “special guest star” Fantasia Barrino, the American Idol winner (appearing through February 9), fits in seamlessly, not at all like a stunt-casting gimmick. Her honey voice beautifully caresses four songs, including standards “Stormy Weather” and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.” Tony winner Adriane Lenox brings saucy, arch humor to “Woman Be Wise,” dishing out advice for the ladies, and “Go Back Where You Stayed Last Night,” rebuking her philandering man.
Equal attention is devoted to tap dancing. Jared Grimes turns in a mesmerizing solo turn to the tune “It Don’t Mean a Thing,” even tapping on the sides of his feet. And the quintet of Phillip Attmore, Christopher Broughton, C.K. Edwards, Desmond Richardson and Daniel J. Watts form a human chain for some perfectly synchronized tapping in “Peckin’.” Nearly every number is a highlight, and in a Broadway season that so far has only produced a couple of mediocre musicals, After Midnight stands out as a show not to be missed.
By Diane Snyder
Visit the Site
http://www.aftermidnightbroadway.com
Cast
Dulé Hill, Adriane Lenox, Julius "Iglide" Chisholm, Virgil J. Gadson, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Karine Plantadit, Jared Grimes, Everett Bradley, Carmen Ruby Floyd, Rosena M. Hill Jackson, Monroe Kent III, Cedric Neal, Bryonha Marie Parham, T. Oliver Reid
Open/Close Dates
Opening 11/3/2013
Closing 6/29/2014
Preview Open/ Preview Close Dates
Preview Opening 10/18/2013
Closing Open-ended
Box Office
877-250-2929
Theatre Info
Brooks Atkinson Theatre
256 West 47th Street
New York, NY 10036
Map
Comments
Sign up for our newsletter !