Fourteen-time Grammy Award-winner Alicia Keys will soon be able to add some Broadway credits to her name. The R&B singer-songwriter will compose music for the upcoming Broadway production of the play “Sticky Fly,” which she also is co-producing.
Directed by Kenny Leon, the show’s preview performances will begin on November 18 at the Cort Theatre, with opening night slated for December 8. Lydia R. Diamond’s play is set in Martha’s Vineyard at the summer home of a wealthy African-American family called the LeVays.
According to the production’s Web site, “Stick Fly” begins after the family’s two adult sons bring their significant others home to meet their parents for the first time: “Soon, secrets are revealed, civilities are dropped and identities are explored in a harsh new light. Race and rivalry, class and family, all come together for an explosive comedy of manners about today’s complex world.”
When asked whether having a name like Alicia Keys attached to “Stick Fly” could help increase ticket sales, Applause-Tickets.com sales rep J. William Bruce told TicketNews, “At this point anything a show can do to attract an audience to the theatre is a good thing.”
Bruce added, “When the show was first announced, Alicia Keys was only listed as lead producer. Now she is composing music for it, as well. That can only help.”
“Stick Fly” made its premiere at the Congo Square Theatre Company in Chicago in 2006 and earned the 2006 Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best New Play. The show’s Broadway appearance will mark Diamond’s debut as the playwright of a Broadway production.
The cast includes movie actor Mekhi Phifer; television actor Dulé Hill; stage veteran Ruben Santiago-Hudson; and Tracie Thoms, Condola Rashad and Rosie Benton.
In a blog posted on AliciaKeys.com, the musician described the passion behind her involvement in “Stick Fly.”
“My mother’s greatest passion is the theatre and she introduced it to me very early in my life. I grew up right next to Broadway — I could see the glittering lights from our apartment,” Keys wrote. “To produce a play like this is a dream come true for me. And to have the chance to share this play with an audience, night after night, in a beautiful theater, on the streets that I walked everyday as a kid with only ‘a pocket full of dreams’…can only be described as modern-day magic.”
Since the release of her debut album 10 years ago, Keys has established herself as one of the best-selling recording artists of her time. That first album, “Songs in A Minor,” earned her five Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist and Song of the Year for “Fallin.”
