These days, New York’s Hell’s Kitchen is one of Manhattan’s trendiest neighborhoods, coveted for a plethora of hip hangouts and its access to the scenic High Line park. Yet Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t always that way; up until the relatively recent start of the millennium, Hell’s Kitchen was a raw, gritty section of NYC where it wasn’t uncommon to see robberies, drug deals, and sex workers morning, noon, and night. It was this Hell’s Kitchen (now renamed “Clinton”) where a young musician named Alicia Cook, now known as Alicia Keys, came of age in the 1990s and where she pays homage to in the off-Broadway musical fittingly named Hell’s Kitchen.

“I felt like it was would be so cool to create a piece of musical theater that would really reflect a story that I don't think we often get to see,” Keys says of Hell’s Kitchen, which began playing at the Public Theater in October and continues through Jan. 14. More than ten years in the making, Hell’s Kitchen uses Keys’ upbringing as a jumping off point for a different, entirely fictional yet relatable story based in the past but imparts a timeless message. “Who are you without everybody else's opinion? Without everybody else's expectations, schedules, and fears?” 

The two-and-a-half-hour show follows the story of Ali, a 17-year-old girl in the aforementioned NYC community finding her way in that precious, precarious stage between childhood and adulthood. Just like Keys, Ali (played by newcomer Maleah Joi Moon) is bi-racial, raised by a single mother, and teetering on the verge of, uh, fallin’ into some of the traps all around her in her neighborhood––that is, until she discovers the piano. A chance encounter hearing a neighbor tickling the ivories opens up a new pathway for Ali. Yet, as her life becomes more complicated, the naturally rebellious teen must choose between the disciplined, creative road or the sweet freedoms, pleasures, and temptations she knows too well. 

Though Hell’s Kitchen is not autobiographical––by 17, Keys was already years into her first record deal with Columbia and was a professional songwriter––but it does borrow greatly from Keys’ experience as a smart, spunky, talented but impressionable young woman who had to grow up fast. But the story, Keys says, is bigger than just Ali, or Keys herself; pretty much everyone who’s been 17 knows how fraught that time can be. It’s the age many folks traditionally were finishing high school and heading to college, the military, or at the very least, about to become legal adults; it’s a time for big decisions that can come to define who we are for many years to come. “You don't know what's gonna happen,” she says. “Where's she gonna go? We have no idea.  How is she going to find her way? And how do we all find a way, to what's possible within us? That’s reflected in every character in the show.” 

Keys had been thinking about making a musical for as long as she can remember, particularly since seeing musicals with her mom was a formative part of her childhood. Yet, although she has a pretty good grasp on the whole musician thing––15 Grammys and five No. 1 albums––she knew she needed to bring in experts to bring the vision to life.

After a lengthy search, she enlisted playwright Kristoffer Diaz to write the book that informs the show. Hell's Kitchen took shape with Camille A. Brown as choreographer and Michael Grief directing (Rent, Dear Evan Hansen). The most challenging for her, she says, was nailing the storyline and capturing all the nuance, diversity, and magic of her beloved NYC. With that part accomplished Keys leaned into what she does best, leading her to write four new songs for Hell’s Kitchen and rearrange some of her best-loved hits so they fit into this show. “You're hearing them in a way that you've never heard before,” she says. “When you see it performed in this way, you realize, ‘Oh, it could actually mean a whole other thing. That’s something I’m really happy about, and we really pushed for that to be the case, because we want people to feel the newness in this piece.” 

Keys also wants people who see Hell’s Kitchen to feel the spirit of possibility, reinvention, forging a new path, and, of course, the spirit of her hometown. “You really do feel the spirit of this girl Ali. She’s funny, she’s emotional, she’s powerful. And you feel the spirit of New York. As you're watching the show, you can feel the subway rumbling underneath you. It's a love story about New York, a love story between a mother and a daughter. It’s a special coming of age story that you can really find yourself in.” 

Catch "Hell's Kitchen" in New York until Jan. 14.