PNC Broadway’s ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ Opens at Benedum (Tues., 11/4/25)

November 2, 2025/Mike Vargo

HELL’S KITCHEN (musical) by Alicia Keys, with book by Kristoffer Diaz. Touring production at the Benedum. November 4 – 9.

Maya Drake as Ali in the North American Tour of Hell's Kitchen, the hit Broadway musical from Alicia Keys. (Photo by Marc J Franklin.) — Maya Drake as Ali in the North American Tour of ‘Hell’s Kitchen,’ the hit Broadway musical from Alicia Keys. (Photo by Marc J Franklin.)

Hell’s Kitchen isn’t really hellish. The mid-Manhattan neighborhood now qualifies as a case study in gentrification, but it was a dodgy district when Alicia Keys grew up there, and the name makes a catchy title for her jukebox musical. Keys spent 12 years developing Hell’s Kitchen while pursuing her Grammy-studded career as a recording artist and songwriter. The songs are mostly hers and the story is a fictional take-off on her own youth. To write the book, Keys engaged playwright Kristoffer Diaz, who had been a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his hilarious sociopolitical satire The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity (which was staged in Pittsburgh in 2016 by barebones productions). There is humor in Hell’s Kitchen but it’s basically a high-energy coming-of-age tale, in which a teenager named Ali—the fictional Alicia—finds inspiration amid personal turmoil and friction with her mom. The show hips and hops in numbers like “Empire State of Mind,” the Jay-Z/Keys anthem adapted as the musical’s grand finale. While Hell’s Kitchen is still running on Broadway, you can see it here when the touring company visits for a run that’s nearing sold-out status. Presented through the PNC Broadway in Pittsburgh series at Benedum Center. 7:30 p.m. 237 7th St., Cultural District. (M.V.)