NewsThe Verdict: Critics Review New Musical Revue After Midnight, Starring Fantasia BarrinoAfter Midnight, the new Jazz-Age musical revue that reintroduces the Cotton Club's tradition of welcoming the stars of today, opened Nov. 3 at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Grammy Award-winning recording artist Fantasia Barrino (The Color Purple) is the show's first headliner.
By
Playbill Staff
November 04, 2013
Formerly known as Cotton Club Parade, the production conceived by Tony Award winner Jack Viertel played two engagements at New York City Center in recent seasons. Director-choreographer Warren Carlyle (Chaplin, Follies) and fashion duo Isabel and Ruben Toledo, who design costumes, join Wynton Marsalis (Jazz at Lincoln Center's nine-time Grammy and Pulitzer Prize Award-winning artistic director) — who hand-picked the big band of 17 musicians — to create the atmosphere of the famed Harlem nightclub in the 1920s and 1930s.
Tony Award winner Adriane Lenox, who appeared in the revue at New York City Center, reprises her performance in the Broadway engagement, which also features Tony Award nominees Desmond Richardson and Karine Plantadit, Grammy Award nominee Everett Bradley and Emmy Award-nominated actor Dulé Hill (Stick Fly, The Tap Dance Kid, "The West Wing," "Psych") as "The Host" of the evening. Hill leads the audience through the heat and glamour of the Harlem Renaissance using the words of Langston Hughes.
The critics have filed their reviews, and Playbill.com has collected them for our readers. Playbill.com will continue to update our list as the reviews come in.