NEW YORK — Broadway audiences will quickly be listening to the hit songs of Alicia Keys – not removed from the place the multiple-Grammy-winner grew up.

“Hell’s Kitchen,” the semi-autobiographical musical by the singer-songwriter, is making the transfer uptown from off-Broadway to the Shubert Theatre this spring.

“I cherished going to the theater and I used to be impressed by it and the songwriting and the expression and the wonder and the way in which you can be transported,” she tells The Related Press. “However I by no means actually put it collectively that possibly sooner or later I might be capable of have a debut on Broadway.”

Performances start March 28 with a gap set for April 20. Tickets are on sale Dec. 11. No casting information was revealed however Maleah Joi Moon was the lead off-Broadway.

The musical options Keys’ best-known hits: “Fallin’,” “No One,” “Lady on Hearth,” “If I Ain’t Bought You,” and, after all, “Empire State of Thoughts,” in addition to 4 new songs.

The approaching-of-age story a couple of gifted teenager is by playwright Kristoffer Diaz, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for “The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity.” It’s directed by Michael Greif, who additionally helmed “Pricey Evan Hansen,” and has choreography by Camille A. Brown.

PHOTOS: Alicia Keys’ semi-autobiographical stage musical ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ strikes to Broadway in spring

“Hell’s Kitchen” facilities on 17-year-old Ali, who like Keys, is the daughter of a white mom and a Black father and is about rising up in a sponsored housing improvement simply exterior Occasions Sq. within the once-rough neighborhood referred to as Hell’s Kitchen. Keys can also be the lead producer.

Keys notes that her mom moved to New York Metropolis from Toledo, Ohio, and studied at New York College, ultimately appearing on stage, in unbiased movies and TV tasks. Keys additionally went into appearing earlier than music snatched her away. “Hell’s Kitchen,” in a manner, is a full-circle second for the Keys’ household.

“Desires come round for you – they may not come for you precisely once you thought it was going to return for you. However they do. They discover their manner,” she says.

Opinions of the musical had been type, with The New Yorker calling it “steadily exhilarating” to Selection saying it’s a “glowing story paying homage to New York” and The Guardian calling it “surprisingly loose-limbed and rousing.”

Keys says the present might endure just a few tweaks right here and there to arrange for a bigger stage, however the bones of the present are sturdy.

“Absolutely items of it is going to proceed to evolve and develop. That’s the great thing about artwork,” she says. “What I do know is unbroken is the spirit of it. The spirit of it’s so pure and so good and it’s so infectious. It’s about transformation. It truly is about discovering who you might be.”

It can be a part of a glut of current jukebox musicals on Broadway, a listing that features “A Lovely Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical,” “& Juliet,” “MJ” and “Moulin Rouge!” One which used the songs of Britney Spears – “As soon as Upon a One Extra Time” – closed this fall.

This isn’t Keys’ first flirtation with Broadway. In 2011, she was a co-producer of the Broadway play “Stick Fly,” for which she equipped some music.