Story
This vivid, impressionistic portrait of legendary jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton features Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner Billy Porter (Pose) as the Chimney Man and Tony Award winner Joaquina Kalukango (Paradise Square) as Anita in a cast led by visionary director Robert O’Hara (A Raisin in the Sun). Written by George C. Wolfe (Shuffle Along) and set to Morton’s iconic music, Jelly’s Last Jam tells a fable of American history, legacy, and truth. In this production, original Broadway cast members Mamie Duncan-Gibbs, Stephanie Pope Lofgren, and Allison M. Williams, reprise their roles as the Hunnies.
The original 1992 Broadway production secured nine Tony nominations, three wins, and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book. This wildly imaginative show interrogates Morton, the self-declared “inventor of jazz,” in a purgatorial afterlife, accusing him of denying and denigrating his cultural legacy. Crafting showstopping numbers and piercing ballads alike from Morton’s own music, lyricist Susan Birkenhead (Working) and composer Luther Henderson create a uniquely compelling musical backdrop for a show that brilliantly utilizes two of this country’s most potent forms of storytelling—jazz and musical theater.
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