Ali

Who is Ali?

Ali is a seventeen year old girl living with her mother Jersey in a Manhattan Plaza apartment building in 1990s Hell's Kitchen, loosely based on Alicia Keys' own teenage years. Restless under her mother's protectiveness, she is drawn to an older musician named Knuck and to the freedom of the city outside her building's walls.

Her relationship with her absent father Davis and her growing bond with piano teacher Miss Liza Jane both push her toward music as a way of understanding herself. Ali's arc is a coming of age story about claiming independence while learning what her mother's caution was protecting her from all along.

Ali's role in Hell's Kitchen

Ali is a lead role and the show's narrator and emotional center, carrying the bulk of its most demanding vocal numbers drawn from Alicia Keys' catalog. The role requires powerful R and B vocals alongside the stamina to anchor nearly every scene of the show.

Maleah Joi Moon originated the role on Broadway in her professional stage debut and won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the performance. Audiences remember Ali as a rare title adjacent character built specifically around a real songwriter's own adolescence, giving the role unusual emotional specificity.

Ali: frequently asked questions