As monikers go, “Hell’s Kitchen” is much sexier than “Manhattan Plaza” — which is probably why Alicia Keys’ new stage musical, with a book by Kristoffer Diaz, goes for the much hotter title. After its world premiere last year at the Public Theater, “Hell’s Kitchen” opened Saturday at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway.
The musical is reportedly semi-autobiographical; in press reports, the words “loosely based on” are sometimes used. Diaz’s book looks back at the singer-songwriter’s life as a teenager, growing up with a single mother in the Manhattan Plaza apartment complex, located in the southern end of Hell’s Kitchen between 42nd and 43rd Streets.