The production is based on the life and career of Louis Armstrong – but does it have the critics singing its praises?
Deadline: “Wonderful World is too expansive in chronological scope to delve too deeply into the crucial question of what made Armstrong such an incomparable figure in the history of American music, but with Iglehart and a fine supporting cast of excellent singer-actresses portraying Armstrong’s four wives – Dionne Figgins as Daisy Parker, Jennie Harney-Fleming as Lil Hardin, Kim Exum as Alpha Smith and Darlesia Cearcy as Lucille Wilson – the musical rarely gives us enough time to ponder what’s being left out. What we’re seeing on stage is too entertaining.”
Variety: “a majestic spectacle, paying homage to a towering figure and his distinctive legacy.”
Time Out.com: *** “The result is a musical that, for all the information it provides, winds up offering a rather vague portrait of its subject—especially as compared to the women in his life, who are rendered more distinctly. But as a survey of a great American artist, and a life lived to the hilt, it delivers what it promises: a solid meal of a show, with classic fare to please fans both new and old.”
New York Post: “That the musical doesn’t gel is no shock. The Playbill tells a tragic tale of too many cooks. The musical is directed by Christopher Renshaw,and co-directed by Iglehart and Christina Sajous. Practically a Roman triumvirate. That many voices leave the staging with no discernible style or point of view, and makes hard decisions even harder.”
Talkin’ Broadway: “No question but that James Monroe Iglehart is giving us a solidly recognizable Armstrong. It is a most credible and audience-grabbing performance, down to that gravelly voice and patented smile. The show is at its strongest when Iglehart-as-Armstrong is singing, occasionally even inviting us to join in on one of the familiar numbers. And Branford Marsalis’s orchestrations and arrangements, performed by a top-notch band, keep us dancing in our seats.”
The Wrap.com: “Christopher Renshaw directs, and Iglehart and Christina Sajous are credited as co-directors. If there isn’t an adage about too many directors in the theater, there should be.”
The Stage: *** “Titular jazz legend is upstaged by his wives in this jukebox musical.”
New York Theatre Guide: “Armstrong repeatedly says jazz is about “the choices you make in between the notes.” Book writer Aurin Squire and conceivers Andrew Delaplaine and Christopher Renshaw toggle between conventional bio-musical choices and more challenging ones, keeping A Wonderful World lively and interesting. Shying away from an unblemished portrait of Armstrong and instead acknowledging his womanizing and self-involvement, A Wonderful World makes space for a version of Black artistry that confronts the complexities of artists as humans, and how the world around them may fail them.”
New York Theater.me: “In its effort to make their show both a serious portrait and a Broadway entertainment, the creative team seems to have taken to heart a line they give Armstrong to say a few times: “Jazz is about the choices we make in between the notes.” But the choices they make beyond the music don’t always work. “A Wonderful World” winds up musically comforting but narratively annoying. At times, the nostalgia for the jazz music, some of it a century old, was weighed down by a retrograde sensibility even older.”
To find out more about the show visit: https://louisarmstrongmusical.com/