Patti Labelle, Gladys Knight and Natalie Cole to Headline After Midnight This Summer on Broadway

Gladys Knight, Patti Labelle, Natalie Cole "After Midnight"
Photograph by Domingo Canate for Spot Is Hot

Patti LaBelle, Gladys Knight and Natalie Cole will join the roster of "Special Guest Star" vocalists in After Midnight . LaBelle is set to play performances from June 10 through 29, Knight from July 8 through August 3, and Cole August 5 through 31. The musical, which recently garnered seven Tony nods, including Best Musical, is playing at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.

Combined, the trio of legends have received 22 platinum and gold records, 18 Grammy Awards and sold almost 300 million albums worldwide. LaBelle has previously starred on Broadway in Fela! and Patti La Belle on Broadway. Knight appeared on the Great White Way in Smokey Joe’s Café. After Midnight marks Cole's Broadway debut.

Conceived by Jack Viertel, After Midnight is an evocative new musical that tackles the sexy, smoky glamour of the Jazz Age, set in the heyday of Duke Ellington’s years at Harlem’s Cotton Club. The show currently stars Vanessa Williams, Dulé Hill and Adriane Lenox.

In October 2013, I had the opportunity to get a sneak peek, meet and greet Fantasia at the Brook Atkins Theatre.  We discussed how she manages stress during her run on Broadway with AFTER MIDNIGHT.  Check out the highlights from my exclusive video interview:

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Grammy^® Award winner Fantasia (The Color Purple) makes her highly anticipated return to the stage alongside Emmy^® Award nominee Dulé Hill (“The West Wing”) in AFTER MIDNIGHT, the Broadway production of Encores’ critically acclaimed Cotton Club Parade. With 25 sensational singers and dancers and an exciting roster of Special Guest Star headliners, this heart-pounding new musical brings the sexy, smoky glamour of Harlem's Golden Age to a whole new generation.


Recently, I had the opportunity to get a sneak peek, meet and greet Fantasia at the Brook Atkins Theatre.  We discussed how she manages stress during her run on Broadway with AFTER MIDNIGHT.  Check out the highlights from my exclusive video interview:

At the heart of AFTER MIDNIGHT is The Jazz at Lincoln Center All-Stars, an orchestra of 17 world-class musicians hand-picked by nine-time Grammy Award winner Wynton Marsalis. The timeless songs of Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen, Cab Calloway and their contemporaries–woven together by the prose of Langston Hughes–come to life in an evening of cutting-edge song and dance.

This thrilling experience puts you at the center of one of Harlem’s legendary nightclubs, in a hotbed of Jazz–its intoxicating rhythms, its innovative style, its unpredictable danger and fun. Award-winning fashion designer Isabel Toledo reinvents the distinctive looks of the era with dazzling, one-of-a-kind costumes. And, as directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, AFTER MIDNIGHT blurs the line between past and present to prove that Jazz is more than music...it's a state of mind.

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