By Jesse Moreau
BUFFALO, N.Y. — In the year Shea’s Buffalo Theatre turns 100, the busiest stretch of the fall theater calendar arrives with a Broadway tour built on the songs of Alicia Keys, a demon-barber revival next door, a brand-new ghost-hotel comedy around the corner and a 1960s-set Julius Caesar on the edge of the West Side.
The national tour of Hell’s Kitchen opens Tuesday at Shea’s Buffalo for eight performances through Sunday, Nov. 1, according to the theater’s listing. It rolls in straight from Toronto’s Ed Mirvish Theatre and heads next to Rochester’s West Herr Auditorium Theatre, Nov. 3–8.
The musical, which earned 13 Tony nominations on Broadway, follows Ali, a 17-year-old in 1990s Manhattan, and draws its score from Keys’ catalog plus new songs. Michael Greif directs, with choreography by Camille A. Brown and a book by Kristoffer Diaz. Shea’s lists a recommended age of 8 and up.
‘Everybody can’t go to Broadway’
Keys has framed the tour as the point of the project. “Obviously, everybody can’t get to New York City. Everybody can’t go to Broadway,” she told The Associated Press last year.
She also argued the very New York story would travel. “It’s such an emotional, honest, raw, authentic story that it doesn’t matter if it’s in Cleveland, or if it’s in Detroit, or if it’s in Manhattan or Atlanta,” Keys told the AP.
Maya Drake, who plays Ali on the road, made a similar case in a July interview with the Seattle Pockets website. “They come for Alicia Keys’ music, but as they discover the story, fall in love with these characters, and hear hit songs in a new light, you’re guaranteed an amazing time,” Drake said.
The touring cast also includes Kennedy Caughell as Ali’s mother, Jersey, and Roz White as the piano teacher Miss Liza Jane. Buffalo Toronto Public Media has passed along a Shea’s warning that tickets should be bought only through sheas.org or Ticketmaster, a caution worth repeating for any big tour.
A centennial with a construction site attached
The tour lands in a building that opened on Jan. 17, 1926, as Michael Shea’s “Wonder Theatre,” survived a city foreclosure in 1974 thanks to the volunteer Friends of Buffalo Theatre and joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Shea’s celebrated the milestone with a centennial gala on Oct. 3 headlined by Broadway’s Megan Hilty.
The bigger story may be what is going up behind the stage door. The Elevate Shea’s project, designed by Carmina Wood Design, is a roughly $34.5 million addition on Pearl Street that adds three high-speed elevators, about 60 new restroom fixtures and a main lobby more than twice its current size. Shea’s says it will be ready for patrons in November 2027.
“The walls are rising and we are reaching the vertical stage,” Shea’s President and CEO Brian Higgins, the former congressman, told WBEN in August. “It is on time and on budget.”
Higgins told the station the theaters drew more than 367,000 people last year, and he summed up the stakes for downtown simply: “When Shea’s is alive, everyone is alive.”
Board chair Marco Cercone pitched the project in terms of comfort as much as architecture. “We’re making sure that this magnificent theater, one of Buffalo’s greatest treasures, can welcome everyone comfortably and with dignity for the next 100 years,” he said at an August site event, as reported by Buffalo Toronto Public Media, adding, “what we are really building is access.”
Where the money stands
That is the question worth watching. As of August, Shea’s reported more than $28 million raised, including $18.5 million from New York State, leaving a gap of several million dollars on a project already under construction.
The theater is trying to close part of it from the seats. Its “I Built Shea’s” campaign seeks $1 million from the public by the end of 2026, with donors of $100 or more recognized in the new building and gifts matched dollar for dollar by philanthropist Jon Williams, according to Shea’s. With about two months left in the year, the Chronicle has asked Shea’s for an updated total.
Next door and around the corner
Shea’s smaller stages are part of the same push. At Shea’s 710 Theatre, MusicalFare’s production of Sweeney Todd runs through Nov. 8, directed by Randall Kramer, with Steve Copps as Sweeney and Amy Jakiel as Mrs. Lovett. Shea’s has reported a 121% jump in paid attendance at the 710 for the 2025–26 season after a $5 million renovation.
“This collaboration with Shea’s has created exciting new activity in Buffalo’s theater district,” Kramer said in a Shea’s announcement of the partnership in February.
Around the corner, Alleyway Theatre is previewing a world-premiere comedy, The Haunting of Hooverton Hotel, by Jacob Albarella and Jason Kaiser, directed by Dan Lendzian. Previews run through Tuesday and the show plays through Nov. 14. A note on Alleyway’s show page says, “Hooverton was written in uncertain times to help cut the tension with a healthy dose of levity.”
D’Youville Kavinoky Theatre opens Julius Caesar on Oct. 30, running through Nov. 21. Anthony Alcocer directs a production set in the 1960s, with Rolando Gómez as Caesar, Chris Kelly as Brutus, Davida Evette Tolbert as Cassius and Peter Johnson as Antony. The theater describes it as “Shakespeare for an era of protest—and for our own.” A donation-based final dress rehearsal is set for Oct. 29.
Also opening this week: the Jewish Repertory Theatre of Western New York’s The Last Yiddish Speaker (Oct. 29–Nov. 22) and Dames at Sea at the Kenan Center in Lockport (Oct. 29–Nov. 8). Shea’s Buffalo follows Hell’s Kitchen with The Great Gatsby, Nov. 10–15.
For a theater district whose anchor just turned 100, it is a crowded, curious week, with a Broadway hit, a homegrown premiere, a political tragedy and a rising expansion all within reach of Main Street.
Featured image: Shea’s Buffalo Theatre and the Shea’s Smith Theatre on Main Street. Photo by Michael Barera, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped).
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