STAGE TUBE: AFTER MIDNIGHT's Fantasia Barrino Talks Returning to Broadway - 'Everything Happens for a Reason'

During the red carpet premiere for the movie The Butler, Fantasia Barrino, star of the upcoming Broadway production After Midnight, talked about her return to the Great White Way after her turn in The Color Purple. Watch the interview below!

Directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle and featuring the big-band sounds of nine-time Grammy Award-winner Wynton Marsalis' Jazz at Lincoln Center All-Stars, After Midnight will begin preview performances at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre (246 West 47th Street) on Friday, October 18, 2013 with an official opening night set for Sunday, November 3, 2013. Emmy Award-nominated actor Dulé Hill will join Barrino onstage as "The Host" of the evening.

The evocative new musical After Midnight will take the sexy, smoky glamour of the original Jazz Age and catapult it into a whole new era of heart-pounding, mind-blowing entertainment for modern Broadway audiences. Refracted through a contemporary lens, After Midnight will celebrate Duke Ellington's years at the Cotton Club using his original arrangements and performed by a world-class big band of 17 musicians hand-picked by living jazz legend, Wynton Marsalis. The timeless tunes set against a narrative of Langston Hughes poetry will provide an authentic backdrop for an array of cutting-edge performances by 25 sensational vocalists and dancers, including special guest stars, whose interpretations will shatter everything you think you know about music, nightlife and Broadway. Welcome to the new Jazz Age.

After Midnight is a new production of Cotton Club Parade which played two smash-hit, sold-out engagements at City Center. Conceived by Jack Viertel, After Midnight features direction and choreography by Warren Carlyle, musical direction by Wynton Marsalis and musical supervision by Daryl Waters.

The design team for After Midnight will include prolific design couple Isabel Toledo (costumes) and Ruben Toledo, Tony Award-winners John Lee Beatty (set design) and Howell Binkley (lighting design) and Peter Hylenski (sound).