Amazing Grace 2015
Run Time:
Two hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission
Two hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission
Ages: 7+
Opened: July 16, 2015Closing: October 25, 2015
Amazing Grace - 2015 Broadway History , Info & More
Nederlander Theatre (Broadway)
208 W. 41st St. New York, NY 10036
Amazing Grace is a new original musical based on the awe-inspiring true story behind the world's most beloved song. A captivating tale of romance, rebellion and redemption, this radiant production follows one man whose incredible journey ignited a historic wave of change.
John Newton (Tony Award nominee Josh Young), a willful and musically talented young Englishman, faces a future as uncertain as the turning tide. Coming of age as Britain sits atop an international empire of slavery, he finds himself torn between following in the footsteps of his father-a slave trader-or embracing the more compassionate views of his childhood sweetheart (Erin Mackey). Accompanied by his slave, Thomas (Tony Award winner Chuck Cooper), John embarks on a perilous voyage on the high seas. When that journey finds John in his darkest hour, a transformative moment of self-reckoning inspires a blazing anthem of hope that will finally guide him home.
Amazing Grace - 2015 - Broadway Cast
PREVIEW Amazing Grace - 2015 - Broadway
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FEATURED REVIEWS FOR Amazing Grace
'Amazing Grace': Theater Review
5 / 10
There's no questioning the sincerity of Amazing Grace... Heartfelt sentiments relating to the nation's shameful history of slavery and racism no doubt contribute to get audience members standing at the conclusion of this musical, as the full ensemble's voices unite in an uplifting rendition of the title song. But that emotional release is a long time coming in a 2½-hour show in which the stories of the secondary black characters are invariably more involving than those of the blandly drawn, white central figures...Young and Mackey both give committed performances, but their singing has no emotional range - he's all one-note intensity while her light soprano is pretty and period-appropriate but short on passion - and their romance is the stuff of trite melodrama...The most affecting moments come from Cooper's Thomas and Michelle's Nanna, both of them figures of great dignity and contained sorrow; and oddly enough, from Hewitt's Captain Newton...
'Grace' Traces Path of Slave Trader Who Would Write a Celebrated Hymn
7 / 10
More to the point, 'Amazing Grace' focuses on Newton as a bratty young man in the 1740s, when he was truly the self-proclaimed 'wretch' of that hymn's first stanza. The spiritual -- recently sung by the president at a eulogy for the Charleston shooting victims -- isn't heard until the musical's final moments. Writer Smith (sharing book credit with Arthur Giron) piles on a lot to explain why John is a rebellious man: His mother died when he was young ... His love interest, Mary (the appealing Erin Mackey, of 'Chaplin'), comes from a broken family that wants to marry her off to a pompous British major (Chris Hoch)...Because most of the relationships are musical theater tropes, they tend to drag on the pacing. The tone of scenes in the first act oscillates wildly, from striking and severe -- particularly the difficult images of chained slaves being branded -- to overly smug and smirky (Hoch is fun, though he seems to be channeling King George from 'Hamilton'). The songs are confident, if not quite memorable -- the best being 'Truly Alive,' early on.
Amazing Grace History
Other Productions of Amazing Grace
| 2014 | Chicago |
World Premiere Production Chicago |
| 2015 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
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