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.
New musicals that open in the summer tend to be ill-fated, and 'Amazing Grace,' which purports to tell the 'awe-inspiring true story' (so says the news release, anyway) of John Newton (Josh Young), the British slave trader turned abolitionist who wrote the words to the 1779 hymn, is unlikely to break that rule...On the credit side, the cast is superb-especially Chuck Cooper as Newton's twice-enslaved manservant-and Gabriel Barre's sumptuous staging not infrequently creates the illusion that there's more to 'Amazing Grace' than meets the ear...Whatever its weaknesses, this is one of the best-looking musicals to reach New York in recent seasons.
Under Gabriel Barre's direction, 'Amazing Grace' feels like a long adult-ed lecture or a night at 'Parsifal'...Smith ends his musical with a stirring rendition of 'Amazing Grace,' but the rest of the score utterly lacks Newton's simplicity and instead treads heavily in the current Broadway vogue for bombastic anthems coupled with a strong percussive element that's meant to send audiences to their feet applauding...In their final exchange, Mary asks Newton why 'it took you so long' to give up his slave-trader ways. Theatergoers will be asking that question much earlier.
2014 | Chicago |
World Premiere Production Chicago |
2015 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Videos