Misty 2023

Fusing live music, spoken word, and absurdist comedy, Misty is an exhilarating journey through a city in flux, transporting audiences to the streets of gentrifying London in an exploration of the pressures and expectations that come with being an artist in our time.

In a performance that is part poem, part concert, part confession, Olivier Award–nominee Arinzé Kene self-consciously wrestles with cultural representation and identity politics as they pertain to a new play he has been commissioned to write. Most recently seen as Bob Marley in the smash-hit West End musical Get Up Stand Up!, Kene is now making his US stage debut with this riveting production directed by Omar Elerian. This riveting production is accompanied by a pulsating original score composed by Kene, Shiloh Coke, and Adrian McLeod, and performed by a live band featuring co-musical directors Liam Godwin (keys/synth) and Nadine Lee (drums/bass).

When it premiered at London’s Bush Theatre, Misty was hailed as “one of the great theater success stories of 2018” (The Guardian) and “a tour de force by a force of nature” (The Upcoming) before it transferred to the West End—making Kene only the second Black British playwright to have a play produced in the West End—and garnered 2019 Olivier Award nominations for Best New Play and Best Actor.