Louis Armstrong’s innovative musicianship and incredible charisma as trumpeter and vocalist would lead him from the early days of jazz in his native New Orleans to five decades of international stardom. A Wonderful World tells the story of Armstrong’s blazing musical career from the perspective of his four wives, who each had a unique impact on his life.
If there were ever tears behind that famous smile, Iglehart’s Armstrong is too reserved to share. (The actor is also weakest when he feigns playing the trumpet, the instrument that made Armstrong a star.) There’s no time for introspection when there’s another career highlight to hit, another song to cram into a show that boasts nearly 30 tunes in all. A Wonderful World doesn’t offer a very deep understanding of Louis Armstrong and what made him a legend, but it does over Satchmo, mo, mo.
Armstrong repeatedly says jazz is about “the choices you make in between the notes.” Book writer Aurin Squire and conceivers Andrew Delaplaine and Christopher Renshaw toggle between conventional bio-musical choices and more challenging ones, keeping A Wonderful World lively and interesting. Shying away from an unblemished portrait of Armstrong and instead acknowledging his womanizing and self-involvement, A Wonderful World makes space for a version of Black artistry that confronts the complexities of artists as humans, and how the world around them may fail them.
2020 | Regional (US) |
Colony Theatre World Premiere Regional (US) |
2024 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
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