JonAvery Worrell’s voice cracked like a pubescent boy the moment he met her.
Alicia Keys, the singer who had soundtracked much of his youth, had entered the New York casting room “like a ray of quiet sunshine,” he said.
She casually said hello. His stomach fluttered.
“My heels came off the floor. My voice went up. I like to think I have a pretty manly voice, but I don’t know what happened that day. It was bad,” the 23-year-old said, laughing at the memory.
He took a calming breath and reminded himself: No matter what happens, I’m OK.
Credit: Marc J. Franklin
Credit: Marc J. Franklin
In his own eyes, he had already redeemed himself for having done far better than in his first Broadway audition for “The Wiz,” which he bombed. At that one, his legs and voice tremored like an amateur. The embarrassment haunted him.
This time, he had survived multiple rounds and was now standing in front of Keys, who was casting for her autobiographical jukebox musical, “Hell’s Kitchen.”
The national tour of the Broadway production show stops at the Fox Theatre Tuesday through Sunday as a part of the Regions Bank Broadway in Atlanta 2025-26 season.
Whether Worrell booked a job or not, he told himself, the goal had been accomplished.
“I had (already) come back with so much more confidence,” he said.
Thankfully, Keys did not read lines or sing with him. If she had, “I probably would’ve forgotten how to speak,” he joked.
Instead, Keys sat at the casting table, swaying to the music, tapping her foot, bobbing her head and keeping time.
“You could tell she is obsessed with music,” Worrell said. “She loves the art and loves this story. She talks about it like a child she birthed. … The energy that exudes from her when she talks about this show flows out of her like water.”
“Hell’s Kitchen” took Keys more than a decade to develop. It opened first off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 2023, moved to Broadway in 2024 and won two Tony Awards, for best actress in a musical and best featured actress in a musical.
Written by Kristoffer Diaz, directed by Michael Greif, choreographed by Camille A. Brown and packed with Keys’ original songs, the musical explores her life as a teenager growing up in New York in the 1990s while navigating her relationships with her mother Jersey, her estranged musician-father Davis, and teenage love interest Knuck.
The tour’s Atlanta stop will be a homecoming for two of the production’s leading men — Worrell, 23, who plays Knuck, and Desmond Sean Ellington, 42, who plays Davis.
Credit: Marc J. Franklin
Credit: Marc J. Franklin
Worrell launched into musical theater as a middle-schooler when his mother, Alyssa Worrell, decided to homeschool and enroll him at AGI Entertainment in Marietta, a rigorous program that molds stars in dance, music and acting.
In the summer, Worrell spent seven hours a day in acting, vocal and dance classes at AGI, which has prepared talent including Jalyn Hall and Zoe Renee.
“To be very candid, I spent a lot of years waiting in the wings, watching a lot of these stars rise and become who they are,” he said.
As each year passed, the pressure mounted.
“When is it going to be me?” he remembers thinking.
Worrell eventually got his shot. In 2025, he was cast as an understudy in the national tour of “Jason’s Lyric,” a stage adaptation of the 1994 romantic drama film starring Jada Pinkett Smith and Allen Payne. It was Worrell’s first large-scale professional tour.
Since Oct. 10, when the national tour of “Hell’s Kitchen” opened in Cleveland, Worrell has been shining across from 19-year-old powerhouse Maya Drake, who plays Ali.
Credit: Marc J. Franklin
Credit: Marc J. Franklin
Worrell said he resonates with Knuck’s character in more ways than one. His parents, both New Yorkers, helped him understand the natural swag and city grit needed to play the role. His father, who grew up determined to be “the antithesis of every stereotype of what he was supposed to become,” gave JonAvery a window into Knuck’s drive. The actor also connects to Knuck’s tender heart, his hardened exterior aside.
“(Knuck is) jaded, he’s guarded, but if you really do get inside, it’s like a Cadbury egg,” Worrell said. “He just melts.”
Unlike Worrell, Ellington had almost no exposure as a young person to the theatrical arts. He grew up in Oklahoma in a military family that emphasized academics. He went to college on a scholarship to pursue engineering but, after a few years, bailed, deciding it was not his path.
He had always been a gifted singer. At the suggestion of friends, he moved to Atlanta in 2008 to explore the music scene. He built a career as a background singer for gospel and R&B artists, including Angie Stone, Selina Johnson and Micah Stampley. The work took him across the country and overseas — to Africa, the United Kingdom and Amsterdam — a chapter Ellington now views as preparation for his current life touring.
Through his 20s, he never considered musical theater.
“It wasn’t until I moved to Atlanta, where I got to see what stage actors did, that I thought, ‘Oh wow, that’s amazing,’” he said.
He recalled being blown away by one of the first plays he ever saw, “Jesus Christ Superstar,” at the Alliance Theatre.
A few years later, he was cast in Alliance’s production of “Dream.” He later played Carvin Winans/Alvin in “Born for This,” the Alliance-produced musical about gospel legends BeBe and CeCe Winans.
In 2015, for his 33rd birthday, Ellington took in his first Broadway play in New York, “Chicago.” He felt certain he was seeing his future.
“I just knew,” he said. “I didn’t know how — but I knew this is what I was going to be doing.”
That’s how most of Ellington’s life has unfolded, he said: a series of serendipitous manifestations he materialized by following his gut and having faith.
That’s what brought him, in 2017, to New York, where he joined the national tour of “Hamilton” as a standby, covering multiple principal roles. He remained with the production for five years and treated it as a form of acting education.
Credit: Marc J. Franklin
Credit: Marc J. Franklin
In 2023, he auditioned for “Hell’s Kitchen.” He remembers hearing Keys’ voice in the casting room before he entered the room.
“She’s just radiant,” he said.
After serving as Davis’ understudy, he boldly decided not to renew his Broadway contract, believing in his gut he was ready for a leading role. His gamble paid off weeks later when he was offered the principal role of Davis on the national tour.
Ellington said he is happy to be returning to the Fox Theatre, where he once toured with “Hamilton” in the city where he got his start. Worrell will get his first chance to perform at the historic theater, where the audience is certain to include his mother, friends and AGI alumni.
Both actors called the Atlanta show a “full-circle moment.”
If you go
“Hell’s Kitchen”
Tuesday through Sunday. $47-$125. Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. NE, Atlanta. 404-881-2100, foxtheatre.org.
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