A CLASSIC MUSICAL REBORN AS A
RHYTHM-DRIVEN NIGHTCLUB EXPERIENCE

A propulsive, jazz-infused staging that
reclaims Pal Joey’s cultural roots

At Arena Stage, Chez Joey is less a revival of Pal Joey than a sleek, rhythm-driven reinvention that returns the material to the cultural currents that shaped it. Drawing on John O’Hara’s original stories—first published in The New Yorker—this version sharpens the narrative’s edges and refracts them through jazz, tap, and the lineage of Black performance. The result is immediate, propulsive, and vividly alive.

Myles Frost and the company

What defines Chez Joey is less its plot than its atmosphere. Inspired by Harlem’s Hoofers Club—an informal hub for dancers and musicians in the early twentieth century—the production becomes a vivid homage to Black performers of the 1940s, artists who now often survive only in fragments of archival footage. Here, they are restored with presence and vitality. The influence of figures like Bill “Bojangles” Robinson and Cab Calloway is everywhere, not as imitation but as inheritance. It is a deeply felt tribute, and the production’s most distinctive achievement.

Angela Hall and the company

That spirit is embodied by an exceptional ensemble. The chorus women are sharp, charismatic, and fully at home in the show’s hybrid language of jazz and theater, while the onstage musicians function as more than accompaniment—they drive the action. Together, they create a nightclub that feels inhabited and alive, loose and responsive in the moment.

Awa Sal Secka and Myles Frost

Music sits at the center of the reimagining. The lush Broadway orchestra is pared down to a compact club band, immediately reshaping the sound. As “orchestrologist,” Savion Glover deconstructs the familiar Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart score and rebuilds it around rhythm. From the drive of the drums and bass to the percussive language of the dancers’ feet, rhythm becomes the engine of the evening. The effect is infectious: songs once polished and distant feel newly visceral, pulling the audience into their pulse.

Myles Frost and the company

Even the ballads are transformed. “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered” retains its melodic elegance but gains a subtle, insistent beat. The spoken-word, jazz-inflected “My Funny Valentine” is stripped of traditional vocalism and rendered intimate and conversational. With the pianist’s mesmerizing playing, it becomes less a standard than a mood—fragile, rhythmic, quietly hypnotic.

Myles Frost and the company

Co-directed by Tony Goldwyn and Glover (Tony-winner for Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk), the production leans fully into this musical and physical language. It opens with a six-piece jazz ensemble drifting into place at Lucille’s, the club already humming with history. As the musicians fall into rhythm—trading riffs, exchanging glances—the audience is pulled in. By the time Myles Frost appears as Joey, the room is alive, and his entrance raises the temperature.

Myles Frost and the company

Frost, best known for his Tony-winning turn as Michael Jackson in MJ, brings the same dynamic physicality, though without imitation—even if his sleek presence occasionally evokes Cab Calloway. His Joey is polished and magnetic, with calculation just beneath the charm. As a dancer, he is electric, fully at home in the show’s rhythmic world.

Kevin Cahoon and the company

Opposite him, Awa Sal Secka’s Linda English refuses to be a mere foil. Her voice is warm and luminous, but it is the emotional shading beneath it that gives the performance its weight. In quieter moments, she allows vulnerability to surface, grounding the production in something real.

Glover’s choreography blurs the line between dance and music-making. Tap becomes both sound and storytelling, with bodies functioning as instruments in a shifting score. The ensemble doesn’t simply move—they generate rhythm, shaping character and atmosphere. The result feels less like traditional staging and more like a live jazz composition unfolding in real time.

Myles Frost and Samantha Massell

Visually, the production embraces the intimacy of a nightclub, collapsing the distance between performer and audience. It’s a smart choice: this production thrives on proximity, on the sense that anything—seduction, betrayal, reinvention—might happen just inches away.

This is not Pal Joey as a period piece, but as a living, breathing jam session—restless, inventive, and unapologetically alive.

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photos by Matthew Murphy

Chez Joey
Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater
Fichandler Stage, 1101 Sixth Street SW in D.C.
2 hours, 30 minutes with intermission
Tues and Wed at 7:30; Thurs & Fri at 8; Sat at 2 & 8: Sun at 2 & 7:30
check for weekday matinees at 12pm
ends on March 15, 2026 EXTENDED to March 22, 2026
for tickets, call 202.488.3300 or visit Arena Stage

for more shows, visit Theatre in DC

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