Video Interviews with the Cast of “A Wonderful World”
Editors Note: On March 10th, 2020, ArtSpeak recorded video interviews with the stars of “A Wonderful World,” a musical about the life of Louis Armstrong, as seen through the eyes of his four wives. The play had all the earmarks of a hit – great music, great cast, great subject, and a great story for our times.
Within a week, the debut of the play at the Colony Theatre in Miami Beach was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Luck for us, “A Wonderful World” re-opened on December 4th, 2021 and will run until at least January 16th. Don’t miss it !
If you’re a person of a certain age, a lover of jazz, a fan of outsized personalities, you’re probably familiar with the late LOUIS ARMSTRONG.
He was the great jazz trumpeter and gravel-voiced singer whose 1964 recording of “Hello, Dolly!” dethroned the Beatles from a 14-week run atop Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. He pulled that off at the record-setting age of 62, scoring the biggest seller of his career and topping the chart for 22 weeks with a song he hadn’t particularly wanted to record.
As impactful, admired and versatile as he was during a multifaceted career that began at 13 and lasted until his death at 69, Armstrong’s life was the stuff of complicated drama.
Told from the shifting perspectives of his four wives, “A Wonderful World” is full of Armstrong songs both well-known and obscure. But it is not, everyone involved emphasizes, a simple jukebox musical.
— Christine Dolen
Juson Williams as Louis Armstrong
Christina Sajous as Daisy Parker
Nicole Henry as Alpha Smith
Darlene Hope as Lucille Wilson
