A Louis Armstrong pop-up exhibit aims to bring audiences to Broadway

As soon as Liz Curtis and Vanessa Williams signed on as producers of Broadway’s “A Wonderful World,” Curtis turned to her producing partner and said, “We’ve got to do this a diferent way.” As part of a larger producing team, Curtis and Williams have been attempting fresh strategies to market the Louis Armstrong bio-musical.

 

A Second Line parade from Times Square to Studio 54, where “A Wonderful World” plays, certainly made a splash for the show’s box ofce opening. Of recent box ofce-opening events, this one had the widest geographic reach. But a few-block radius seems to have only been the beginning. Before the end of 2024, “A Wonderful World” launched a pop-up art exhibit at the Wild Geese Gallery on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

 

Curtis owns the space, which had been sitting empty for a few months. “This gallery was born during Covid,” she explained. “My son and a bunch of young artists [were] just painting and hanging stuf. They could have been in the village somewhere, but because of Covid it was happening here. When they moved on, I kept it.”

 

On Dec. 7, the inaugural exhibit, titled “The Wonderful of Jazz,” ofcially opened, complete with a swing celebration featuring the Hot Toddies Jazz Band, a swing class and a swing show. This current exhibit, featuring paintings and photographs of Louis Armstrong, will remain through Jan. 24. (A new exhibit in collaboration with the Jazz Foundation of America will run Jan. 30 through Feb. 28, with more coming afer that.) Curated by Dina Bizri Zaki, “The Wonderful World of Jazz” illustrates Armstrong’s personality through the visual artwork of painters and photographers across generations.

 

Slim Aarons’ black-and-white photo shows Armstrong spooning a mound of spaghetti into his mouth while he stares straight into the camera. Seymour Chwast’s portrait of the musician and his silver trumpet hang above a piano. On the opposite wall, a painting by John Lister III titled “King of the Zulus” shows Armstrong in a spotlight above an abstract crowd. Vintage snapshots from photographer Jeanloup Sief and Ted Williams pepper the walls. Together, the art ofers yet another perspective on the musician at the center of “A Wonderful World.”

 

“We’ve got to say [this] not only lives in a theater,” Curtis said. “That energy [of Louis and his story], for us, really goes beyond the theater.”

 

Playbills from the show line the windows of the gallery, as one point of connection from the uptown exhibit to the midtown musical. And there are plans to host talkbacks with the show’s book writer, Aurin Squire, co- director Christina Sajous and other members of the creative team. Wild Geese Gallery is also preparing to host another swing celebration on Jan. 11 as well as jazz performances on Wednesday evening in February in hopes of enticing potential audiences to see the show by exposing them to the genre of music.

 

“You’ve got to think out of the box, ways to break through the noise,” said co-producer Tonya Lewis Lee, who, having spent the bulk of her producing in the flm and television realms, makes her Broadway producing debut with “A Wonderful World.” “Louis Armstrong himself and the music afords us an opportunity to do things that are a little diferent than others might.”

 

“It’s still difcult to get people to come out of their homes afer Covid, so what’s going to be the exciting thing that brings people out?” Lee continued. “I think seeing that there are other touchpoints to the actual show can be efective.” Lee is also hoping to host a public conversation with Renée Fleming about the healing power of music overall in the space — which Lee noted is in alignment with Armstrong’s legacy.

 

“Theater is a business, and if you’re running a successful business you have to do diferent things to make it successful,” said fellow co-producer Les Coney. “That’s why I think it’s a great idea — and other ideas to come.”