How Hell’s Kitchen Stars Maleah Joi Moon and Kecia Lewis Found Friendship Offstage

If you were in New York City at any point during the first weeks of September, chances are you were at Usher’s Past Present Future Tour, or at the very least, you knew someone who was in the sweaty audience at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Tony winner Maleah Joi Moon was no exception. “A time was had,” Moon says over Zoom from her NYC apartment, recounting the night she just spent dancing and singing in a suite with her Hell’s Kitchen castmates. Fellow Tony winner Kecia Lewis organized the whole thing, but couldn’t go because she was on vacation. “I was just texting with AK,” says Lewis. “She was like, ‘Did everybody have a good time?’”

For the uninitiated, “AK” is Alicia Keys, the brains behind the 13-time-nominated Broadway show Hell’s Kitchen, which uses the Grammy Award winner’s music to tell the coming-of-age story of Ali, played by Moon. Lewis plays Miss Liza Jane, Ali’s neighbor turned surrogate mother, who helps Ali realize her passion for music and piano, and ultimately discover herself. The semi-autobiographical musical is set in the ’90s in, of course, the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. Baggy jeans, crop tops, and jerseys abound.

Both Moon, 22, and Lewis, 59, won the Tony award this year for best lead actress in a musical and best featured actress in a musical, respectively. Hell’s Kitchen marks Moon’s Broadway debut, while Lewis has been in the business for four decades. For both of them, it was their first ever Tony nomination—and win.

“It’s crazy now that I’m talking about it, the juxtaposition between me and Kecia in that moment,” Moon reflects. “Kecia is this vet, legend, staple of the community—especially in the Black Broadway community. And then me being an up-and-coming artist, a Black woman entering this community and being welcomed.”

The relationship that Moon and Lewis portray in Hell’s Kitchen has led to a closeness offstage. “With this particular show, we are blessed to have the vast majority of the cast making their Broadway debuts,” says Lewis. “I like to be able to see the magic that we [create] through fresher eyes, seeing that wonder and awe, because you can get jaded when you’ve been doing this for four decades.” For this reason, Lewis has become the show’s den mother. “I enjoy mentoring,” she says. “And thank God I do because if I didn’t, this show would be a torture,” Lewis says with a laugh.

Here, Moon and Lewis talk with Vanity Fair about their dynamic on- and offstage and the only time it’s okay to sleep in your makeup.

Vanity Fair: To kick it off, in what ways do you both relate to your Hell’s Kitchen?

Maleah Joi Moon: Mama, do you want to kick it off?

Sorry, did you just call Kecia ‘Mama’?

Moon: I did. For everybody down at the Kitchen, she’s the matriarch of our cast. We all look to her when we need grounding, peace, prayer, positivity—all the things.

Kecia Lewis: And a stern talking to. They don’t ask for that, but they get it.

Moon: I definitely get it.

Lewis: For me, being a veteran in the business and hitting my 40-year mark at the same time as doing the show, it’s very much full circle. I have always appreciated the mentors and the Miss Liza Janes that I’ve had. I’ve had a lot of them, and I still lean on several of them, even in this season of my life. I feel very grateful that I get to do this with Maleah; this is her first outing on Broadway, and I feel blessed to be able to watch her and experience her growth. It’s really full circle and I’m grateful.

Moon: Thanks, Kecia. As far as my personal relationship with Ali, a lot of her is in me. She’s 17, and is a young budding woman in an urban area, surrounded by such a diverse community. I was in that same boat as a teenager, being on the cusp of a dream, but also being in the minefield of teenagedom and learning how to navigate love, family, relationships, and yourself. I could go off for hours about how much of me is in Ali, but she’s definitely a snapshot of part of my life. And being surrounded by a community of artists like Kecia, who have stepped into this mentorship position for me so that I can absorb as much as I can. Just like Kecia said, I’m really grateful to be here.

You both won your first Tonys at such different points in your career. What was going through your heads when your name was called?

Lewis: I’m still trying to put words to it, honestly. This is a weird analogy, but the closest thing I can think of is when somebody is about to die in a movie, and their life flashes before them. That’s kind of how it felt for me. All of these experiences that I’ve had over the last 40 years flashed in front of me. I’m starting to get weepy.

Moon: It was a very insane moment. Similarly, in that cinematic sense, I felt all the moments that led up to this coming to fruition. Remembering all of the teachers, mentors, family members, friends, and every single person who laid a hand on me to get to this place. I was thinking about all of them when I was walking up to the podium.

Lewis: My manager would say to me, “There is so much goodwill for you out there. So many in this community have seen you, know you, and know your life.” But it was the first time I really felt that. I started off in this industry single, got married, divorced, and then became a single parent. Everybody in my theater community knows my kid and have known him since birth. I’ve been grinding and working, and I felt all of that love and appreciation the moment they called my name. As I was about to give my speech and looked out at all the people in the theater, it was very overwhelming. And there was also a little bit of, damn, it’s about time! [Laughs]

Moon: It really takes a village. Kecia, Mama, is the person I look to. I go straight into her dressing room, right next door to mine. If I need a prayer, a talk, a hug—she’s right there. And I had my own Miss Liza Jane growing up, my high school theater teacher and vocal coach, Timothy Walton.

What are some of the specific ways you’ve been a mentor, or a Mama, to each other?

Lewis: I get so many questions about the industry, career moves, what’s fair and not fair, and I’m able to draw on experience as opposed to guessing. And when I don’t know the answer, I know who to call for the answer. I absolutely despise injustice. Everybody is doing many jobs and working really, really hard, but it’s often the actors who are treated as the lowest people on the totem pole. Our rights are not paid attention to as often as they should, so I like to be a resource. This generation very much wants to please. That’s their thing. But sometimes if you’re too pleasing, you wind up getting stepped on or treated unfairly, and they have no idea what their rights are. So that’s been a very real part of my role. Acting is the fun, fulfilling and creative part, but if the business side isn’t taken care of, you can feel very used and resentful about the fun thing that you’re doing. Being able to help people understand what I’ve learned from trial and error, or from the mistakes I’ve made over the years, has been very, very fulfilling to me. I enjoy that.

Moon: To this day, I still recognize the moment when I realized that Kecia Lewis was someone I wanted to become close to. There was always a lot of energy in our rehearsals, but Kecia has this grounded majesty that follows her into every room. I remember sitting down and immediately wanting to tell her everything about myself, because I immediately felt that this was someone who I could turn to and who I could trust, in a time where I had no idea where to look first. I had shiny-penny syndrome at every corner—everything was exciting and full of novelty. But Kecia brought this sense of security that I needed. She became my home away from home and keeps me grounded. I don’t know what I’d be doing without her.

Lewis: But Maleah is not talking about her own mentoring—she is a leader amongst her peers. She has a joy and an infectiousness about her. When people may be a little down or off, she becomes their cheerleader. I’ve seen her do that over and over, and she doesn’t think anything of it. She does it all the time. And I can tell you, most leading ladies in a hit Broadway show that won the Tony that I’ve experienced don’t do that. They’re not aware of their peers around them. They’re interested in making sure they look good.That’s not Maleah. She’s mentoring while she’s being mentored.

Despite the different stages in your career, you’re not threatened by each other. One of your successes is the other’s success.

Moon: There is no malice, spite or jealousy, and I think that is something that can very easily be taken for granted in a relationship like this. I’m 22 and started this show at 18, so I’m learning how to not only be a great performer, mentor and a light to people in my space, but I’m also learning how to be a strong young Black woman from Kecia. She is a stunning example of how to navigate in a space, be aware of your own boundaries and respect other people at the same time.

Lewis: Thank you for that, baby. In this business, you can so easily become bitter, angry, jealous, and just crazy. The nature of our culture is so celebrity driven. It’s about who’s hot, who’s not; who looks like this and who looks like that; who sings better and all that nonsense. And what I try to remember is, if you think of us all as a basket of fruit: I’m a banana, you’re an apple, you’re an orange, you’re a kiwi, you’re a grape, and you’re a strawberry. What sense would it make if you are a strawberry, to be mad because I’m a wonderful banana? That makes no sense. What you need to be concentrating on is being the juiciest, sweetest, most gorgeous strawberry you can be, and not paying attention to that orange or apple. Focus on you, right? Because we are not the same.

How did you celebrate your Tony wins?

Moon: I went to all the parties, then fell asleep curled up with the Tony next to me in bed. That next day, I wanted to celebrate the fact that I had been so attentive and meticulous. I wanted to just be 21 for a second, and do nothing. I slept until 4 o’clock, then went and did the show all over again that night.

Lewis: I went to all the parties. It was probably the first time in at least 25 years that when I crawled into bed, it was 6:30 in the morning. The day after the Tonys, I turned my phone off. I was in a hotel, with makeup still on from the night before, just laying there. I had 850 text messages that night. And they kept rolling in. It took me two and a half months to answer everybody, and that doesn’t count social media.

That’s so nice.

Lewis: It was beautiful. But it was a lot.