The “joint is jumpin’” like “nobody’s bizness” at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center now that Ain’t Misbehavin’ has set up shop there to gift L.A. audiences with a bona fide entertainment bonanza.

Ain’t Misbehavin’ may have won the 1978 Tony for Best Musical, but don’t go expecting a traditional book musical like the previous year’s winner Annie or the following year’s Sweeney Todd.

Instead, what “book” writers Murray Horwitz and Richard Maltby, Jr. confectioned is a dialog-and-plot-free musical revue celebrating the multitude of hits performed (and most often co-written) by the legendary Fats Waller from the 1920s to the early 1940s.

To perform these two-and-a-half dozen songs, Horwitz and Maltby have imagined a cocktail party attended by five of the Harlem Renaissance’s snappiest dressers and silkiest song stylists, roles originated on Broadway by a Tony-winning Nell Carter, André DeShields, Arnelia McQueen, Ken Page, and Tony nominee Charlayne Woodard.

48 years later, it’s Ledisi, Chester Gregory, Connie Jackson, Marty Austin Lamar, and Natalie Wachen who have inherited the fab fivesome’s musical tracks under the polished direction of Wren T. Brown, with choreographer Dominique Kelley adding to the pizzazz every dance step of the way and musical director William Foster McDaniel eliciting one showstopping vocal performance after another on the Nate Holden stage.

Fats Waller’s earliest songs may be over a century old, what a still vital collection of 1920s, ’30, and ‘40s hits they all are, from the title song to “Honeysuckle Rose” to “The Joint Is Jumpin’” to “Mean to Me” to a couple of side-splitting sing-alongs (“Your Feet’s Too Big” and “Fat and Greasy”) to numerous other applause-getters, not to mention songs that Waller “only” performed, among them “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter,” “Two Sleepy People,” and “I Can’t Give You Everything But Love.”

In other words, if you want two hours of musical magic interrupted only by a fifteen-minute intermission, that’s precisely what Ain’t Misbehavin’ delivers.

Director Brown stages each number with equal parts imagination and flair, with Kelley’s choreography evoking the finger-waggin’ jitterbug and swing of the twenties and thirties.

 Booming-voiced Lamar is the bigger-than-life stand-in for the irrepressible Fats himself, and never more rambunctious than when telling his lady friend in no uncertain terms that “Your Feet’s Too Big.”

Jackson shows off abundant sass and sizzle as she invites her man to “Squeeze Me,” then commemorates the WWII “Stocking Panic” with the deliciously daffy “When the Nylons Bloom Again.”

Party-loving Gregory defends his right to womanize in “‘Tain’t Nobody’s Bizness If I Do,” then slithers seductively through the R-rated “The Reefer Song” aka “The Viper’s Drag.”

Wachen sings and swings the living daylights out the “Yacht Club Swing,” then vows to be “Keepin’ Out of Mischief Now,” though one has a sense that this gal won’t be keepin’ out of it for long.

Last but not least, Grammy-winner Ledisi croons a sultry “I’ve Got a Feeling I’m Falling,” gives Harlem glamour girls a run for their money in “Cash for Your Trash,” and tongue-lashes her lover with a torchy “Mean to Me.”

Duets like “Honeysuckle Rose,” “How Ya Baby,” and “Ladies Who Sing With The Band” bring the house down too as do full-cast numbers like “Lookin’ Good but Feelin’ Bad,” “Handful of Keys,” “The Joint is Jumpin’, “The Jitterbug Waltz,” and above all the year’s most dazzling display of five-part harmony, “Black and Blue.”

Throughout the show, musical director William Foster McDaniel makes musical magic upstage on the piano accompanied by four of the best musicians around: Keith Fiddmont on saxophones, Fernando Pullum on trumpet, Weldon Scott on bass, and Land Richards on drums, with sound designer Danny Fiandaca providing a professional mix of vocals and instrumentals.

And what a stunning production design Ain’t Misbehavin’ gets thanks to the late John Iacovelli’s sumputous set, Andrew Schemedake’s colorful, mood-setting lighting, Wendell C. Carmichael’s richly tailored costumes, Kevin William’s array of cocktail-related properties, and Sir Tony’s period-perfect wigs.

Cynthia Ayala is co-lighting designer. Candace Brown is associate choreographer. Elsbeth M. Collins is production stage manager. Patty Onagan is publicist.

The Harlem Renaissance may have lasted only a few short decades, but it spawned or spurred the careers of (among others) Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Bessie Smith, and the one-and-only Thomas Wright Waller, better known as Fats.

As toe-tappingly tuneful as it is entrancingly entertaining, Ebony Theatre Company’s sensational Ain’t Misbehavin’ revival more than does the formidable Fats the justice he deserves.

Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, 4718 West Washington Blvd., Los Angeles. Through June 8. See website for detailed performance dates and times.
www.EbonyRep.org

–Steven Stanley
May 23, 2026
Photos: Craig Schwartz

Tags: Ebony Repertory Theatre, Fats Waller, Los Angeles Theater Review, Nate Holden Performing Arts Center