Let the Good Times Roll

Let the Good Times Roll, subtitled A New Orleans Gumbo, is a new jukebox musical set in New Orleans. The story is original, while the score is assembled from existing songs tied to the city. The show had its world premiere at The Phoenix Theatre Company in Arizona in 2025, and the Broadway run is planned as a transfer of that production.

Jack Viertel conceived the musical and wrote its book. He has built Broadway evenings out of existing songs before, with Smokey Joe's Cafe (1995) and After Midnight (2013), and both were nominated for Tony Awards. This time the organizing idea is a city rather than particular songwriters, and Viertel has said he meant New Orleans itself to be one of the main characters. As of October 2026, the Broadway run is announced for the 2026-2027 season.

A young woman who has not yet gotten over a broken heart walks into a busy bar in a New Orleans neighborhood. There she falls in with a mixed group of locals, each with a history of loss, survival and celebration. Their stories, and the city around her, help her find her strength and learn to enjoy life again.

Episodes from the city's past, among them the Great Flood and Hurricane Katrina, form the backdrop. The larger subject is how people, and a whole city, can come apart and then put themselves back together. Viertel has explained that he kept the plot intentionally light, just strong enough to lead the audience from song to song, though it still gives the show more of a narrative than his earlier revues.

In Phoenix, six actors played the six characters: Onyx (William Bailey), Captain (Scott Davidson), Wanda (Gina Guarino), Maretha (Miciah Lathan), Liza Jane (Carmiña Monserrat) and L.D. (Tre Moore). Further details of the plot have not been published.

The score moves through jazz, blues, funk and gospel, drawing on songs linked with Bessie Smith, Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, Dr. John, The Meters, Rebirth Brass Band, Randy Newman, Lyle Lovett and Harry Connick Jr. Viertel, whose love of this music began with a Jelly Roll Morton record he bought at 15, traces the city's distinct sound to the many cultures that met and mixed there, Indigenous, African, Spanish and French Caribbean among them.

The running order on stage has not been published, and the concept album may not match it exactly. Still, its 31 tracks, including the title song "Let the Good Times Roll," are the clearest public guide to the material. Among them:

• "I'm Walkin'," the 1957 Fats Domino song he wrote with Dave Bartholomew.
• "Louisiana 1927," Randy Newman's 1974 song about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.
• "Basin Street Blues," written in 1928 by Spencer Williams; Louis Armstrong recorded it the same year.
• "Oh, Didn't He Ramble," a 1902 standard that bands traditionally play as a jazz funeral comes to a close.

Joy Machine Records released the album in August 2025, timed to the first Phoenix preview, with a different set of singers from the stage company. They include Tony Award winners J. Harrison Ghee and Lauren Patten, with Rebirth Brass Band, a Grammy Award winner, as a guest.

The Phoenix Theatre Company first presented the show in 2024 as a reading at its Festival of New American Theatre, and audience responses there helped shape it.

The world premiere played the Hormel Theatre in Phoenix, with a first preview on August 6, 2025, and an official opening on August 8, 2025. Scheduled to end on August 31, the run was extended to September 7, 2025, and it closed the company's 105th season. As of September 2025, no earlier premiere in the company's history had drawn larger audiences or brought in more at the box office. On September 18, 2025, the producers announced that the show would move to Broadway.