On the corner of Eighth Street and University Place in Manhattan stands a rotisserie chicken joint that has been doing business there for nearly 25 years. It seems like the kind of place that has been there forever, but for New Yorkers of a certain age, that corner was once the home of The Cookery, the last nightclub owned by the legendary Barney Josephson, who established the city’s first integrated nightspots. His Café Society featured jazz singers like Billie Holiday and folk acts like The Weavers, but the FBI put him out of business in 1950 by photographing patrons as they entered his club.

By 1977, Josephson was back on his feet and telephoned a once-popular blues singer named Alberta Hunter to inquire if she would be interested in performing at his newest nightspot, The Cookery. Hunter was 82-years-old and had not performed in public for over two decades having just retired after a 20-year stint as a nurse at Goldwater Memorial Hospital on Roosevelt Island. Initially, she said no. But with a little coaxing, Hunter agreed, sure that the return gig would be a one-time event. Fate had other ideas.

Writer-director Marion J. Caffey’s Cookin’ at the Cookery is a musical recreation of a typical night at The Cookery, when the octogenarian Hunter kept a sophisticated Manhattan audience captivated as the overflow lined-up outside in hopes of getting a seat. The show is also a biography of this indomitable woman, who wrote songs for Bessie Smith, worked alongside Louis Armstrong, and gave a command performance for President Jimmy Carter. Now in its tenth year of performance, Cookin’ revived Hunter’s legacy and has since introduced new generations to the magic she created.

“What was remarkable about Alberta was that she was not a big star in her heyday, though she did play with the biggest stars of her era,” says Caffey. “It was the comeback that made her a star.”

Though she lived a life of hard knocks, Hunter’s art was the product of luck, talent, and more than her share of pluck. Born in Memphis on April 1, 1895 to a father who abandoned the family and a mother who worked ceaselessly to support her child, Hunter endured poverty and her mother’s ill-fated remarriage as well as sexual abuse suffered at the hands of a school principal and her landlady’s boyfriend.

Though some accounts have Hunter running off to Chicago as young as age 8, it is more likely that she left home around age 16. Fascinated by the active street life of Chicago ’s poorer neighborhoods, she began singing at a brothel named Frank’s, where on a whim she performed the only song she knew – a sentimental Irish ballad called“When the River Shannon Flows.” Although her inexperienced singing earned her the door, her skills improved and her persistence won out when she was offered a job (at $10 a week) that allowed her to enter the world of show business.

Hunter graduated to working at some of Chicago ’s swankier night spots, including the legendary Dreamland Café, where she performed with King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band (which featured a hot young cornetist named Louis Armstrong) and attracted audiences that included the likes of Sophie Tucker and Al Jolson. Along the way, Hunter also developed a talent for songwriting and earned a hit with 1921’s Downhearted Blues, which became a signature number for Bessie Smith.

She moved to New York to sing with Fletcher Henderson (a neglected architect of Swing). In 1923, she became the first black singer to be accompanied by a white band when the Original Memphis Five backed her. In 1924, she became part of the Red Onion Jazz Babies sessions, in which both Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet recorded for the first time. Hunter also squeezed in performances opposite Paul Robeson in Showboat and replaced Josephine Baker at the Casino de Paris.

Devastated by the death of her mother Hunter rethought her way of life. "My poor mother was the most important thing in my life," she said. "She died on January 17, 1954 , and that was the day I swore to give up singing and become a nurse.” After her studies, Hunter went to work at Goldwater Memorial where she stayed for the next two decades, until the hospital forced her to retire in 1977, thinking she had reached the mandatory retirement age of 70. In fact, Hunter was 82.

As a result of her sensational run at The Cookery, Ms. Hunter resumed a recording career with a series of LPs for Columbia Records. Although plagued by ill-health, she maintained a busy performing schedule until shortly before her death (at age 89) on October 17, 1984 .

Caffey’s Cookin’ at the Cookery captures Hunter’s busy life with only two actresses and a four-piece band. The actresses represent the mature Alberta (during her Cookery heyday) and the young Alberta (who also serves as narrator as well as a gallery of supporting characters). “People love this show because we break the fourth wall,” Caffey says. “ Alberta often speaks directly to the audience, and we create the atmosphere of a cabaret performance, which gives people permission to clap along to the music and have a great time.”

“It was divine intervention for me to discover Alberta Hunter,” Caffey adds. “I get so much mail from people who have been touched by the show, and Cookin’ has even helped the people in Alberta ’s life. According to her estate’s lawyer, the royalties we pay to use Alberta ’s songs helped to take care of her pianist, Gerald Cook, in his final years. It all comes full circle.”

"Cookin' at the Cookery: The Music and Times of Alberta Hunter" will be presented on November 23-25 for 4 performances only at NJPAC. For tickets call 1-888-GO-NJPAC, order online at www.njpac.org or visit the NJPAC box office at One Center Street in Newark .