Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill recounts Billie Holiday's life story through the songs that made her famous. 1959, in a small, intimate bar in Philadelphia, Holiday puts on a show that unbeknownst to the audience, will leave them witnesses to one of the last performances of her lifetime. Through her poignant voice and moving songs, one of the greatest jazz singers of all-time shares her loves and her losses.
On the one hand, we have Audra McDonald, poised and elegant - a classically trained soprano and five-time Tony winner. On the other, there's the raspy-voiced Billie Holiday, who lifted herself from the gutter to achieve fame as a jazz singer, only to crash out on drink and drugs. Talk about casting against type. And yet as soon as McDonald opens her mouth in Lanie Robertson's 'Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill,' it's Holiday we hear.
In Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, a late entry in the Broadway season, McDonald has taken on the task of impersonating a real person in what's virtually a solo show about the late jazz singer Billie Holiday, whose rough life story is almost as familiar as her distinctive sound...McDonald doesn't let Holiday wallow as she tells us, almost offhandedly, about her rape at 10, her prostitution at 14, the macabre death of her great-grandmother, a slave, and the racism that haunted her career. Long before we are shocked, yet again, by the haunting images of her great song about racism, 'Strange Fruit,' this amazing actress and this jazz icon are indivisible.
1986 | Off-Broadway |
Original Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
1986 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2014 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2017 | West End |
West End Production West End |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2014 | BroadwayWorld Awards | Best Leading Actress in a Play | Audra McDonald |
2014 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Play | Audra McDonald |
2014 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical | Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill |
2014 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Actress in a Musical | Audra McDonald |
2014 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Revival of a Musical (Broadway or Off-Broadway) | Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | Audra McDonald |
2014 | Tony Awards | Best Sound Design of a Play | Steve Canyon Kennedy |
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