Photo Coverage: Andrea Frierson Brings ME & ELLA to 54 Below

Wetrock Entertainment presented performer/writer/jazz vocalist Andrea Frierson in "me & ella," at 54 Below last night. "me & ella," is a musical journey back to the beginnings of a young singer enamored with Ella Fitzgerald, set against a backdrop of New York City in the 1960's. Part memory play and part tribute, "me & ella" is both a singer's coming of age story, as well as a valentine to the First Lady of Song. Written and performed by Ms. Frierson with musical arrangements and musical supervision by Ron Abel and direction by Murphy Cross and Paul Kreppel, "me & ella"

Andrea Frierson is a Helen Hayes Award winner who has performed on Broadway in Once on This Island as Erzulie, Goddess of Love (original cast); Marie Christine (Prisoner #2) and Julie Taymor and Elliott Goldenthal's Juan Darien: A Carnival Mass (The Mother), both at Lincoln Center Theater; Bring in 'Da Noise/Funk ('Da Singer); For Colored Girls...(original Broadway production), and A Christmas Carol (Young Scrooge's Mother, original cast) at Madison Square Garden. Regional theatre roles include: Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner in Beehive! (Helen Hayes Award; Arena Stage, Washington, DC); The Homeless Woman in A New Brain (Helen Hayes Nominee; Studio Theatre, Washington, DC); and as the author and star of me & ella (The Downstairs Cabaret Theatre, Rochester, NY). Television audiences may remember Andrea as a 5-time winner and semi-finalist on Ed McMahon's nationally syndicated vocal competition, "Star Search" and as Ms. Melody on "Allegra's Window" (series regular, Nickelodeon). Other TV appearances include: the Emmy award-winning episode of the FX comedy series, "Louie," "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," "Good Morning America," and "The PBS Newshour with Jim Lehrer." Andrea was a 2006 Dramatist Guild Fellow (lyricist), as well as a member of the BMI workshop. She is also a Library of Congress award winner for her musical Soon of a Mornin' (an invited show in the 2005 NYMF Festival) about the quilters of Gee's Bend, Alabama. www.andreafrierson.com

Ms. Frierson just finished a "fervent performance" (The New York Times) as the title character in Charlayne Woodard and Kirsten Childs "Grace," one of the two solo musical works in PREMIERES' "Inner Voices 2014," playing through.

Photo Credit: Stephen Sorokoff

Andrea Frierson

54 Below

Andrea Frierson

Ron Abel, Music Director & Andrea Frierson

Andrea Frierson & Ron Abel

Ron Abel

Ron Abel & Giselle Wolf

Paul Kreppel & Murphy Cross

Ron Abel, the band, Murphy Cross, Andrea Frierson, Paul Kreppel