Billie Holiday News

Twin Cities native Thomasina Petrus and legendary director Marion McClinton have teamed up to mount a definitive production of this famous concert show about the great jazz singer Billie Holiday. The show is structured as a club performance late in Holiday's career in a small Philadelphia venue, after she was barred from performing in New York nightclubs due to multiple drug convictions. Her voice has lost some of its power and flexibility. She is worn out by a hard life of multiple childhood traumas, abusive lovers and subsequent addiction made even harder by the endemic racism in the United States. It's March 1959. Her heyday is well behind her. Death will come in a matter of months, when she is just 44.

Deidrie Henry returns to The Armory to star as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, Lanie Robertson's riveting portrait of Holiday's life told through an imagined final performance in a small bar in South Philadelphia in 1959. Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill begins preview performances on May 26, opens on June 1, and runs through July 1 on the U.S. Bank Main Stage. Bill Fennelly returns to The Armory to direct after previously directing Gypsy, Black Pearl Sings and, most recently, Little Shop of Horrors. Deidrie Henry, who most recently played Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire at The Armory, will be joined on stage by Abdul Hamid Royal, the production's music director who also plays the role of Jimmy Powers, along with local musicians Charles Neal (drums) and Andre St. James (bass).

Audra McDonald has 'no words' for the latest in a long line of honors for the record-breaking Tony winner. This week, the city of Fresno honored the stage icon with her very own street naming ceremony! Check out the unveiling below!

Actress and singer Audra McDonald stopped by The Talk to discuss what she loves about CBS All Access Original Series The Good Fight, as well as her admiration for co-star Christine Baranski, who plays Diane Lockhart on the show. Watch all-new episodes of The Talk Weekdays on CBS and CBS All Access.

After Audra McDonald and Billy Eichner share their experiences of watching 'Starlight Express' as their first Broadway show, James asks Billy Eichner about meeting one of Barbra Streisand's dogs and learns why Audra would never consider cloning her own dog.

What happens when you try to turn movies such as 'A Quiet Place,' 'The Shape of Water' and the classic film 'Taxi Driver' into musicals? On last night's Late Late Show, Audra McDonald and Dan Stevens joined James Corden in doing just that! Watch the clip below!

Beck Center for the Arts is pleased to announce its 2018-2019 professional theater season filled with their signature eclectic titles that include modern classics and the eighth collaboration with Baldwin Wallace University Musical Theatre program.

Internationally-acclaimed jazz and blues singer, Kim Nalley, returns to Feinstein's at the Nikko for a limited two-week engagementAugust 2-­12, 2018.  Joined by her band-Tammy Hall (piano), Michael Zisman(bass) and Kent Bryston (drums)-plus special guest, legendary jazz tenor saxophonist Houston Person, Nalley will present a memorable evening of jazz and blues standards.

Deidrie Henry returns to The Armory to star as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, Lanie Robertson's riveting portrait of Holiday's life told through an imagined final performance in a small bar in South Philadelphia in 1959. Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill begins preview performances on May 26, opens on June 1, and runs through July 1 on the U.S. Bank Main Stage. Bill Fennelly returns to The Armory to direct after previously directing Gypsy, Black Pearl Sings and, most recently, Little Shop of Horrors. Deidrie Henry, who most recently played Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire at The Armory, will be joined on stage by Abdul Hamid Royal, the production's music director who also plays the role of Jimmy Powers, along with local musicians Charles Neal (drums) and Andre St. James (bass).

Set against a backdrop of sumptuously textured alt-pop, her debut LP “In Bloom” finds this rising artist wholly embodying whatever mood she's conjuring: love-struck, vengeful, heavy-hearted, triumphant, all the while maintaining a deliberate vulnerability and willful sensitivity that speaks to the quiet power in softness. 

JAG Productions (Vermont's one and only award-winning, professional African-American Theatre company!), will present, the profound jazz musical, Lady Day  Emerson's Bar & Grill by Lanie Robertson. The show will be run from May 24th-May 27th at the Engine Room in White River Junction, May 31st-June 3rd at The Grange Theater in Pomfret and June 7-10 at Main Street Landing's Black Box Theater in Burlington, VT. Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill will be directed by JAG Productions' Founder & Producing Artistic Director, Jarvis Antonio Green.

The 2018 Summer Concert Series returns to Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater with a new line up of concerts in June and July, including The Great American Songbook, Greg Abate, Stage Door Canteen, and Gregg Sullivan. The perfect end to a summer day, all concerts are 8 p.m. at the air-conditioned, state-of-the-art Julie Harris Stage. Individual tickets are $20.

Eryc Taylor, Artistic Director of Eryc Taylor Dance (ETD), announced today the company will present three of their most popular repertory works at Bryant Park's Contemporary Dance Program on Friday, June 22, beginning at 6:45pm. The annual Bryant Park dance series will feature acclaimed contemporary dance choreographers on five back-to-back summer Fridays in June and July; open to the public, there is no admission charge. Bryant Park is located behind the New York Public Library in Midtown Manhattan, between 40th and 42nd Streets & Fifth and Sixth Avenues. Preview Eryc Taylor Dance.

Writer, director, performer, poet and jazz singer Cheryl Martin is taking her Billie Holiday inspired show Who Wants to Live Forever? on tour this year, following the show's success in Manchester last Autumn.

The Marcus King Band has announced the 'Carolina Confessions Tour,' a national headlining run of dates beginning on July 31st. 'We are thrilled to see all your smiling faces, and to bring you some brand new tunes for the 'Carolina Confessions Tour'!' says King. 'We'll be returning to some of our favorite parts of the world, as well as seeing some new scenery! We'll see y'all down the road.' Please see full list of tour dates below.

Actor Peter Gerald joins the stellar international cast of acclaimed show - Cafe Society Swing. The production tells the story of the first racially-desegregated jazz club in New York - Cafe Society, which opened in Greenwich Village 80 years ago, in December 1938. It will play the historic Theatre Royal Stratford East from Tuesday 5 June to Saturday 16 June.

JAG Productions has announced casting for their upcoming production of Lanie Robertson's Tony award-winning play Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill directed by Jarvis Antonio Green (JAG Productions: Choir Boy, Fences, JAGfest), will run from May 24th-May 27th at the Engine Room in White River Junction, May 31st-June 3rd at The Grange Theater in Pomfret and June 7-10 at Main Street Landing's Black Box Theater in Burlington, VT.

Denver Arts & Venues' annual Five Points Jazz Festival returns 11 a.m. Saturday, May 19 to 1:30 a.m. Sunday, May 20, celebrating the music, culture and roots of Denver's historic Five Points neighborhood.

When the ArtsWest 2017-18 I AM Season reaches its conclusion with Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, two powerful performers will take the stage to lead each production - respectively, Nicholas Japaul Bernard as Hedwig and renowned Seattle performer Felicia Loud as Billie Holiday. Presented together in rotating repertory under the title Practical Questions of Wholeness, these two plays will perform on alternating days from June 7 through July 8, 2018.  

WRITE ACT REP announces PREZ The Lester Young Story, a solo show written by playwright Willard Manus, continues in Los Angeles, as part of a Spring and Summer Festival Series at Write Act Rep's Brickhouse Theatre called THREE BY WILL IN REP.  The Series includes two World Premiere's along with the extension of the acclaimed  PREZ, which chronicles the unique life of jazzman Lester Young, featuring Leslie A. Jones.  The intimate drama is produced by John Lant and Tamra Pica, and will be directed by Daniel E. Keough.  The show is moving to a new night and extending, beginning April 27th 2018, through June 29, 2018.  All performances for PREZ will now be on FRIDAYS at 8PM, through as part of the three production Series, 'THREE BY WILL IN REP'.