Billie Holiday News

Theatrical Outfit, Atlanta's second-oldest continually-operating professional theatre, aspires to create a compassionate, joyful and just community by starting the conversations that matter. From The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a timeless, epic musical co-production with Aurora Theatre (our third year in a row), to the conversation-starting new play Boy about gender reassignment, to the Atlanta premiere of GA native Lauren Gunderson's new, co-authored, Jane Austen-inspired holiday hit Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, to an intimate look at one of legend Billie Holiday's final solo appearances in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, to the Atlanta professional homecoming of Perfect Arrangement, local writer Topher Payne's mid-century gay-rights comedy, to a world premiere collaboration with Atlanta Opera, to T.O.'s non-traditional update on the sizzling Broadway classic 110 in the Shade, to year two of our Unexpected Play Readings, our 2017-2018 Season of Character truly offers something for everyone.

Tony Award winner Karen Ziemba (Bullets Over Broadway, Curtains, Contact), multi-award winning Nightclub star Klea Blackhurst and Steve 'The Whistler' Herbst are set to star in Town Hall's Broadway by the Year Series on Monday, March 27 at 8pm, 'The Broadway Musicals of the 1940s,' which will highlight the music of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Kurt Weill & Leonard Bernstein.

The inaugural cohort of The Field Leadership Fund announces Moon Shine, a wine reception with pop-up expressions, to be held on Wednesday, April 19, 2017 at the National Black Theatre (NBT) in its current 48th season themed In Pursuit of Black Joy.

The Gilmore-Hoerner Endowment will present a special, one day only concert, 'A Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald' featuring the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra on Sunday, April 30, 2017 at 3:00 p.m. at the Capitol Theatre in Chambersburg, PA.  Tickets for the event are $12 each, all seats reserved, are currently on sale at the Capitol Theatre at 717-263-0202 or online at www.thecapitoltheatre.org .  The Box Office is open from 11:00 A.M. - 4:30 P.M. Monday thru Friday and one hour prior to show. The theatre is located at 159 S. Main Street in Chambersburg, PA.

Irvington Town Hall Theater's Stage Door Series will present a reading of The Burning of New York by award-winning playwright Samuel Harps on Thursday, April 13 at 7:00 pm. Now in its third season, the series produces staged readings of original works complete with a Q&A afterwards with the playwright and actors. Without the technical aspects of a fully-staged show, the series offers a unique and exciting way to hear new voices in theater and be up close with the thought process that goes into writing a play. 

Axis Company is pleased to announce that Randy Sharp, who has won acclaim for directing Edgar Oliver's celebrated trilogy of solo performances charting his life in New York City, will stage a new production of Dead End, Sidney Kingsley's seminal play about kids growing on the streets of the City during the Great Depression.

Record-breaking six-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald makes her greatly anticipated debut, as part of the acclaimed Broadway @ series, at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills, a one-night-only event featuring two intimate concerts at 7:00pm and 9:30pm on Thursday, May 11. Produced by Mark Cortale, the Broadway legend will be joined on stage by Broadway @ series host and pianist Seth Rudetsky, who recently starred in the five-star London premiere of his Broadway musical Disaster!

Record-breaking six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald will perform at Steppenwolf as a part of the LookOut Series on Monday, May 22 for one night only. McDonald will be joined on stage by host and pianist Seth Rudetsky, who this past November starred in the five-star London premiere of his Broadway musical, Disaster!  

Portland Center Stage at The Armory kicks off its 30th anniversary season with the "heart-gripping and cathartic" musical Fun Home, which swept the 2015 Tony Awards with five wins.

Madame Tussauds, the world-renowned wax attraction slated to open its newest location in Nashville on April 14, and Luke Bryan teamed up to reveal the country superstar's new wax figure in Time Square on March 1 prior to his sold-out show at Madison Square Garden this evening.

Rubicon Theatre Company celebrates Black History Month with THE DEVIL'S MUSIC: THE LIFE AND BLUES OF BESSIE SMITH, starring singer and actress Miche Braden of the original Off-Broadway production (named one of the 10 Best Off-Broadway productions of the year by the N.Y. Daily Times). Described by CBC as a, "bawdy, bluesy, boozy rollicking night out at the theatre," the show follows the life, loves and career of blues and jazz singer Bessie Smith, called the "Empress of the Blues." 

Playwright Lanie Robertson's alternately harrowing and exhilarating work, LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR & GRILL, is an intriguing take on Billie Holiday's final performance in 1959. Holiday was a jazz singer who could captivate an audience with her unique vocal style, which combined elements of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, two performers she idolized growing up. She had a storied career and tumultuous life that was further undone by drug and alcohol addictions that would leave her dead from heart failure and cirrhosis of the liver. But, her legacy is undeniable, and this play allows us to see her talent, as well as the demons that haunted her. Max & Louie Productions is presenting a superlative production of this work which is smartly crafted and brilliantly performed.

Singer-songwriter Jackie Paladino will be performing alongside AJ Smith, Domenico, Chetti, and Brett Miller on February 23rd at the studio at Webster Hall. Click here for more information

Columbia University and Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith have announced that A 24-Decade History of Popular Music: A Radical Fairy Realness Ritual by Taylor Mac and Matt Ray is the 2017 winner of the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History.

Urban Stages, Frances Hill, Founding Artistic Director, has announced the cast of the American Premiere of the award-winning drama Angry Young Man by award-winning playwright Ben Woolf, directed by Stephen Hamilton.

Theatre Three has cancelled the production of The Empress, The Lady, and The Pearl Part II; Miss Billie and Miss Freddie. The show was scheduled to run March 23-April 16 in the Theatre Three's downstairs performance space Theatre Too. The show will not be replaced on the Theatre Too 2016-17 season. Ticket holders will be refunded in full. 

Max & Louie Productions present a three-week engagement of Lanie Robertson's Tony Award-winning Broadway revival Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, starring Alexis J. Roston.

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts celebrates the Ella Fitzgerald centennial. The program pays tribute to the artist's legendary music through performances featuring Regina Carter, NSO Pops, and Jane Monheit.

Max & Louie recreate a singular night in music history: one of the last, riveting performances in the life of jazz legend Billie Holiday, on stage at the Kranzberg Arts Center, February 17 through March 4, 2017.

Lynn University and Jan McArt, producer and director of theatre arts program development, today announced that tickets are still available for this season's remaining concerts under the popular Mabel Mercer Foundation's Cabaret at Lincoln Center comes to Live at Lynn series.