Billie Holiday News

The Billie Holiday Theatre continues its 42nd Season Generations United with the World Premiere of Maid's Door by Writers Guild Award winner and Emmy Award nominee Cheryl L. Davis; the show will be directed by the Theatre's Artistic Director Jackie Alexander. Opening Night will be Thursday, March 6; and the show will run through Sunday, March 30. Performances are Thursday-Saturday at 8pm with matinees on Saturday at 3pm and Sunday at 4pm. All tickets are $25 and can be purchased online at www.thebillieholiday.org or by calling the box office at 718-636-0918 or 0919. A discounted rate of $15 is available for Children 15 and younger, Seniors, and Students with a valid ID.

Fans of five-time Tony Award-winning Broadway superstar Audra McDonald now have an early chance to get a first look at her upcoming Broadway return in the Billie Holiday biomusical LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR & GRILL via a new behind the scenes promotional featurette now available to view.

This was a wonderful toe-tapping evening of raw and raunchy blues and jazz, sung wonderfully by Jayne-Anne Power.

The 29th Annual Bistro Awards gala, set to take place tonight, March 4, has announced two new presenters. Stephen Schwartz, the Oscar, Tony, Grammy, and Golden Globe-winning composer/lyricist, who wrote the scores to such musicals as Pippin, Wicked, Godspell, and The Magic Show, will present Ben Vereen, the Tony Award-winning actor-singer-dancer, with the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Woodie King Jr's National Black Touring Circuit's 2014 Black History Month Play Festival will present 'Yesterdays: An Evening with Billie Holiday' from February 28 - March 2 at National Black Theater, 2031 Fifth Avenue.' Performances are Friday, February 28 at 7:30pm; Saturday, March 1 at 7:30pm and Sunday, March 2 at 4:00pm.

Palm Beach Dramaworks celebrates its fifteenth anniversary with a lineup of illustrious plays, beginning on October 10 with Thornton Wilder's Pultizer Prize-winning Our Town, and continuing with Israel Horovitz's My Old Lady, the Christopher Hampton adaptation of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and Sam Shepard's Pulitzer Prize-winning Buried Child, and Lanie Robertson's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. All performances are at the Don & Ann Brown Theatre (201 Clematis Street).

Today Jazz at Lincoln Center announces its 2014-15 Concert and Education season, which features a season-long journey 'through the Americas.' Through a diverse array of concerts and programs, Jazz at Lincoln Center's 27th season will explore how jazz has both integrated and influenced the rich musical traditions of the Caribbean and North, South, and Central America.

As BroadwayWorld reported last week, five-time Tony winner Audra McDonald will return to the stage as legendary songstress Billie Holliday in a revival of Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. The show will open at the Circle in the Square Theatre on April 13 for a limited 10-week run. Performances will begin on March 25. Check out the just-released artwork for the show below!

As BroadwayWorld reported last week, five-time Tony winner Audra McDonald will return to the stage as legendary songstress Billie Holliday in a revival of Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. According to the New York Times, the show will open at the Circle in the Square Theatre on April 13 for a limited 10-week run. Performances will begin on March 25.

BroadwayWorld.com has learned that talks are indeed currently underway with five-time Tony winner Audra McDonald to bring her back to the stage as legendary songstress Billie Holliday in a revival of Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. The show will reportedly play at the Circle in the Square Theatre, where current occupant Bronx Bombers will close on March 2, 2014. An official announcement has not yet been made, but sources tell us that a deal, dates and release is 'imminent.'

The 29th Annual Bistro Awards gala, set to take place on Tuesday, March 4, has announced two new presenters. Stephen Schwartz, the Oscar, Tony, Grammy, and Golden Globe-winning composer/lyricist, who wrote the scores to such musicals as Pippin, Wicked, Godspell, and The Magic Show, will present Ben Vereen, the Tony Award-winning actor-singer-dancer, with the Lifetime Achievement Award. And Dee Dee Bridgewater, who recently starred as Billie Holiday in the acclaimed Off-Broadway play 'Lady Day' and who can be listened to twice weekly in her own programs on the all-jazz nonprofit radio station WBGO, will present Amy Niles, acting president and CEO of the Newark-based station, with its award.

Provogue Records are pleased to announce the March 24th CD, DVD & Blu-ray release of 'Live In Amsterdam', the debut live recording from Grammy-nominated duo Beth Hart and Joe Bonamassa.

Tony Award-nominee Stephanie D'Abruzzo (Avenue Q), Drama Desk-nominees Chip Zien (Into the Woods, Falsettos) & Karen Mason (Sunset Boulevard, Mamma Mia!), Sebastian Arcelus (Elf, A Time to Kill), Nightlife Award-Winner Mark Nadler, Jillian Louis, Danny Gardner and the Broadway by the Year Chorus have been added to Town Hall's 14th season opener of its Broadway by the Year Series on Monday, February 24 at 8pm, THE BROADWAY MUSICALS OF 1915-1939. They join previously announced Tony Award-winners Tonya Pinkins and Beth Leavel, Tony Award-nominees Carolee Carmello, Stephanie J. Block, Karen Akers and Emily Skinner, Drama Desk Award-nominee Julia Murney, Grammy Award-winners Lari White and John Easterlin, Noah Racey (Curtains), Camille Saviola (Nine), concert and recording artist Howard Fishman and Nightlife Award-winner Carole J. Bufford. Individual tickets ($57 and $47) are on sale at www.TicketMaster.com or by phone at 800-982-2787; series subscriptions ($180-$220) are available at www.TheTownHall.org.

The iconic festival, Newport Jazz Festival, turns 60 and takes the show on a road with Philadelphia performance and debut at the Merriam Theater on Sunday, March 9 at 8 p.m. The Newport Jazz Festival: Now 60 pays homage to jazz luminaries such as Billie Holiday, Dizzie Gillespie, and Duke Ellington, whose classic jazz standards where first recorded at the festival, reinterpreted through the lens of contemporary jazz artists. The program also provides a progressive exploration of global jazz with Brazilian, Gypsy, Latin influences.

Ann Hampton Callaway is one of the leading champions of the great American Songbook, having made her mark as a singer, pianist, composer, lyricist, arranger, actress, educator, TV host and producer. She will perform at Crazy Coqs from April 8 - 12.

Hotel Nikko and Michael Feinstein will welcome renowned San Francisco Bay Area jazz vocalist, Paula West, to Feinstein's at the Nikko for a four-week engagement - tonight, February 13 - March 9, 2014.

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College continues its 2013-14 season with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra's A Tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, featuring vocalist Deloris King Williams,on Sunday, April 27, 2014 at 3:00pm. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased by phone at 718-951-4500 (Tues-Sat, 1pm-6pm) or online at BrooklynCenterOnline.org.

What does it mean when we say someone is cool? Cool carries a social charge of rebellious self-expression, charisma, edge and mystery. 'American Cool' will feature 100 photographs of icons who have contributed an original artistic vision to American culture and are symbolic figures of their time. The exhibition will be open at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery today, Feb. 7 through Sept. 7.

The National Black Touring Circuit's 2014 Black History Month Play Festival will hold poetry, music and drama performances in Harlem that celebrate acclaimed poet Amiri Baraka, legendary singer Billie Holiday, the Great Divas of Gospel and Ossie Davis' renowned play 'The People of Clarendon County' from February 7 - March 2.

The Billie Holiday Theatre continues its 42nd Season Generations United on February 27 with the World Premiere of Maid's Door by Writers Guild Award winner and Emmy Award nominee Cheryl L. Davis; the show will be directed by the Theatre's Artistic Director Jackie Alexander. Previews will begin Thursday, February 27; Opening Night will be Thursday, March 6; and the show will run through Sunday, March 30. Performances are Thursday-Saturday at 8pm with matinees on Saturday at 3pm and Sunday at 4pm. All tickets are $25 and can be purchased online at www.thebillieholiday.org or by calling the box office at 718-636-0918 or 0919. A discounted rate of $15 is available for Children 15 and younger, Seniors, and Students with a valid ID.