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.
You will undoubtedly hear that what Audra McDonald is doing as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill is not an impersonation. It is, though. However much more it eventually becomes, it starts with capturing that eccentric, heartbreaking voice - and the capture is uncanny. Right from the first syllables of 'I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone,' which opens the show, McDonald nails the pinched tone, side-mouth delivery, and precipitous register leaps of Holiday in her heyday. Consonants are negotiable: 'love' is more like 'luhw.' Final vowels become dramatic opportunities: 'Hear my plea-uh and hurry home to me-uh!' Pitch is obscure or even absent; some notes sound fried in place yet remain part of the melody. McDonald's Holiday doesn't so much sing as play her voice, like a saxophone, with perfect confidence in (or indifference to) its expressive powers.
| 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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