After a highly successful run on Broadway that resulted in four extensions, Audra McDonald's acclaimed portrayal of jazz singer-songwriter Billie Holiday in "Lady Day at Emerson Bar & Grill" will debut as a special presentation on HBO on Saturday, March 12. Read More: 'The Leftovers' Season 3 Picked Up by HBO, But It Will Be the Last Season Written originally for off-broadway in 1987 by Lanie Robertson, "Lady Day at Emerson Bar & Grill" tells the story of Billie Holiday's life through the songs that made her famous. HBO's newly released teaser features McDonald, in the performance that earned her her sixth Tony Award, singing "God Bless The Child," one of Billie Holiday's most famous songs. The special was filmed in front of a live audience at Cafe Brazil in New Orleans. The special was directed by Lonny Price, who also directed the Broadway production, and was produced by Allen Newman and Two Hands Entertainment.
- 1/19/2016
- by Lauren Townsend
- Indiewire
This week, Vulture will be publishing our critics' year-end lists. Enjoy. 1. Audra McDonald in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & GrillBroadwayNot many New York productions this year were great in all dimensions, delivering equally on the full range of theater’s potential expressivity. And those few that were great in their various parts somehow still lacked a comprehensive sense of greatness. Forced to choose, I choose the incomplete excellence of the incomparably moving. Lanie Robertson’s 1986 Billie Holiday bioplay is nobody’s idea of adventurous storytelling; having the main character provide her own context under cover of a “real” late-career performance is a lazy shortcut even when skillfully written, as was not the case here. And Lonny Price’s staging concepts sometimes bordered on tacky. Not so his work with McDonald. She began with an uncanny imitation of Holiday’s eccentric, heartbreaking voice, capturing its pinched tone, side-mouth delivery, precipitous register leaps,...
- 12/9/2014
- by Jesse Green
- Vulture
Lady Day at Emerson's Bar amp Grill, Lanie Robertson's play with music, starring five-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald, will be recorded live at Circle in the Square during a regularly scheduled performance during the week of May 27-31by Ps Classics. The label has announced a July 15th street date preorders are already being accepted at the label's website,www.psclassics.com.
- 5/29/2014
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Like most of America (most of the world, really), you likely won't get the opportunity to see Tony Award winner Audra McDonald's live acclaimed performance as Billie Holiday, in the current Broadway production of Lanie Robertson's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill. So here's the next best thing...McDonald, as Billie Holiday, in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, appeared on The Colbert Report two nights ago, and offered audiences a look at the Broadway performance they're missing, as the late blues singer - a performance for which she's been nominated for a Tony Award this year (Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading...
- 5/1/2014
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
Lesson learned this week on Broadway: if he does not like what you wrote about him, James Franco will call you “a little bitch”. Franco, who made his Broadway debut this week in Of Mice and Men opposite Bridesmaids charmer Chris O’Dowd, took on the New York Times’ Ben Brantley on Instagram, making it the 453rd silly thing he’s done this year. (Or is it incredibly shrewd and constant self-promotion? One cannot be sure.) In more benevolent news, a bevy of much-loved stage, film, and TV triple threats returned to their roots, including Audra McDonald (channeling the haunted spirit of Billie Holiday,...
- 4/19/2014
- by Jason Clark
- EW.com - PopWatch
As BroadwayWorld previously reported, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar amp Grill, Lanie Robertson's play with music, starring Audra McDonald, has extended its limited engagement at the Circle in the Square Theatre 235 West 50th Street, btwn. Broadway and 8th Avenue through August 10, 2014. Leading lady Audra McDonald just visited Tamron Hall on MSNBC to chat about her Lady Day experience and you can check out the full interview below...
- 4/17/2014
- by Stage Tube
- BroadwayWorld.com
New York – In "Deep Song," the closing number performed by the intoxicating Audra McDonald as the intoxicated Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, the character sings with haunted self-knowledge, "I only know misery has to be part of me." Along with salty humor, joy, bitterness and plummeting despair, that sense of suffering as a constant companion permeates and elevates Lanie Robertson's slender yet affecting bio-play with music, crafted as a woozy late-night concert in the South Philly locale of the title, a few months before the singer's death. First produced
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- 4/14/2014
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Apparently, the redoubtable Audra McDonald needs to break that Tony-winning record. With five wins under her belt (the last was for her shattering take on the drug-snorting, tortured female lead of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess), she could net a sixth for the Broadway premiere of longtime regional staple Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, in which she will embody none other than “Strange Fruit” and “God Bless the Child” songstress Billie Holiday, in what would become a Tony milestone as she currently ties Angela Lansbury and the late Julie Harris for the most competitive wins by an actress.
- 3/25/2014
- by Jason Clark
- EW.com - PopWatch
The producers of Lanie Robertson's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar amp Grill just announced a general rush policy. A limited number of rush tickets, which are subject to availability, can be purchased at the box office of the Circle in the Square when the box office opens for the day of the performance on a first-come-first-served basis. The box office of the Circle in the Square opens at 10am Monday through Saturday, and at noon on Sunday starting March 30th. Rush tickets are 40 each and limited to two 2 tickets per customer.
- 3/24/2014
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
The Broadway premier production of Lanie Robertson's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar amp Grill is on the search for a small dog to perform with five-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald as the show has a dog written into it. The producers of the show have been looking for submissions for a small dog to be cast in the show and actual callbacks were held yesterday, March 11th at the Circle in the Square Theatre 1633 Broadway. Audra McDonald and Broadway animal trainer Bill Berloni were on hand to judge selected finalists and BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge was there to chat with the whole gang. Go inside the puppy auditions below...
- 3/12/2014
- by BroadwayWorld TV
- BroadwayWorld.com
The Broadway premier production of Lanie Robertson's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar amp Grill is on the search for a small dog to perform with five-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald as the show has a dog written into it. The producers of the show have been looking for submissions for a small dog to be cast in the show and actual callbacks were held yesterday, March 11th at the Circle in the Square Theatre 1633 Broadway. Audra McDonald and Broadway animal trainer Bill Berloni were on hand to judge selected finalists and BroadwayWorld brings you photos from the doggy search below...
- 3/12/2014
- by Walter McBride
- BroadwayWorld.com
New York -- The diva competition at this year's Tony Awards just got stiffer. Audra McDonald, one of Broadway's most beloved and honored performers, has signed up for a ten-week stint in the Billie Holiday bio-drama, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, by Lanie Robertson. The late entry to the current theater season takes advantage of a sudden vacancy on the Broadway real estate map since the Yankees baseball play Bronx Bombers announced last week that it would close prematurely on March 2 at the Circle in the Square Theatre. McDonald will begin preview performances there in Lady
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- 2/25/2014
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Some news from/for the stage that should be of interest, given the names involved. First, Audra McDonald may return to Broadway a lot sooner than recently announced; we already know that she'll be co-starring with Oprah Winfrey in a revival of the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1983 play Night, Mother, which is scheduled for a 2015/2016 run. Before that, however, she just might be playing Billie Holiday in a production of Lanie Robertson's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill. The versatile, multi-Tony Award winning actress is said to be in talks to star in the show, which is set in 1959 in a seedy Philadelphia bar, and relives Billie Holiday's last performance, taking place only...
- 2/21/2014
- by Tambay A. Obenson
- ShadowAndAct
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