Lady Day: Audra McDonald to star as Billie Day

Audra McDonald will star in the Broadway premiere of Lanie Robertson's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill opening at The Circle in the Square on 13 Apr 2014, following previews from 25 Mar 2014, playing a limited 10-week engagement through to 01 Jun 2014.

Lanie Robertson's bio-show, Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill: "The time is 1959. The place is a seedy bar in Philadelphia. The audience is about to witness one of Billie Holiday's last performances, given four months before her death. More than a dozen musical numbers are interlaced with salty, often humorous, reminiscences to project a riveting portrait of the lady and her music."

The show premiered Off-Broadway at the Westside Theatre in 1986 starring Lonette McKee as Billie Holiday, where it played for 281 performances. The NY Times said the show "Evokes all the sordidness of a woman entirely shaped by suffering.... By the end ... one is filled with an unexpected joy.... Robertson's play is a spare, shrewdly constructed piece."

Since its Off-Broadway production the musical has regularly been produced nationally and internationally.

Audra McDonald has won Tony Awards for her appearances in 'The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess,' 'A Raisin in the Sun,' 'Ragtime,' 'Master Class,' 'Master Class' and 'Carousel.' Her other Broadway credits include '110 in the Shade' (Tony nominee), 'Henry IV,' 'Marie Christine' (Tony nominee) and 'The Secret Garden.'