Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill – Harlequin Productions (Olympia)
By Lanie Robertson
Directed by Jimmy Shields
Starring Alexandria J. Henderson
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. In Robertson’s Tony award-winning play, Holiday engages the audience with salty, often humorous reminiscences of her troubled life as a travelling performer in a segregated south. With the help of her piano man, Jimmy Powers, she lets music tell her story, sharing soulful and heart-wrenching songs from her memorable canon including: “Strange Fruit,” “God Bless the Child,” “When a Woman Loves a Man,” and “Ain’t Nobody’s Business if I Do.”
Location: State Theater (downtown Olympia)
General $42 • Senior/Military $38 • Student/Youth $25