Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill by playwright Lanie Robertson is a star vehicle for any actress, and it surely is for the hauntingly fabulous Roz White, who stars as Billie Holiday, or Lady Day, as she was known to her many fans in the 1930s–1950s.
Roz White, who has performed in the Broadway national tours of TINA: The Tina Turner Musical and Dreamgirls, is making her first return to the Mosaic Theater Company since the pandemic, and it is especially worth experiencing in the stylish, immersive café-style jazz club setting. But it’s most worth it for White, who as others such as Audra McDonald have done on Broadway, is making this Holiday her own in a big, powerful way.
Even as Reginald L. Douglas’ direction intimately captures this moment in the late 1950s when Holiday was physically and emotionally wrecked from her year in prison and her alcohol and heroin addictions (she would die at age 44 in 1959 after being hospitalized for cirrhosis of the liver), White transforms herself into Billie Holiday in all her struggling, faded glory. She performs Holiday’s jazz standards including “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” “God Bless the Child,” and “When a Woman Loves a Man,” with joy and pain.
The play shares Holiday’s personal history of the racism and sexism of the music industry, evoking the blues singer Bessie Smith with her song “Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer” and telling stories of her time with the famous bandleader Artie Shaw, who she toured with in the Jim Crow South.
However, it’s our witnessing the power and draw of addiction on this great American singer that makes this play brim over with emotion. White, as Holiday, gives us her all, not only her impressive voice, in this role. She is a star, particularly as she sings “Strange Fruit.” First performed and recorded in 1939, the heart-wrenching ballad about lynching in the South pivots the play to a dark place that White’s voice and presence hold like a torch for us to see her and ourselves.
The trio performing on stage is pretty stellar too — music director William Knowles as pianist Jimmy Knowles is matched equally by Greg Holloway, drummer/percussionist, and Mark Saltman, bassist. They open the show with a superb jazz set, so make sure you are there early to listen and order drinks for your table. Kudos to Nadir Bey’s scenic design and Jesse Belsky’s dramatic lighting, which make one believe for 90 minutes they are in a jazz club, somewhere in South Philly, listening to the great Billie Holiday.
Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill is a powerful, immersive theatrical experience to kick off Mosaic Theater’s 10th season.
Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission.
Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill plays through October 13, 2024, presented by Mosaic Theatre Company performing at Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H Street NE, Washington, DC. Tickets ($50–$60, with café-style seating student and senior discounts) are available online.
The program for Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill is online here.
COVID Safety: Mosaic recommends but does not require masking. The company’s Health and Safety policy is here.
SEE ALSO:
Roz White to star as Billie Holiday in Mosaic Theater’s immersive ‘Lady Day’ (news story, August 7, 2024)
