Jill Fannon Photography
As a Baltimore native and a child of the 60s and 70s, I wasn’t really familiar with Baltimore native Billie Holiday until well into the 1980s when I worked with a young woman who was a singer who competed in the annual Billie Holiday Singing Competition. Even then I was not familiar with her music because back in those days unless you owned a record player or tape deck, you had no other way to hear her sing. For you youngsters out there, there was no streaming any song you wanted at any moment. You had to do some work to hear music from the past. Oddly enough, I became aware of one of Ms. Holiday’s most famous songs, ‘Strange Fruit”, from a cover version performed by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Of course there is also the famous movie about her life, Lady Sings the Blues starring Diana Ross, but Billie Holiday still doesn’t seem to be as well-known as she should be. In 1986 the jukebox musical Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, written by Lanie Robertson and directed by Woodie King Jr., made its debut in Atlanta, Georgia. It made its way to Off-Broadway and several regional theatres before opening up shop on Broadway in 2014 with the incomparable Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday, winning a Tony Award in the process. She reprised the role for an HBO filmed version of the show and earned an Emmy nomination.
Those are some pretty big shoes to fill and the new production now at Baltimore Center Stage just may have found someone who can do it. Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill is set in March 1959 as Billie Holiday makes her triumphant return to Philadelphia to perform at the legendary nightclub. Holiday also makes it quite clear she’s not thrilled to be in Philadelphia — a town in which it seems she always encounters trouble with the law — but she loves being with her ‘friends’ there in the audience to sing for them. Over the next 100 or so minutes, Holiday does perform her songs including the aforementioned ‘Strange Fruit’ and ‘God Bless the Child’, but the music almost takes a back seat to Billie’s reminiscence of her life, of her failed first marriage, of her mother everyone referred to as ‘The Duchess’, , of her family’s slave history, of her legal issues and drug use. At times she gets so wrapped up in her monologue that her musical director — and potential new husband — Jimmy Powers has to cue her back to the moment because, as she explains, she is contractually obligated to perform a certain number of songs, even those popular ones they all want to hear, even if she doesn’t want to sing them. It becomes clear as the performance goes on that Billie, who is getting tipsy from her cocktails as the show goes on, is having a crisis, leaving the stage at one point so the doctor can take care of her (and when she returns without her long gloves on and with a much more upbeat attitude, it seems obvious that she was given a little drug-induced boost). The question when she returns is can Billie finish the show before her entire band walks out on her, or will she just get lost in her memories?
If you’re not familiar with Holiday or this show, it is based on an actual concert performance at the club just four months before she passed away which gives the show a sense of tragedy especially as Holiday recounts the darker parts of her life. But keeping it all from becoming too maudlin is the show’s star Tanea Renee, a Baltimore native herself. From the moment she steps foot on that stage with a bit of a surly attitude that lightens as soon as she starts singing, you know you are in the presence of a star. It matters not that Renee doesn’t look like Holiday, and she’s not doing a vocal impersonation, she just completely embodies the singer as if Holiday’s spirit has taken over. Renee’s voice is angelic, and the moment she performs ‘Strange Fruit’ a cappella will take your breath away, not just from the vocals but from the emotion that pours out of Renee in that moment that is more of one of Holiday’s memories than it is part of her club performance. And Renee is basically on stage for the entire show — minus that one brief moment — reciting this monologue of Billie’s life non-stop and occasionally bantering with the audience. It has to be one of the most difficult and demanding roles ever written. Through Renee’s magnificent performance, Holiday is sassy, blunt, honest, sad and happy, she is a real human being, not just a character. As an audience member, it’s hard to not feel honored to have had the good fortune to see Tanea Renee’s portrayal of Billie Holiday.
Jill Fannon Photography
Of Ms. Renee’s co-stars, Terry Brewer is really the only one of the three band members who has any dialogue, but he makes us feel Jimmy’s frustrations as Billie goes off track, but we also know he cares deeply for her. And, man, can he tickle those ivories. Francis Carroll is the percussionist of the group, and Eliot Seppa plays the upright bass. During the moment Billie leaves the stage and the band plays on to keep the audience entertained, Seppa gets a solo that is so magnetic you won’t be able to take your eyes off of his fingers as he plays that bass. It was pretty amazing.
Also amazing is this entire production. Staged by director Nikkole Salter in Center Stage’s Head Theatre, you are immediately transported to Emerson’s Bar and Grill from the moment you enter the space. In addition to the traditional theatre seating (in an almost but not quite in-the-round setting) there are tables and chairs on the floor to give those audience members the true feeling of being in a nightclub. Salter gives Renee the freedom to leave the performance stage and saunter around among the ‘patrons’ of Emerson’s, truly transporting you back to that moment in 1959. The nightclub lighting is augmented with some other lighting cues, such as flickering stage lights to signify we’re going into a memory hole with Billie, and a moment during one of her stories where the entire room is bathed in red light to signify her rage. It doesn’t always make sense, but it’s still done extremely well. My only minor quibble is the sound. I was not sure if Renee was mic’d because if she wasn’t singing into the microphone on stage, or if she was addressing one side of the audience, it was often difficult to hear the dialogue. While Renee has a lovely voice, these also aren’t songs that she’s required to belt, so even a bit more volume on the singing would have been welcome. Nonetheless, it doesn’t take away from the fact that Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill is one of the must-see shows of the season. If you’re in Baltimore, or planning to be in Baltimore, do yourself a favor and make plans to see this show. And you even have more time to see it as the producers announced a one-week extension on opening night! You will be left singing the blues if you don’t catch Tanea Renee as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill at Baltimore Center Stage.
Please note: This production contains depictions of drug and alcohol use, and references to sexual violence, racism and racial violence including the use of racial slurs.
Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill runs about 1 hour 40 minutes with no intermission. The show has been extended by popular demand and runs through October 15, 2023. Baltimore Center Stage’s next production is Cinderella (Enchanted Edition) from November 25 to December 23, 2023.
LADY DAY – Trailer
Baltimore Center Stage / Hand Me Down Films
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