San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Karole Foreman returns to role of ‘Lady Day’
Actor keeps discovering new insights into jazz singer as Cygnet Theatre stages the jukebox musical
“We remember her as a victim, a person with substance addiction issues. But I think she is most remembered because of how she triumphed through her artistry.”
When Karole Foreman steps onstage at Cygnet Theatre for her star turn in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill,” it will mark the fifth time that she’s portrayed the legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday in this longstanding jukebox musical. For Foreman, the inspiration and the education continue.
“The more I investigate her,” she said, “it’s like peeling away layers of an onion. There’s always something to learn from her life experience.”
Holiday’s life was one of pioneering artistic achievement, but it was also marked by personal tragedy. Both aspects of that life are chronicled in song and storytelling in the 1986 musical by Lanie Robertson that imagines Holiday delivering one of the last performances of her career before a small cabaret audience in 1959.
“She was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century in terms of not only her artistry but what she represents as an embodiment of the American legacy,” said Foreman. “And that includes our legacy in terms of dealing with racism, sexism and how an individual
defiantly strives and excels with her gift.
“We remember her as a victim, a person with substance addiction issues. But I think she is most remembered because of how she triumphed through her artistry.”
“Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” is being presented at Cygnet in association with L.A.’S Ebony Repertory Theatre. Ebony founder Wren T. Brown is directing the production, which features more than a dozen songs either made famous by Holiday or co-written by her, or both. The songs include “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” “T’ain’t Nobody’s Business If I
Do,” “God Bless the Child” and “Strange Fruit,” which Foreman called “the first protest song.”
Embodying Holiday onstage, Foreman said, is not a case of imitation.
“The idea is to be faithful to the dialect, to the placement of her voice and to the circumstances of her life that were real,” she said.
To that end, Foreman has worked with dialect coach-to-thestars Denise Woods.
“In our play,” Foreman said, “Billie Holiday talks about her grandmother, who was an African who was enslaved in Virginia. Denise happened to have all these recordings of enslaved Africans in Virginia at that time. When I listened to these recordings, I realized their vocal placement was in the same place that Billie Holiday’s placement was. For me, that was a point of entry into the truth of her voice.”
In addition, Foreman has worked with L.a.-based vocal coach Michael Scott Harris not only to be faithful to Billie Holiday the singer but to manage the strain of performing her songs night after night.
“We worked on the vocal stylings and interpretation of some of the songs so I could preserve my voice for not only performances but to be able to approximate her musicianship,” said Foreman.
The significance of starring in this show at this time in American history is very much on Foreman’s mind.
“It’s a seminal time since the pandemic where we’ve had time to sit and listen to people’s stories,” she said. “With the Black Lives Matter movement and also the accountability of institutions, I think it’s a unique opportunity to celebrate stories from that point of view, how things might have been different for her (Holiday) if she had had treatment for drug addiction instead of being criminalized for it.”
Holiday served almost a year in Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia on a possession-ofnarcotics charge.
“It gives me deep compassion, empathy and awe for what she was able to accomplish in spite of all these tremendous obstacles,” said Foreman.