THE U.S. SUPERSTAR BRINGING BILLIE HOLIDAY BACK TO LIFE
auDra McDONaLD, the most lauded actress on Broadway, will be making her West end debut portraying legendary singer Billie Holiday.
McDonald has won a record six tony awards for her acting — three of them before she was 28. She will paint her portrait of Holiday in Lanie robertson’s 1986 play with music, Lady Day at emerson’s Bar & Grill, at London’s Wyndham’s theatre for a nine-week season from June 24.
the 45-year-old classically trained singer has enjoyed a celebrated career in america, where her range has spanned opera, musicals, straight plays and several seasons on tV’s Private Practice, the Grey’s anatomy spin-off.
She’s performed in concert in London (in fact, she’s doing two shows on Sunday), but told me: ‘It’s just never come together before for an actual play or musical.
‘London is my second favourite city in the world, and I’ve always wanted to perform in the West end.
‘I’m just so tickled that it’s finally coming together and I’m especially thrilled it’s this particular project.’ I saw her in emerson’s Bar & Grill two years ago on Broadway and she immersed herself so totally in the part that the performance earned her a sixth tony statuette. to prepare, she listened to all of Holiday’s recordings. But McDonald’s a soprano and to find the voice that gave Strange Fruit and God Bless the Child such a haunting quality, she studied examples of Holiday speaking. ‘I realised she sounded a lot like my grandmother,’ she said. ‘Once I found Billie’s speaking voice, I was able to get closer to her singing voice.’ the action takes place at a bar in south Philadelphia in the spring of 1959, several months before Holiday’s death on July 17. She is alone on stage, except for a pianist . . . and a dog. the singer had a lot of pooches of various breeds, but she loved her boxer Mister. ‘Billie was such an iconic performer, singer and personality. I had to find my own version of who she was because, as she admitted, she made a bunch of stuff up,’ McDonald told me.
She met with author and civil rights activist Maya angelou, who knew Holiday, and spent time with jazz legends annie ross and Yolanda Bevan, friends of the singer.
What they all mentioned, McDonald said, was that Holiday ‘had quite a fierce maternal streak — which seems completely different from what you would think about her, seeing as she was someone who had such drug and alcohol problems.
‘they said she wanted to be a mom and settle down and have children.’
McDonald, who is married with a daughter, was very aware that when she did the show in New York, she was about to turn 45 — and Holiday died at 44.
‘On the night of the anniversary of her death, I said: “Ladies and gentlemen, at this point Billie Holiday would have been 99, had she made it.” ’
McDonald has a hectic schedule. She’s preparing to star in a new musical on Broadway called Shuffle along and will do a four-month stint in that before hopping to London to portray Lady Day at Wyndham’s. after her West end run, she’ll return to Shuffle along.
She also has to keep an eye on postproduction work for the Disney live action film of Beauty and the Beast, in which she plays Garderobe, the lady’s maid who is turned into a wardrobe.
I saw her on set at Pinewood last year and her costume was incredible.
She’s incredible as Billie Holiday, too.