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Dateline: 8th April, 2005
Billie Holliday at the New Players Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill is to open in the West End for a 12-week season from 5th May at The New Players Theatre. Opening in the West End after an eight-week sell out season at the New End Theatre, this critically acclaimed production, by Lanie Robertson, directed by Mark Clements, features a virtuoso performance from Dawn Hope in the title role. It features over a dozen of the songs that transformed the singer they called 'Lady Day' into a jazz legend. Warren Wills accompanies her on the piano as Jimmy Powers, Billie¹s musical director. Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill is booking to Saturday July 23. It opens on Tuesday 10th May at 7.00pm, after previews from 5th. It's 'round midnight in a small bar in South Philadelphia, March 1959, and Billie Holiday is making one of her final appearances washed-up but still charismatically engaging. In the sleazy and intimate surroundings of her old friend Emerson's bar, she begins her set and between songs gradually pours out the highs and lows of her life - the heartaches and the triumphs. Dawn Hope's many West End credits include the recent smash-hit Simply Heavenly, Bubbling Brown Sugar, Piaf, They're Playing Our Song, Black Mikado, Time and Little Shop of Horrors. She also made West End history by performing in two shows at the same time - Chicago at night and Ain¹t Misbehaving at matinees. Other work includes Follow My Leader at Hampstead Theatre, Josephine (Critics Circle nomination for Best Performance) at BAC, Metropolis Kabaret at the RNT and Queen of Barbary at Sadler's Wells. She has also appeared extensively in both film and TV. Warren Wills was most recently the Musical Supervisor and arranger for Simply Heavenly at the Young Vic and Trafalgar Studios. As a Musical Director, his work includes Soul Train at the Victoria Palace and national tour, Josephine at BAC, Babel Nights at BAC, Zorro at Stratford East, The World Goes Round at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Lady Day at Emmerson's Bar & Grill at Derby Playhouse/New End Theatre, Follow My Leader at Hampstead Theatre and national tours of Midnight Hour and Patsy Cline. He is also the regular MD for Peter Straker and Sharon D Clarke. Director Mark Clements is the former Artistic Director of Derby Playhouse, where he first directed this production and is now the newly-appointed Artistic Director for the New Players Theatre. He has worked extensively both in the UK and US where his work includes the critically acclaimed UK & US premieres of Speaking In Tongues at Hampstead Theatre (Barclays TMA Best Director nomination) and also for the Roundabout Theatre Company, New York. The world premiere of The Thing About Men (winner of the 2004 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off Broadway Musical), Follow My Leader at Hampstead Theatre, The Browning Version at Derby Playhouse and Blunt Speaking at Chichester Festival Theatre, both starring Corin Redgrave and Soul Train in the West End (Olivier Award nomination). Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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