It was recently announced that Lanie Robertson’s musical play Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill will receive a cast recording. In celebration of what would have been Billie Holiday’s 99th birthday, anyone who purchases full price tickets today for Lady Day at the Circle in the Square box office will be automatically signed up to receive a free copy of the new cast recording. Label and release date information for the new recording will be announced at a later date. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.

Audra McDonald returns to the Broadway stage tonight as the legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday for the first preview performance of Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill at the Circle in the Square Theatre.  Directed by Lonny Price, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill will officially open on April 13. The Broadway production is a limited, 10-week engagement.

The musical play, which centers on one of Holiday’s final public appearances in 1959, takes place in Philadelphia four months before the singer’s death. The 90-minute show includes such songs as “God Bless the Child,” “Strange Fruit,” “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” “When a Woman Loves a Man,” “Foolin’ Myself,” “Don’t Explain,” “Somebody’s On My Mind,” “Taint Nobody’s Bizness,” “Baby Doll” and more.

This production marks Audra’s first time on Broadway since her Tony-Award winning performance as Bess in The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets.

Five-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald will return to Broadway this spring to take on the role of legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday in the Broadway premiere of Lanie Robertson’s Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.  The musical play will be directed by Lonny Price (110 in the Shade, A Class Act) and will begin rehearsals on March 10, 2014, with previews beginning March 25, 2014, at the Circle in the Square Theatre (1633 Broadway) for a strictly limited 10 week engagement with only 70 performances. Opening night is set for April 13, 2014.

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill recounts Holiday’s life story through the songs that made her famous. 1959, in a small, intimate bar in Philadelphia, Holiday puts on a show that unbeknownst to the audience, will leave them witnesses to one of the last performances of her lifetime.  Through her poignant voice and moving songs, one of the greatest jazz singers of all-time shares her loves and her losses.

Among the 18 songs that will be performed: “God Bless the Child,” “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” “Strange Fruit” and “Taint Nobody’s Biz-ness.”

Frequent collaborators Lonny Price and Audra have been developing and working on Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill for more than two years. The intimate setting of the Circle in the Square provides a unique theatrical experience, drawing audiences – especially those seated at the tables onstage – into the performance.

Tickets will be available via Telecharge.com or by calling (212) 239-6200.

As part of Carnegie Hall’s 2014-15 season lineup, announced earlier today, Audra McDonald will give a concert in Stern Auditorium on December 12, 2014. A regular guest of the Hall, Audra has been heard on Carnegie’s stages 17 times, including as part of its 120th anniversary gala with the New York Philharmonic and a 2002 concert staging of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel with Hugh Jackman. Of her last appearance in 2011, the New York Times wrote: “She is a one-of-a-kind musical super-talent…Her soprano voice is stronger than ever, its mighty middle range a daunting power tool.”

Audra McDonald’s Library of Congress concert, which was cancelled in October 2013 because of the government shutdown, has been rescheduled for February 1, 2014. Tickets from the previous date will be honored on February 1. The following week, Audra will celebrate Valentine’s Day a few days early with a special reading of Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis” with husband Will Swenson at New York’s Public Theater on February 10. Click here for a full schedule of upcoming appearances.