Synthia L. Hardy has clearly spent many years studying and performing onstage as Billie Holiday. But she doesn’t glamorize the famous jazz singer in her well-written play with music “Billie! Backstage with Lady Day.”
Holiday drank herself to death at age 44, just a few years after this play is set, and her character’s proud delusions about her sobriety and her “good” husband Louis McKay — who would embezzle her earnings and leave her penniless — are poignant insights about the singer’s troubled life. Holiday grew up in poverty, was raped at age 10, spent time in reform school and prison, and battled drug addiction, alcoholism and oppressive racism.
Hardy sings many of the songs for which Holiday is best known, including “God Bless the Child,” which in the play Holiday said was inspired by her childhood struggles with her mother, and “Strange Fruit,” a haunting song written by poet Louis Allen after he saw a photo of a Black man’s lynching. There are also forgiving love songs for the many men who did her wrong.
Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: VogueRunway - 🏆 705. / 51 Read more »
Source: VogueRunway - 🏆 705. / 51 Read more »
Source: VogueRunway - 🏆 705. / 51 Read more »
Source: VogueRunway - 🏆 705. / 51 Read more »
Source: VogueRunway - 🏆 705. / 51 Read more »