Five-time Tony Award-winning singer and actress Audra McDonald has been nominated for a 2014 Tony Award in the category of “Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play” for her performance as the legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday in Lanie Robertson’s musical play Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. This honor places her in the illustrious company of Tyne Daly (Mothers and Sons), LaTanya Richardson Jackson (A Raisin in the Sun), Cherry Jones (The Glass Menagerie), and Estelle Parsons (The Velocity of Autumn). Directed by Lonny Price, the production has also received a nomination in the category of “Best Sound Design of a Play.”

Audiences can catch Audra as Billie Holiday at the Circle in the Square Theatre now through August 10, 2014.

The 68th Tony Awards will be broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall on CBS on Sunday, June 8 at 8pm ET.

On the heels of her Outer Critics Circle Award nomination, it was announced today that Audra McDonald has been nominated for the 2014 Drama Desk Award in the category of “Outstanding Actress in a Play” for her portrayal of Billie Holiday in Lanie Robertson’s musical play Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.

Audra received the 2012 Drama Desk Award in the category of “Outstanding Actress in a Musical” for her performance as Bess in the Broadway production of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. The award marked her fourth from the Drama Desk committee; she won her first in 1994 in the category of “Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical” for her star turn as Carrie Pipperidge in Carousel. 

The 2014 Drama Desk Awards will be presented on June 1 at New York’s Town Hall.

Yesterday, it was announced that Audra McDonald has been nominated for the 2014 Outer Critics Circle Award in the category of “Outstanding Actress in a Musical” for her portrayal of the legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday in Lanie Robertson’s musical play Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. In 2012, Audra won in the same category for her role as the downtrodden Bess in the Broadway revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. Lady Day, directed by Lonny Price, has also been nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award in the category of “Outstanding Revival of a Musical.”

The Drama League announced today that Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill has been nominated for the 2014 Drama League Award in the category of “Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Musical.”

In 2012, Audra received the Drama League’s Distinguished Performance Award for her role as Bess in The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. This award is given to an artist only once during his or her career.

Due to popular demand and strong critical acclaim, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill’s limited engagement at the Circle in the Square Theatre has been extended through August 10, 2014. Lanie Robertson’s musical play, which began previews on March 25 and opened on April 13, recounts Billie Holiday’s life story through the songs that made her famous. In a small intimate bar in Philadelphia in 1959, 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 share her loves and losses.

Among the songs performed are “God Bless the Child,” “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” “Strange Fruit,” and “Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.”

Purchase your tickets to see Audra in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.

Audra McDonald has just scored another major triumph, this time as Billie Holiday in Lanie Robertson’s musical play Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. The Associated Press raved: “One of the supreme honors this Broadway season is to go to Circle in the Square, close your eyes and hear a ghost…If a voice has DNA, McDonald has cracked the code for Lady Day’s,” while the Los Angeles Times noted that “from the moment McDonald takes the microphone, a metamorphosis more striking than any in Ovid occurs. Gone is the shimmering operatic prowess that powered through “Summertime” in The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, the last of McDonald’s Tony-winning performances. In its place are Holiday’s distinctive jazz timing and idiosyncratic phrasing, qualities as singular as fingerprints.”

The New York Times hailed Audra’s ability to “sing selections from Holiday’s repertoire with sensitive musicianship and rich seams of feeling that command rapt admiration,” and the Huffington Post stated: “The most exquisite singing being done on a New York City stage right now is Audra McDonald delivering “God Bless the Child” at Circle in the Square. It’s stunning, it’s heartbreaking. If there’s anything available even better at the moment, it’s McDonald again, this time singing “Strange Fruit.” The anguish and fury in it is heart stopping.”

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill is in limited run through June 1 at the Circle and Square Theater. Purchase your seats here.

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.