What's on Donate {{ ::vm.cart_counter }} Cart
Artwork for Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill
Artwork for Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill
Artwork for Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill
Artwork for Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill
Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill

19 Oct — 9 Dec 2023

Arts Centre Melbourne, Fairfax Studio

Zahra Newman stars as the great Billie Holiday in an extraordinary showcase of acting and vocal mastery. Featuring beloved songs amid a personal, spoken-word tour of her life, this Tony Award-winning production is an iconic and intimate snapshot of one of the world’s most revered jazz voices.

Approx. 1 hour 30 minutes with no interval

Book Now
Explore
This is rated 5 out of 5 stars

‘Zahra Newman pulls off a rare feat. Lady Day lives again in this tour de force.’

The Age
This is rated 5 out of 5 stars

‘Zahra Newman as Billie Holiday establishes her own legend.’

Limelight
This is rated 5 out of 5 stars

‘Exceptional.’

Scenestr
This is rated 5 out of 5 stars

‘Beautifully raw and emotional.’

The AU Review
This is rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

‘Every element of Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill is entrancing from start to finish.’

ArtsHub

ABOUT THE SHOW

Zahra Newman stars as the great Billie Holiday in an extraordinary showcase of acting and vocal mastery. Featuring beloved songs amid a personal, spoken-word tour of her life, this Tony Award-winning production is an iconic and intimate snapshot of one of the world’s most revered jazz voices.

March, 1959, around midnight. The one and only Billie Holiday – known widely as Lady Day – is on stage in a small, run-down bar in South Philadelphia. Struggling with addiction and ill health, you're about to witness one of Billie's final shows, singing a selection of her most loved hits. Accompanied by a jazz trio, Holiday shares a collection of revealing anecdotes about her life.

Be in the room with Lady Day as the Fairfax Studio transforms into a cabaret bar, with Newman (Miss Julie) embodying the jazz great and singing many of her most iconic songs – among them ‘God Bless the Child’, ‘What a Little Moonlight Can Do’, ‘Somebody’s on My Mind’ and ‘Strange Fruit’. Directed by Mitchell Butel, it promises to take you back in time to an electrifying night in the life of an extraordinary woman.


Co-producers

stacsa w6sd50         belvoir jjv3gw

Piano generously supplied by 

KAWAI logo black jj3gnd

 

Accessibility

  • Wheelchair Accessible

  • Hearing Assistance

  • Audio Described

  • Tactile Tour

  • Open Captioning

  • Closed Captioning

  • Auslan Interpreted

Performance Type Performance Date(s)
Audio Described
by Vision Australia 		Saturday 11 November at 2pm
Tuesday 14 November at 6.30pm
Tactile Tour
by Vision Australia 		Saturday 11 November, 2pm (Tactile tour commences at 1pm)
Open Captioning
via screen 		Saturday 18 November at 2pm
Closed Captioning
via GoTheatrical App 		Saturday 18 November at 2pm
Auslan Interpreted
by Auslan Stage Left 		Tuesday 21 November at 6.30pm
Zahra Newman

Zahra Newman

Billie Holiday

Zahra Newman is returning to Melbourne Theatre Company, having appeared in Miss Julie, The Effect, The Mountain Top, The Cherry Orchard, Menagerie, Clybourne Park, The Drowsy Chaperone and Richard III. A graduate of VCA, her other theatre credits include Fences, A Raisin in the Sun, Julius Caesar, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Love and Information (Sydney Theatre Company); Random, The Blind Giant is Dancing, Ivanov, The Government Inspector, Private Lives (Belvoir); Well Behaved Women (Hayes Theatre Company); Girl from the North Country (GWB Entertainment) and the critically acclaimed Wake in Fright for Malthouse Theatre/Sydney Opera House, which she also co-created. Zahra’s film credits include Truth, I Met A Girl, Long Story Short and Thirteen Lives. Her television credits include Netflix’s Pieces of Her, Spreadsheet, Diary of an Uber Driver, Sisters, Foxtel’s Wentworth, Neighbours, Rosehaven, Childhood’s End and Rush. She has won numerous awards including an AACTA and a Sydney Theatre Award.

Current as of October 2023. 

Artwork for Elenoa Rokobaro

Elenoa Rokobaro

Alternate Billie Holiday

Elenoa Rokobaro was plucked from the Australian International Performing Arts High School (AIPAH) at the age of 16 to star in Respect: The Musical in 2007. Elenoa’s credits include Joanne in Rent (Sydney Opera House); Susan in Tick, Tick…BOOM! (Storeyboard Entertainment); Fay Apple in Anyone Can Whistle and Well Behaved Women (Hayes Theatre); The Things I Could Never Tell Steven (National Theatre of Parramatta); Betty Blokk-Buster Follies Reimagined (Redline Productions); The Book of Mormon (GFO); Dusty (TPC); Side Show (One Eyed Man Productions); Ghost (ATG); Violet (Blue Saint Productions); Legally Blonde (GFO); Hairspray (DCE/David Atkins); Fame (GFO); High School Musical Onstage (Disney) and Chanteuse (Adelaide Cabaret Festival). Elenoa was also featured in the Baz Luhrmann film The Great Gatsby. In 2019 she was awarded Best Female Actor in a Leading Role in both the Sydney Theatre Awards and the GLUG Awards for her rendition of Caroline Thibodeaux in the acclaimed Caroline, Or Change (Hayes Theatre Company).

Current as of October 2023. 

Artwork for Kym Purling

Kym Purling

Jimmy Powers

Artwork for Dan Witton

Dan Witton

Upright Bass

Artwork for Edward York

Edward York

Drums

Artwork for Lanie Robertson

Lanie Robertson

Writer

Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill was produced on Broadway and in London’s West End with Audra McDonald before making its way to Melbourne Theatre Company. Lanie Robertson’s first plays The Insanity of Mary Girard and Back County Crimes are frequently performed by schools and community theatres. Many of his works are about iconic artists: Nasty Little Secrets (Joe Orton), Woman Before a Glass (Peggy Guggenheim), Alfred Stieglitz Loves O’Keeffe (Georgia O’Keeffe), Nobody Lonesome for Me (Hank Williams), The Gardener (Claude Monet) and Blythe Coward (Noël Coward). His works have been produced at the Alley Theatre, the Alliance Theatre, Annenberg Centre, Arena Stage, Barrington Stage, the Edinburgh Festival, Festival d’Avignon, George St. Playhouse, Kennedy Centre, Old Globe, Primary Stages, Playwrights Horizons, Theatre de la Huchette, Theatre Petit Montparnasse, Theatre Silvia Montfort, Vineyard Theatre, Virginia Stage, the Walnut Street Theatre, Westside Arts Theatre and Williamstown Theatre Festival. His first novel will be published in 2024.

Current as of October 2023

Artwork for Danny Holgate

Danny Holgate

Musical Arrangements

With a career spanning almost 50 years, the late Broadway musical director and arranger Danny Holgate was well known as the music orchestrator and arranger of an all-Black revival cast of Guys & Dolls. He also worked as musical director and arranger on Bubbling Brown Sugar and Eubie!, and as the music arranger on the 2007 off-Broadway production of Three Mo’ Tenors. Holgate’s additional credits include dance arranger and conductor for Odyssey, starring Yul Brynner, Jerry Butler, Alexis Smith, Lena Horne and Cab Calloway; associate producer/orchestrator for It's So Nice to be Civilized; musical arrangements for Daddy Goodness and Don't Bother Me, I Can't Cope; musical director/orchestrator for Rainbow Jones and orchestrator/arranger for Storyville.

Current as of October 2023. 

Mitchell Butel

Mitchell Butel

Director

Mitchell Butel is an award-winning director and actor, and the Artistic Director of State Theatre Company South Australia. His directing credits include The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, Girls & Boys, Hibernation, Ripcord (State Theatre Company South Australia); The Loves of Apollo & Dafne (Pinchgut Opera); Caroline, or Change, Violet (Hayes Theatre); Spring Awakening (ATYP); Funny Girl, Porgy and Bess (Sydney Symphony Orchestra); Marjorie Prime (Ensemble Theatre); Candide (Sydney Opera House); An Act of God (Darlinghurst Theatre Company) and Dead Cat Bounce (Griffin Theatre Company). As an actor, he has performed for every major commercial and state theatre company. His credits include Disgraced, Tomfoolery, Urinetown, Piaf (Melbourne Theatre Company); The Merchant of Venice, Othello (Bell Shakespeare); The Government Inspector, Meow Meow’s Little Match Girl, Woyzeck (Malthouse Theatre); and commercial musicals such as A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Avenue Q, The Producers, Little Me, Hair and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. He holds four Helpmann, three Sydney Theatre and two Green Room Awards.

Current as of October 2023

Zahra Newman

Zahra Newman

Associate Director

Zahra Newman is returning to Melbourne Theatre Company, having appeared in Miss Julie, The Effect, The Mountain Top, The Cherry Orchard, Menagerie, Clybourne Park, The Drowsy Chaperone and Richard III. A graduate of VCA, her other theatre credits include Fences, A Raisin in the Sun, Julius Caesar, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Love and Information (Sydney Theatre Company); Random, The Blind Giant is Dancing, Ivanov, The Government Inspector, Private Lives (Belvoir); Well Behaved Women (Hayes Theatre Company); Girl from the North Country (GWB Entertainment) and the critically acclaimed Wake in Fright for Malthouse Theatre/Sydney Opera House, which she also co-created. Zahra’s film credits include Truth, I Met A Girl, Long Story Short and Thirteen Lives. Her television credits include Netflix’s Pieces of Her, Spreadsheet, Diary of an Uber Driver, Sisters, Foxtel’s Wentworth, Neighbours, Rosehaven, Childhood’s End and Rush. She has won numerous awards including an AACTA and a Sydney Theatre Award.

Current as of October 2023. 

Artwork for Kym Purling

Kym Purling

Musical Director & Additional Arrangements

Artwork for Ailsa Paterson

Ailsa Paterson

Set & Costume Designer

Ailsa Paterson completed a Bachelor of Dramatic Art in Design (NIDA) in 2003. Recent design credits include The Marriage of Figaro (State Opera South Australia), Tracker (Australian Dance Theatre), Girls and Boys (State Theatre Company South Australia/Adelaide Festival/Sydney Festival), A Christmas Carol and Boxing Day BBQ (Ensemble Theatre), Watershed (Adelaide Festival) and Chalkface (Sydney Theatre Company/State Theatre Company South Australia). Set and costume design credits for State Theatre Company South Australia include Single Asian Female, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Gaslight, Jasper Jones, End of the Rainbow, Creditors, Sense and Sensibility, Switzerland, The 39 Steps, Beckett Triptych, The Importance of Being Earnest, In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play, War Mother, The Ham Funeral, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), The Price and The Cripple of Inishmaan. Costume design credits include The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, The Boy Who Talked to Dogs (with Slingsby), Betrayal, A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler, Things I Know To Be True, Little Bird, The Seagull and Three Sisters.

Current as of October 2023. 

Artwork for Govin Ruben

Govin Ruben

Lighting Designer

Govin Ruben is a performance maker, director and designer based in Melbourne. He’s also the director of theatre company TerryandTheCuz. In recent years, he has created and directed multiple international collaborations across various artforms such as SK!N, a performance based on true stories about human trafficking; Thicker Than Water and the off-Broadway season of MADE IN AMERICA (both presented at The Public in NYC); HuRU-hARa, a hybrid performance/space at AsiaTOPA 2020 and theskinproject.org, an interactive website adapted from his award-winning work and developed in conjunction with the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Govin is a board director for the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA). He is a multiple Greenroom Award winner for his works SK!N and HuRU-hARa and is a five-time winner of the National Arts Award in Malaysia. He has also been nominated for a New York City Innovative Theatre Award, 11 Greenroom Awards and a Royal Welsh Theatre Award.

Current as of October 2023. 

Artwork for Andrew Howard

Andrew Howard

Sound Designer

Andrew Howard is resident sound designer for State Theatre Company South Australia, where his most recent sound design credits include Prima Facie, Every Brilliant Thing, The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?, Single Asian Female, The Normal Heart, Cathedral, Girls & Boys, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Hibernation, The Appleton Ladies’ Potato Race, Euphoria, The Boy Who Talked to Dogs (with Slingsby Theatre Company), Ripcord, Gaslight, Dance Nation, Jasper Jones, End of the Rainbow, Animal Farm and The Gods Of Strangers. His other theatre credits as sound designer and/or composer include Helly’s Magic Cup, Grug and Girl Asleep (Windmill Theatre Co), Despoiled Shore, Medeamaterial, Landscape with Argonauts, The War, Please Go Hop! and Highway Rock 'n' Roll Disaster (The Border Project), One Long Night in The Land of Nod and The Homecoming (Floogle), The Birthday Party and Blackbird (Flying Penguin Productions), Boxing Day Test (Junglebean) and Little Green Tractor (Patch Theatre).

Current as of October 2023. 

Geraldine-Cook-Dafner-600x800.jpg

Geraldine Cook-Dafner

Voice & Dialogue Coach

Geraldine Cook-Dafner returns to Melbourne Theatre Company having worked on Escaped Alone and What If If Only, I Wanna Be Yours, Bernhardt/Hamlet, Sunday, Girls & Boys, The Lifespan of a Fact, Home I’m Darling, The Golden Shield, Wild, The Children, Hay Fever, Di and Viv and Rose, Melbourne Talam, John, The Odd Couple, Straight White Men, The Distance, Birdland, The Waiting Room, Top Girls, The Heretic, The Swimming Club, The 39 Steps, The History Boys, All My Sons, The Clean House, Boy Gets Girl, Take Me Out and The Glass Menagerie. Her other theatre credits include &Juliet (Regent Theatre) and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. She has also worked at SBS, Malthouse Theatre and Musica Viva. Geraldine trained at Middlesex University, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and has a doctorate from the University of Melbourne. She is also an Honorary Senior Fellow at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Current as of October 2023. 

Artwork for Jennifer Innes

Jennifer Innes

Voice & Dialogue Coach

Jennifer Ines is a voice and dialect coach for film, television and theatre productions in Melbourne and Adelaide. She currently teaches at Flinders Drama Centre and works with private voice and dialect clients from all walks of life. She studied acting and classical theatre at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and voice and dialect at VCA and Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, where she went on to lecture in Voice and Acting. Jennifer has coached for companies including Red Stitch Actors Theatre, The Honeytrap, Mischief Theatre, State Opera South Australia and State Theatre Company South Australia. She has performed with Essential Theatre, Theatreworks, Opera Australia and State Theatre Company South Australia among others. A former board member and current professional member of the Australian Voice Association and the (international) Voice and Speech Trainers Association, Jennifer is keenly engaged with global voice research and advancements. She is a proud MEAA member.

Current as of October 2023. 

Learn more about Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill

Get Directions

Fairfax Studio

100 St Kilda Road

Melbourne , Victoria 3004