Once and Audra
The bulk of the songs are ones Guy has wrote, performed either in bars, in a private moment, or recorded/rehearsed (since Girl helps/convinces him to make a record). The set actually isn't impressive in terms of scale: a folding bar, chairs and tables, but all those pieces are used to make different settings--pubs, Guy's house/room, Girl's house/room, a piano shop, bank, recording studeo, and boardwalk (they somehow raised the bar and had them stand on top of it). The really amazing thing is that the cast is the band; they warmed up by playing various pub songs before the lights were dimmed (one of them is a bonus track on the soundtrack), and then the "MC" played a poem someone wrote music to, and then the show actually begins with Guy being called up to sing "Leave". But anyway, every actor plays at least one instrument, so even when say, five ppl are bar patrons, they're fleshing out Guy's and girl's solos/duets with other guitars, fiddles//violin/bases/chellos, drums, (when they're not serving as scene changing music or being the musically talented characters) and harmonizing or serving as backup singers while they (more often than not) dance as well. Because, you know, they couldn't just be talonted actors and make us normal people feel adequit *grin*.
Audra McDonald is glorious in concert, but even more amazing when she's doing a full-on Billy Holiday imitation: a drunken slur (with every word perfectly understandable) that occasionally rasped both when she spoke and sang 14 of Holiday's best-known songs with no intermission (but there was a break because "Lady Day" becomes increasingly more upset/ill and the band does a song while she's offstage--plus some of the songs aren't sung all the way through because Lady Day gets too wound up/forgetful). The audience is treated to many rambling monologues about her life--the woman was in the bed with her grandmother the morning she died, got raped 1 or 2 years later, suffered through African American discrimination, and then got addicted to heroine because of her bastard of a first husband who then planted drugs in her suitcase during a show (in Philly where the play's set) then said if she pleaded guilty she'd do less time than him because of her celebrity. But despite all that, her final line is that she just wants a beautiful house, kids, and a small club like the one she's in now where she can sing for all her friends. I'm not doing it/Audra justice, but she's in danger of winning a 6th Tony, imho!!!
Posted via m.livejournal.com.
Audra McDonald is glorious in concert, but even more amazing when she's doing a full-on Billy Holiday imitation: a drunken slur (with every word perfectly understandable) that occasionally rasped both when she spoke and sang 14 of Holiday's best-known songs with no intermission (but there was a break because "Lady Day" becomes increasingly more upset/ill and the band does a song while she's offstage--plus some of the songs aren't sung all the way through because Lady Day gets too wound up/forgetful). The audience is treated to many rambling monologues about her life--the woman was in the bed with her grandmother the morning she died, got raped 1 or 2 years later, suffered through African American discrimination, and then got addicted to heroine because of her bastard of a first husband who then planted drugs in her suitcase during a show (in Philly where the play's set) then said if she pleaded guilty she'd do less time than him because of her celebrity. But despite all that, her final line is that she just wants a beautiful house, kids, and a small club like the one she's in now where she can sing for all her friends. I'm not doing it/Audra justice, but she's in danger of winning a 6th Tony, imho!!!
Posted via m.livejournal.com.