Step right up for tickets to 1959 and the emotionally-charged sounds distinctive of legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday. Thursday, Nov. 9 – Saturday, Nov. 11, at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 12 at noon, Concord Theatricals “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” will be presented at Panorama Music House and KC Productions SWLA.

Reserved tickets are $25 from eventbrite, and include the show. VIP tickets are $50 and include preferred seating; pre-show reception and meet and greet with complimentary buffet, signature cocktail and cast appearance. Proceeds go to MusicMakers2U, a nonprofit devoted to providing youth with access to musical instruments.

Written by Lanie Robertson and arranged by Danny Holgate in 1986, the haunting and humorous one-woman show recounts Billie Holiday’s life story through the songs that made her famous, “Strange Fruit,” “God Bless the Child,” “When a Woman Loves a Man” and “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.”

“It’s a very important play historically,” said Jay Ecker, Panorama, “and super entertaining. The setting is a Philadelphia nightclub at a time when she was exiled from New York because of being arrested for drug use, and it chronicles her ups and downs, trials, tribulations and fantastic talent and spirit through everything.”

Leah Nicole, local jazz singer, songwriter and actress will perform in the role.  She has been preparing for the stage since she was a child, for this role,the past couple of months.. However, it is long enough that her kids are beginning to give her a hard time about it.

“Mom, you’re using your Billie Holiday voice,” they complain. “Are you bi-polar or something?”

In the shower, driving in her car and as often as she can, she is Billie, but she doesn’t have Billie’s habits. “At night I would go to bed and dream of Billie Holliday,” Nicole said. “I’d tell her it’s time to go to sleep because I needed some rest.”

“Strange Fruit” is the Holiday song that holds the most meaning for her and so many others. “It’s a dark song, and I had heard it, but I hadn’t really ‘heard’ it.”

She listened and what she heard was “heart wrenching.” She was listening for more than words and notes. She paid attention to emotions, and thought about what it cost for Holiday to sing the song in the midst of what was happening at that time.

“You have to draw from somewhere deep to sing that,” she said. “It’s not really performed, it’s ministered, if you understand what that means.”

In 1939, Holliday released “Strange Fruit,” and it would become her biggest seller and an anthem against African American beatings, lynchings and burnings.

“It was Billie Holiday who said singing is how you feel,” Nicole said. “Some songs are not to be mouthed. They have to be performed.”