--- description: Can Audra McDonald be stopped? The acclaimed Broadway actress has already won five Tony Awards and has a strong chance to pick up a sixth... title: Lady Sings the Booze for Tony image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3224a7bcf54a534/69868f6006f2c1261632edf7/audra-mcdonald-as-billie-holiday.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) ## Entertainment Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Lady Sings the Booze for Tony by [Richard Zoglin](/author/richard-zoglin/) ## Richard Zoglin Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 15, 2014 10:39 AM CUT  Evgenia Eliseeva by [Richard Zoglin](/author/richard-zoglin/) ## Richard Zoglin Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 15, 2014 10:39 AM CUT Can Audra McDonald be stopped? The acclaimed Broadway actress has already won five Tony Awards and has a strong chance to pick up a sixth for playing Billie Holiday in the revival of Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. Lanie Robertson’s 1986 play is a re-creation of one of Holiday’s last shows, at a Philadelphia club just months before her death in 1959\. It’s not much of a play, merely an extended monologue in which Holiday, between songs, gives a rambling account of the abuse, racism and addiction that plagued her life. There’s something a little surefire, even patronizing, about Broadway’s most operatic star playing a wasted jazz singer trying to hold it together through a haze of booze and heroin. But McDonald is totally convincing, and her reproduction of Holiday’s delicate, croaky, emotionally charged singing voice is downright uncanny. If not one of the great performances in Broadway history, it’s certainly one of the great impersonations. –RICHARD ZOGLIN ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/100551/lady-sings-the-booze-for-tony/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/100551/lady-sings-the-booze-for-tony/"},"headline":"Lady Sings the Booze for Tony","datePublished":"2014-05-15T10:39:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T07:51:10.599Z","description":"Can Audra McDonald be stopped? The acclaimed Broadway actress has already won five Tony Awards and has a strong chance to pick up a sixth...","url":"https://time.com/100551/lady-sings-the-booze-for-tony/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3224a7bcf54a534/69868f6006f2c1261632edf7/audra-mcdonald-as-billie-holiday.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Richard Zoglin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/richard-zoglin/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb3224a7bcf54a534/69868f6006f2c1261632edf7/audra-mcdonald-as-billie-holiday.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Audra-McDonald-as-Billie-Holiday","caption":"Audra McDonald as Billie Holiday Broadway NYC 2013 Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill","creditText":"Evgenia Eliseeva","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/100551/lady-sings-the-booze-for-tony/","name":"Lady Sings the Booze for Tony"}}]}] ```