NEW YORK — The life and times of the First Lady of Song has been turned into a musical — with a powerhouse team developing it for Broadway.
Acclaimed playwright, author and actress Anna Deavere Smith has written a new musical about jazz icon Ella Fitzgerald that is currently being workshopped at Open Jar Studios in New York City.
Titled “Ella: An American Musical,” the work will portray the influential jazz icon — who died in 1996 — at different points in her life, drawing from her own songbook for the score.
Tony and three-time Grammy Award winning jazz giant Dee Dee Bridgewater has been tapped to play the ghost of Fitzgerald and Charity Angel Dawson as a younger version of the world-renowned vocalist recognized for her iconic vocal range, clear tone, improvisational skill and hallmark scat singing.
“Composers wanted Ella Fitzgerald to sing their songs because listening to her, they knew how their songs were supposed to be sung,” Smith said in a statement. “A jazz singer, a scat singer, she also famously both sang and defined the American songbook. To say she had humble beginnings is a profound understatement. She sang America through some of its most discordant times. She was America’s love song. She was an American miracle.”
Bridgewater, who won the 1975 Tony Award for best featured actress in a musical for “The Wiz,” has a storied history with Fitzgerald. After meeting her on several occasions, the elder stateswoman served a major influence on the Detroit-reared powerhouse, who won her very first Grammy Award for best jazz vocal performance with her 1997 opus “Dear Ella.” The self-produced 13-track set, which also won the Grammy Award for best arrangement, instrumental and vocals, featured many of the songs Fitzgerald made famous, including “Mack the Knife,” “How High the Moon” and 1938′s “A Tisket, A Tasket” — which launched her career and sold over 1 million copies.
“To me, this woman was the jazz singer who is responsible for making jazz singing so popular all over the world,” Bridgewater said in a 1997 Jazz USA interview promoting “Dear Ella.”
Dawson originated the role of Nurse Norma in “Waitress” at the American Repertory Theater in 2015, as well as opening the show Broadway. Currently staring as Matron “Mama” Morton in “Chicago,” the “Losing My Mind” singer’s other Broadway credits include “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Side Show.”
Actors Saint Aubyn, Angela Birchett, J. Bernard Calloway, Milanis Clark, Crystal Joy, Ken Marks, Jhardon Dishon Milton, Joshua Morgan, Rance Nix, Okwui Okpokwasili, Nick Rehberger, Jessica Rush, Deandre Sevon, and Erica Sweany are also on board for the monthlong workshop, as it gears up for a private industry presentation this fall.
“Ella: An American Musical” is helmed by “The Boy From Oz” director Philip Wm. McKinley and choreographed by Ellenore Scott, who is currently represented in the Broadway shows “Funny Girl” and “Mr. Saturday Night.”
Award-winning jazz musician Mark G. Meadows is music directing, with costumes set to be designed by Ann Hould-Ward, who previously crafted wardrobe for “The Color Purple,” “The Visit” and “Beauty and the Beast.”
Smith, who is also attached to a biographical play about tennis great Billie Jean King, is a 1996 MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her signature style of documentary theater includes the Drama Desk Award-winning “Fires in the Mirror,” two-time Tony Award-nominated “Twilight Los Angeles” and “Let Me Down Easy.”
Television viewers are familiar with the 71-year-old Baltimore native through her performances in shows such as “Blackish,” “Inventing Anna,” “The West Wing,” and “Nurse Jackie.”
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