Gipson wows as ‘Lady Day’
YOUNGSTOWN — Singing like Billie Holiday may be the least of the challenges that Carla Gipson faces and triumphs over in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.” There are plenty of songs in Lanie Robertson’s play, which continues its run at Hopewell Theatre with three performances this weekend. But Gipson essentially delivers a well-calibrated meltdown on stage in a show that takes place in a Philadelphia saloon a few months before Holiday died in 1959 at age 44 from heart failure and cirrhosis of the liver. It starts cheery enough with Holiday singing up tempo numbers such ...
