If you saw the production of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at the Mark Taper Forum in 2016, you know how powerful a performer Lillias White is. Or perhaps you saw her in the musicals Fela! or Once on This Island or in her Tony Award-winning role in The Life. She is the epitome of an actress who can sing and a singer who can act as you will witness in An Evening with Lillias White.
White takes to the stage at Feinstein’s at Vitello’s on Friday night for the first of four local concerts. Next week she has three performances at the Samueli Theatre at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa.
White is not just a talented performer, she’s an intelligent one. She chooses material wisely and specifically. She obviously knows her way around a show tune:
She can show you exactly why a standard is a standard:
And she can prove her teacher Mrs. Jacobson wrong in the best possible way:
Thankfully she didn’t listen to Mrs. Jacobson. Go see An Evening with Lillias White to hear what her teacher didn’t understand.
For tickets to Friday’s show at Vitello’s go here.
For tickets at Samueli Theatre go here.
Photo of Lillias White courtesy of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts.