LaDarrion Williams’s world premiere play BOULEVARD OF BOLD DREAMS has a fascinating premise transporting audiences to February 29, 1940 in the hours before Hattie McDaniel became the first Black woman to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The play finds Hattie at a bar at the Ambassador Hotel, where she encounters bartender Arthur Brooks, who aspires to be a Hollywood film director, and Dottie, a cynical maid. While based on real events, the play’s encounter is fictional, and the interiority of Hattie’s thoughts here is in large part the imagination of the playwright. That said, the vision for the play isn’t meaty enough to sustain its one hour and forty minute run-time. 

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TONI STONE is a memory play—in more ways than one. Lydia R. Diamond’s play is indeed structured in non-linear (and yet, still mostly chronological order) as the titular Toni Stone recounts her memories as the first woman to regularly play professional baseball. It’s also a memory play in the sense that it captures a moment in history that many audiences may not know before they see the work. In real life, Toni Stone played for the Indianapolis Clowns, a Negro League team, in 1953. The play itself never references that year—or any dates in Toni’s timeline—outright (the program merely lists the setting as “1920’s-1940’s USA.”) Instead, Toni weaves between different moments in her life, diving in and out of them—much like she might dive to catch a ball in the outfield (although she played second base).

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To say Alexis J. Roston’s performance as Billie Holiday in LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR AND GRILL is a masterclass in acting and singing is no exaggeration. Roston gives the kind of lived-in, seamless performance that only comes from knowing the material intimately well, and indeed, it’s a role she’s played many times before. For Mercury Theater Chicago’s current production, she’s now co-directing with Artistic Director Christopher Chase Carter. It’s clear that Roston put a lot of work into making this performance happen, but the result is true stage magic. Roston is no doubt putting her all into her portrayal of Billie Holiday, but she makes it all seem effortless. 

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