Angela Wildflower always knew she belonged on stage.
The actress and singer from Kansas City, Kansas, graduated from Schlagle High School. She says she was aware early on of her dream to perform.
"I was singing, acting, playing instruments and band president. I was one of those kids," she told KCUR's Up To Date. "I was doing a little bit of everything"
Though she lives out of state now, Wildflower has returned home to play the jazz legend Billie Holiday in the one-woman show "Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill," which runs through Oct. 27 at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre's Copaken Stage.
The Tony Award-winning play features many of Holiday’s — or "Lady Day’s" —most famous songs, and takes place in a small jazz club in south Philadelphia at around midnight. The production is set in 1959, four months before Holiday's death at the age of 44 from heart failure.
"It allows you to hear her entire journey from the beginning to the end and just kind of see what headspace she was in and how she got there," says Wildflower. "So, you know, bringing that place alive, that club alive, that energy alive here in 2024, is very special."
- Angela Wildflower, actress and singer
Note: The Kansas City Repertory Theatre is a financial supporter of KCUR. Our journalism is editorially independent of funders.
