In this love letter to the First Lady of song, Broadway songstress Andrea Frierson seamlessly weaves her unique world of opera singing parents, Negro League pitchers, Bronx beauty shops and 1960’s television with Ella Fitzgerald’s meteoric rise from young band singer to American icon. Celebrating the timeless melodies and sparkling lyrics that made Ella great, Andrea’s brilliant, genre-defying vocals backed by a jazzy trio, led by the incomparable Ron Abel, makes this is a 54 Below debut that you won’t want to miss!

Helen Hayes award-winner ANDREA FRIERSON has performed leading roles in numerous Broadway productions, including The Lion King (Rafiki), Once on This Island (Erzulie, Goddess of Love, original cast), Marie Christine with Audra McDonald at Lincoln Center Theater, Bring in ‘Da Noise/Funk (‘Da Singer), For Colored Girls… (original Broadway production), and A Christmas Carol (Young Scrooge’s Mother, original cast) at Madison Square Garden. Television audiences may remember Andrea as a 5-time winner and semi-finalist on Ed McMahon’s nationally syndicated vocal competition, Star Search, and as Ms. Melody on Allegra’s Window (Series Regular, Nickelodeon). A Lincoln Center Theatre workshop production of her first musical play, Lady Be Good, which featured the music of her idol, Ella Fitzgerald, later served as a springboard for me & ella. Andrea is a former Dramatist Guild Fellow, as well as a Parsons’ Fund Award winner (Library of Congress) for her musical, Soon of a Mornin’, about the quilters of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, which premiered in the NYMF Festival as an invited show. She is currently working on an illustrated memoir entitled How NOT to Fall Off a Broadway Stage.   www.andreafrierson.com