"Josephine: A Burlesque Cabaret Dream Play"

"Burlesque Cabaret" Play About Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker -- triple-threat performer, civil rights pioneer, sexual iconoclast, and once the richest black woman on the planet -- now has a brilliant musical play in her honor. Tymisha "Tush" Harris embodies the legendary artist in the magnificent "burlesque cabaret dream-play" "Josephine" at Soho Playhouse. Harris recounts Baker's journey from Missouri poverty and exploitation (she was married twice before she turned 16) to Parisian high society and Martin Luther King's March on Washington. Harris makes the audience feel Baker's pain and pride at every turn, both through songs -- highlighted by a heartbreaking rendition of "Bye Bye Blackbird" and a stirring slowed-down reinterpretation of Dylan's "Times They Are A-Changin'" -- and heartfelt soliloquies.