As Billie Holiday steps up to the microphone, her life story pours out through the songs that made her famous. In Philadelphia, 1959, in a small intimate bar, Holiday puts on a show that unbeknownst to the audience, will leave them witnesses to one of the last performances of her lifetime. Through her poignant voice and moving songs, one of the greatest jazz singers of all-time shares her loves and her losses. This haunting and remarkable musical evening features “God Bless the Child,” “What a Little Moonlight Can Do,” “Strange Fruit” and “T’aint Nobody’s Biz-ness” and many more Lady Day hits. Springfield area premiere. This production contains adult language and subject matter.

Springfield Contemporary Theatre will continue its music series on August 17, 2014 with Canto 17. Canto 17 is a four-piece acoustic rock/funk/jazz/jam band hailing from Springfield, MO. All four members bring their diverse but extensive musical background together to create a blended sound all their own. Canto 17 is Todd Osbern (vocals/guitar/mojo), Greg Marshall (lead guitar/bass/back vocals/funk), Ryan Dunn (saxophone/soul) and Mike Gomez (lead guitar/back vocals/atmosphere).

Springfield Contemporary Theatre’s Sunday Songbook Series (typically the second Sunday evening of each mainstage performance run) presents members of our greater theatre community in intimate concert evenings. With music styles as varied as the performers themselves, audiences can expect presentations of musical theatre, jazz, rock and much more.

Legendary Hollywood producer David O. Selznick has a problem. He has just fired the director of “Gone with the Wind,” and the script is on its umpteenth version. He desperately needs a new director and writer—immediately; however, the writer he wants, script doctor Ben Hecht, has never read the novel. Selznick also calls in director Victor Fleming, pulling him from the set of “The Wizard of Oz” to be the new director of “Gone with the Wind.” Selznick locks himself, Fleming and Hecht in his office with little more than peanuts, bananas and a typewriter for five days, and they proceed to write and reenact the saga of Scarlett and Rhett. Moonlight and Magnolias is an outrageous comic homage to the brains behind an American movie classic. Springfield area premiere.