Actress to return as Billie Holiday in show

Six-time Tony-award winning singer and actress Audra McDonald will reprise her role as legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday in the hit Broadway show Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill in a special for HBO, the cable network said on Wednesday.

McDonald will begin filming the play before a live audience in New Orleans this month. It is based on Holiday's performance, one of her last, at a small Philadelphia bar shortly before her death in 1959 at the age of 44.

The singer, who won a best-actress Tony for her performance in the show, which was written by Lanie Robertson, became the only woman to win a Tony in all four acting categories and six competitive awards.