This Charlotte actress was a hit as Mary Poppins. Now she’s playing Billie Holiday.
Janeta Jackson has now fast-tracked her career. She spent her first six years after college rising to the rank of singing rodent in a show at Children’s Theatre of Charlotte. But in the five years since, she has played the title role in “Mary Poppins” there – perhaps as the first African-American in any professional production – and will now embody Billie Holiday in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” for Actor’s Theatre of Charlotte.
That’s almost a one-woman show, though music director Willis Hickerson Jr. gets in a few lines as well as piano licks as Holiday’s accompanist. So when Jackson sits down for an interview before a rehearsal at ATC, she swathes her neck in a long scarf with a piano-key design.
Jackson, who pronounces her first name “Jan-ET-ta,” takes the performer’s pre-show regimen seriously: hydration, warm clothes even on a warm January afternoon, a bag of Ricola cough drops nearby, and vocal rest on rehearsal or performance days until the show ends Feb. 8.
“My husband has learned the art of whatever sign language we’ve developed during a run,” she says, laughing. “I have also found that warm French fries soothe my throat. But I can’t eat them every day, or I won’t be able to fit into my costume.”
Fried potatoes seem like a mild vice for someone playing a singer who wore out her body with drugs, liquor and rough living. Holiday died at 44, a few months after the real-life 1959 concert in Philadelphia depicted in Lanie Robertson’s play.
Answer to a prayer
But Jackson, who’s just now heading into her 30s, takes her work seriously. She has to, as it’s the answer to a prayer.
“I have never had a survival job,” she says. “That was something I prayed for. I said, ‘God, if you are going to give me this talent, I trust you will continue to provide opportunities for me.’ And God has upheld that prayer.”
The Lord first heard her singing in church in Miami, Fla. “I had a big personality, but I was shy at the same time,” she recalls. “I’d be singing Mariah Carey at the top of my voice at home, but as soon as Mom came in the room, I dropped way down.”
She found one mentor along the way in high school, a teacher named Taurie Gittings who recognized Jackson’s gifts. Young Janeta played Erzulie, goddess of love, in “Once on This Island,” and did one act of Charlayne Woodard’s four-act autobiography “Pretty Fire.”
‘Be happy’
She earned a classical voice performance degree from Florida International University in her hometown in 2009. Then she learned that “working actress” meant live shows in Orlando during a long hot Disney summer, a Winterfest gig at Carowinds, seasons spent singing on cruise ships. (Most interesting? The Princess line’s voyages along the Inside Passage of Alaska.)
“No matter where I have been, life has shooed me along,” she says philosophically. “Be happy where you are, and if you have outgrown an opportunity, life will let you know when it’s time to move on.”
Life in Charlotte
Life moved her to Charlotte in 2015, and the city became her work base. She was auditioning unsuccessfully at Actor’s Theatre when a stranger suggested she try Children’s Theatre instead. She got hired as one of the singing “Squirelles” in the musical “Elephant and Piggie: We’re in a Play” at CTC; many plays followed there and in other cities.
Life kept her here after her marriage in 2018. By then, she had scored her coup as the Banks’ sternly loving nanny the previous fall.
“Before I sent in my audition tape, I had a conversation with myself. I wasn’t traditional casting as Mary Poppins, but you have to put the ‘I can’t do this’ voice out of your head. I knew not everybody was ready to see an African-American in that role, but if I was true to the character, I would be successful. Kids in the audience wouldn’t care, and some little girls would see an actress who looked like them.
“I didn’t realize how many people heard about that (casting). I went to a callback for ‘Hamilton’ in New York the next year – I didn’t get it – and a casting agent I’d never met said, ‘Oh, you were Mary Poppins.’ I couldn’t get through the rest of the audition!”
A career challenge
Now, in her second huge career challenge, she has gone from a woman who saves broken people to a woman who can’t save her own broken self. Jackson will be careful not to imitate Billie Holiday, especially in her final year of vocal decline. She’ll also be careful not to imitate Audra McDonald, who collected one of her six Tony Awards in this role in 2014.
“Every day I listen to a little bit of Billie Holiday or watch some of a documentary about her,” says Jackson. “I try to keep a little piece of Billie with me every day.
“Audra said that, when you look up to someone, you respect their work, but you don’t recreate it. You represent it. You stay true to the artistry within yourself. That’s what I’m doing.”
“Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill”
When: Jan. 22-Feb. 8 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Also previews Jan. 16 at 7:30 (pay what you can) and Jan. 17-18 at 8 (half-price).
Where: Hadley Theater, Queens University, 2132 Radcliffe Ave.
Tickets: $28-$43. (Half off lesser-priced tickets for students, teachers, military and Queens University community).
Details: 704-342-2251 or atcharlotte.org.
This story is part of an Observer underwriting project with the Thrive Campaign for the Arts, supporting arts journalism in Charlotte.
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This story was originally published January 15, 2020 at 11:37 AM.