It takes a certain degree of confidence to portray on stage one of the greatest jazz vocalists the world has known. Veteran actor Tina Fabrique doesn’t take that task lightly.

In her role as Ella Fitzgerald in the musical “Ella,” she pays homage to a legend who overcame childhood trauma to become known worldwide as the “First Lady of Song.”

“Ella” opens at the Knight Theater in uptown Charlotte on Friday, Feb. 11, and runs through Sunday.

We caught up with Fabrique last week for a telephone interview.

An edited Q&A is below.

Watch our related video.

For more information about the show, visit the Blumenthal website.

Q. Tell me about the essence of the show. What’s it about?
The show takes place in 1966. In the first act we see that Ella has just lost her half-sister Francis, and she’s trying to deal with the fact that she has to go and bury her sister and come back and do this very important concert in Nice (France). Norman Graham, her manager, has wanted her to incorporate some patter into her performance, which is the furthest thing in her mind. So there is a little back and forth between the two of them. But while she is preparing for the concert, she’s going back in her memory, and we get to see some of the things that happened and occurred in her childhood. You get to meet some of the men from her background, her first manager, you get to meet Chick Webb. We get an idea of what Ella’s real life was like before she became this wonderful voice we all know about.

Q. When did the show premier?
In 2005 at TheaterWorks in Hartford, Connecticut. Rob Ruggiero, the artistic director there, it was his vision to present a show about her. He felt it was long overdue.

Q. And has the show been in production since?
Oh, yes. We started after 2005. We were presented at TheaterWorks all over the country. So we had very little time off. We went from 2006 straight through, and we were working non-stop, pretty much. We also saved a lot of theaters. We have made a lot of money for a lot of people.

Q. How did you land the role of Ella?
Interestingly enough, I was doing a show called “Crowns.” I was doing it at Hartford Stage. Rob came to see the show and he just made a general statement, “Ladies, I’m looking for someone to be my Ella in an upcoming production.” It didn’t really hit me. Later on he came back to see the show and he came over and spoke to me.

Q. Were you at first intimidated portraying such a great vocalist?
Well, it’s interesting. I hold Ella in very high esteem, and I have great respect for her work, even when I was about 12 years old and I saw her at the Apollo. But what I did was, I approached the role as an actress. I by no means felt I was going to be the next Ella or anything like that, but I did want to portray he truthfully. So I studied her. I studied her body language. I studied all her interviews. I got to hear her speak. And once I found the truth, then I went about trying to make the performance of her material authentic, which meant I had to learn her scats, note for note, because she was a musician. She was like a horn. And when you learn it note-for-note, then you know what it’s supposed to be. That seemed to be the key to opening up a whole journey with this project that just got richer every day.

Q. I read somewhere that you manage to capture the essence of Ella's voice without lapsing into rote imitation.
Even though you are portraying someone, you can’t lose yourself while doing so. I did vocal exercises. I did breathing works so that I could maintain those long phrases that Ella sang with ease. One of the things about Ella is that you do have to sing as though it were easy for you. She did not come across as a forced voice.

Q. Tell us about your background.
I was born and raised in New York City – Harlem. So I came up hearing a lot of that wonderful music from the clubs around 125th Street. I went to the Apollo and saw great people. For a long time I was doing session, which is like studio work. I was doing some recording, a lot of nightclubs. Somewhere along the line I got bitten by the theater bug. That was back in the early 1970s. I did “Bubblin’ Brown Sugar.” I went on to do a lot of Broadway stuff like “Ragtime,” “Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk.” I did a touring company of “The Best Little Whore House in Texas” with Ann-Margret, “South Pacific” with Robert Goulet. I’ve just been blessed to be very busy.

Q. I understand that you and Ella actually share one notable accomplishment.
I sang at the Apollo when I was about 17 on the Amateur Hour. I sang and won. Ella, of course, did it when she was about 16.

Q. In your opinion, is there a modern-day Ella Fitzgerald?
I would say there are now coming up some really fine singers. But I think the thing that’s missing... I observe that many of the young singers have great highs and lows and ranges and stuff, but the thing that’s great about an Ella is the choices you make musically and vocally. I think she always made interesting choices. People today respond more to how high you can sing, how long you can hold a note. It’s really very bombastic in its approach. Ella didn’t sing like that.

Q. What do want people who attend the show to take away from it?
I would love for people to come and be open to Ella’s story, to get some feel for this woman and her courageousness. She was a very, very brave person, when you think about the times she came up in, all of the racism she experienced and how she went all over the world and worked 52 weeks out of the year and still tried to have a home life for her, her son and her husband, Ray Brown. Just to think of all she overcame as a young girl. She had a very difficult childhood, things you can’t even imagine. She overcame them. I would love for people to come and witness that, and also witness that beautiful music and allow it to just take them on a journey.

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