NATALIE DOUGLAS was born in Los Angeles, California and began her singing career at the ripe old age of four in her mother's kitchen. Given a song to learn while her mother was preparing dinner, Natalie then performed the song for her parents after the meal. Since that auspicious beginning, this performer has garnered rave reviews with multiple awards and nominations for her unique mix of jazz, blues, standards and contemporary country music blended together with the assistance of her Musical Director, Avenue Q's Mark Hartman.

Natalie Douglas is a seven-time MAC Award Winner (having just won her first MAC Award in the Major Jazz Artist category), a Nightlife Award Winner and a Backstage Bistro Award Winner whose concert and theater appearances include regular sold-out performances at Birdland as part of Jim Caruso’s Broadway at Birdland series, The Kennedy Center, The London Cabaret Convention, Black2: Broadway - Divas, Children of Eden at Riverside Church for the York Theatre, Brooklyn to Hollywood at Town Hall, several editions of The Atrainplays at Neighborhood Playhouse, Playwrights Horizons and the New World Stages, Scott Nevins' Curtain Call at Splash, The Thalia Follies at Symphony Space and most recently, in the Off Broadway hit, The People vs. Mona, by Jim and Patricia Wann of Pumpboys & Dinettes fame for Ground Up Productions. In addition, there is Natalie’s annual New Year’s Eve collaboration with Mark Hartman – a Greenwich Village tradition - which materializes each December 31st at the Duplex Cabaret Theatre. She has also received the 1998 and 2001, 2003 & 2004 MAC Awards for Outstanding Jazz Vocalist, the 2005 MAC Award for Outstanding Female Vocalist, the 2008 MAC Award for Major Jazz Artist and was nominated consistently for more than a decade. She was honored with the 1996 MAC Hanson (Critic’s) Award and has also received the Backstage Bistro Award for Outstanding Female Vocalist. In addition, Natalie’s critically acclaimed debut CD, “Not That Different,” was nominated for a 2000 MAC Award for Outstanding Recording and is currently in its third printing.Natalie's most recent CD, To Nina...Live At Birdland (a live recording of her one woman show, To Nina: A Tribute to Nina Simone) has been released to critical acclaim and selections from the CD continue to be featured on NPR, Sirius Rado and XM Radio. Her debut CD, Not That Different, was MAC nominated in 2000, is in its third printing and was recommended on NBC’s Weekend Today Show as an ideal CD for romance. She also appears on Fine and Dandy for PS Classics and Broadway By The Year: 1940 on Bayview Records. She heads her own production company, WBG Productions* with the assistance of her co-producer/husband: actor, writer and creative consultant, Billy Joe Young. (Natalie can also be seen with her gorgeous husband, showing off the good education her parents paid for on The Discovery Channel's Cash Cab.)

As a singer, Natalie has performed at just about every New York City Cabaret, Jazz Club and Concert Hall, including Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall and Rose Hall, Birdland, Iridium, Town Hall, Symphony Space, The Metropolitan Room, The Laurie Beechman, Sugar Bar, Smoke and Sardi’s. She’s headlined at The King Kong Room, FireBird Café and is a regular performer in the New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Palm Springs, The Hamptons, San Francisco and the (first ever) London Cabaret Conventions. She’s sung on MSNBC’s Morning Blend and an excerpt from her headliner concert at the FireBird Café continues to air on Channel Thirteen’s Cabaret Live. In films, Natalie can be heard on the closing credits of the award winning documentary, Five Wives, Three Secretaries and Me, and singing a featured song, "Amazing Grace" in the Senator John Kerry documentary, Brothers In Arms. She is a frequent guest on many radio programs, including OutQ Radio for Sirius, The Joey Reynolds' Show and NPR’s The Tavis Smiley Show and was one of the original featured guest performers at Jim Caruso’s Cast Party. She has appeared in benefits for numerous charities and causes, including The World Trade Center Relief Fund, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, Teddy Cares, The New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, The Milwaukee LGBT Community Center and has worked with both Hearts and Voices and the Cardinal Cooke Center. She has also taken on Emcee duties and introduced, as well as opened for, Lesley Gore for Hospital Audience, Inc.’s Holiday Concert. Natalie is extremely proud of her performances of education programs about Black Music History.

A multi-faceted performer, Natalie's work as an actor includes many theatrical productions, including "The People vs. Mona", "Thalia Follies", “theATrainplays (series 5-22)” with The Neighborhood Playhouse, "Hillside in Hell" with 13th Street Rep and was a featured soloist at the York Theatre Company’s benefit production of "Children Of Eden" at Riverside Church. She is a graduate of USC with a Magna Cum Laude Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology with certificates in Theatre and Women's Studies and holds a Master's Degree in Psychology from UCLA.

* WBG stands for “Wrong Black Girl,” Natalie’s standard tongue-in-cheek response to, requests for some “traditional black girl” songs (especially “And I Am Telling You…” from Dreamgirls). After years of being the one in the audition that was “too short, too tall, too fat, too thin, too black, not black enough, etc.” Natalie now feels like the RIGHT Black WOMAN!

 

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Last Updated 05/08
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