In the 1970s, New York City sported more than a few rough edges; as a result, people flocked to places that softened them, whether that meant the plush luxury of the Russian Tea Room or the bubbling glamour of Studio 54. Greenwich Village had yet to be completely gentrified, and in the neighborhoods around Washington Square one could still find the dark taverns that had slaked abstract-expressionist thirsts. On the corner of 8th Street and University Place stood the Cookery, a restaurant owned by Barney Josephson, the legendary proprietor of Café Society, the famous nightclub on Sheridan Square where Billie Holiday premiered her showstopping rendition of “Strange Fruit.”
At first the Cookery was just a restaurant, but in time Josephson succumbed to the pleas of his musical friends and brought in a piano. First the pianist Mary Lou Williams held forth, and then singer Helen Humes, who packed the house. But it wasn’t until singer Alberta Hunter came to the small stage that the Cookery became the place to be. Famous in the 1920s and 1930s, with recording contracts and high-profile slots with big bands, Hunter had left music for several decades, opting out of the performer’s life for a quiet job as a nurse. She might never have come back if legendary pianist Bobby Short had not heard her at a party and tipped off Josephson, who quickly realized she was something special. At the Cookery, lines of people eager to hear the woman who had written songs for Bessie Smith formed around the block, and the reviews were ecstatic. Hunter was 82, and her third act had just begun.
This story, which covers an almost unimaginably long arc of American history, will come alive on Ensemble Theatre Company’s New Vic stage June 7-24 as LaVon Fisher-Wilson and Dayna Jarae Dantzler star in Marion Caffey’s musical play Cookin’ at the Cookery. The two women play Hunter at different ages, along with other characters, with Fisher-Wilson handling the older Hunter as well as her mother, and Dantzler fielding not only young Hunter but a dazzling array of other people in her life, including a brief cameo as Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong.