Portrait of Ludmilla as Nina Simone

Ludmilla Dabo, accompanied by Molière Award-winning writer, director, and musician David Lescot, sings a moving, intimate, and dazzling portrait of Nina Simone, the iconic “High Priestess of Soul.” Through the legendary singer’s music and life story, intertwined with personal stories from Dabo’s own life, Dabo charts Simone’s journey from young musical prodigy to her role as a major figure in the civil rights movement. In this unique performance fusing jazz, soul, and storytelling, Dabo is “Nina Simone reincarnated… A talent that explodes,” according to Le Monde.

The Alliance Française de Seattle is excited to welcome this production to Seattle for one night only to celebrate International Women's Day. 

David Lescot, playwright/director and musician is an artist associé with Théâtre de la Ville, Paris. Read more about David here.

Center Theatre at Seattle Center
305 Harrison St, Seattle, WA 98109

Doors Open 6:15PM
Performance 7PM
+ Q&A in English after the show

Performance in French with English subtitles

Directed by David Lescot
With Ludmilla Dabo & David Lescot
Production: Comédie de Caen-CDN de Normandie
Compagnie du Kaïros

Open to all audiences, Ages 12+
Duration 1h15

Q&A moderated by Maya Angela Smith

Maya Angela Smith is a sociolinguist, a professor in the Department of French and Italian Studies, and the Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, and Inclusion in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington. She began her career primarily focused on the intersection of race, language, and identity among members of the Francophone African diaspora, such as in her book, Senegal Abroad (Wisconsin, 2019), winner of the Modern Language Association’s French and Francophone Studies book prize. Recent writing continues exploring this intersection but through the lens of music. Her recent book Ne me quitte pas (Duke University Press, 2025), analyzes how “Ne me quitte pas”—a text, a piece of cultural production written in a specific context, and a work of mass/popular art—travels across languages, geographies, genres, and generations by using Nina Simone’s single as a point of departure. Meanwhile, Reclaiming Venus: The Many Lives of Alvenia Bridges (Rising Action Press, 2024), addresses the systemic silencing of Black women’s voices in musical history by telling the story of Bridges’s personal journey when crossing paths with a wide variety of people in the entertainment industry, from long-term working relationships with the Rolling Stones and Roberta Flack to momentary yet extraordinary encounters with Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, and Tina Turner. Smith is also a visual artist and an avid hiker.