Lamesha Ruddock
L-O-V-E! L-O-V-E! L-O-V-E! Duane Forrest does it again. Honouring the musical shoulders we stand on, Tenderly: The Life and Times of Nat King Cole asks what it costs to be the one who has to keep standing.
Duane Forrest steps into the life of Nat King Cole, from a reverend’s son with a choir-directing mother to one of American music’s defining voices, while segregation attempted to set his ceiling.
Performed solo with a talented band, with a real command of voice and history, Tenderly is without a doubt exceptional. It exposes Jim Crow’s order, from Black Wall Street burning to lynchings, with “Strange Fruit” lingering. Black people don’t hang themselves from trees.
Representation matters, but Tenderly asks the harder question: what did it cost the people who had to be first? What does it cost to belong when belonging is always one wrong room or wrong ‘un away from violence?
Forrest has a sublime pedagogy in musical storytelling woven with his testimonies from growing up in Toronto: being denied entry to dine at Yorkville restaurants he performed at, mirrors Cole, who had to enter via the kitchen for his own performances. The room holds its collective breath as Forrest recounts a tense police stop toward the Beaches, his fine and dandy suit his last shield.
Forrest delivers a new perspective to Cole. A space where he can live as a vanguard, a dreamer with the gift of premontion who sang love songs into a country that refused reckoned with its hypocisy.
Tenderly: The Life and Times of Nat King Cole is a towering tribute exemplifying the power of live music.
Recommended Drink: Scotch and soda.
Performances of Tenderly: The Life and Times of Nat King Cole have now concluded at EdFringe 2026.
Sarah Kher-Bek
