Mikki Prost, a New Jersey-born entertainer based in Puerto Vallarta, can point to a specific time in her career when she became enraptured with the American musical art form known as the blues. In 2009, she was acting in a one-woman show called "Supreme Dream", based on the true story of a white singer obsessed with The Supremes, who ends up as a backup vocalist for ex-Supreme Mary Wilson. In the play, Prost acted and sang Motown hits, except for one song, “Good Morning Heartache,” a blues-inspired standard first recorded by Billie Holiday.
“Every time we did the play,” Prost recalls, “I couldn’t wait to get to that song.” In time, she adds, “I became convinced it would be a good song to build a show around.” Prost went on to develop that show, called "Shades of the Blues", and she will be performing it for the first time in San Miguel this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Playhouse,
In choosing the twenty-odd songs for “Shades of the Blues”, Prost focuses on the story the song has to tell. “Over the last century and a half,” she says, “the blues have permeated all genres of popular music. To me, blues is not about a specific type of music – it is about sadness, longing, passion, and heartache, about the emotions of what the song is trying to tell you.”