Emily David: From reality TV to ‘Menopause’

By Jerry Fink

Wednesday, March 4, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Emily David relishes the success that has changed her life since placing fifth last year on “America’s Got Talent.”

The accolades, fame and fortune have finally rained down upon 41-year-old Queen Emily, an R&B singer with a powerful voice who began singing in a church choir in her native Houston.

“I was a little girl when they put me in front of a microphone at church one Easter,” David says. “They had to snatch the mike from me, I was so loud.”

After a lifetime of struggle for Queen Emily, doors are swinging open. She recently joined the Las Vegas cast of “Menopause the Musical,” playing the role of Professional Woman.

The former choir member is in seventh heaven as she talks about her first engagement in Las Vegas.

“It’s like, ‘Wow, I’m supposed to be here, I’m meant to be here,’ ” she says.

The show — a spoof about women going through menopause — is set to close April 5 after more than three years at the Las Vegas Hilton’s Shimmer Cabaret.

But David isn’t worried about the short run. The offers keep coming in.

David, who has a home in Stockton, Calif., with her husband and 20- and 22-year-old daughters, has gone from a world of trying to figure out how to pay the rent and the light bill to a world of negotiating deals. Among the deals on the table, she says, are a new Cirque du Soleil show and two record deals — one from an R&B label, another country.

“A gentleman believes I could be the first African-American female country singer,” she says. “And I like to do things that have never been done.”

David still has to pinch herself to make sure she isn’t dreaming.

“I was just looking at a TV show about the (recession) and how so many people have lost their homes,” she says. “I lived that for 25 years, but I kept believing my dreams would come true and I never gave up. I went to church a lot and I always kept my faith.”

From Houston, she and her family wound up in the San Francisco Bay area. She joined the cast of “Beach Blanket Babylon,” the nation’s longest-running musical revue. After being evicted from a home in Hawyward, Calif., the family moved to Stockton and she commuted 83 miles to perform in “Babylon.” She says she eventually dropped out of the production to care for two nephews who were abandoned by their mother.

David says she can relate to the struggles people are going through now because of the economy.

“I’ve given up rent money, I’ve given up light bill money to follow my dreams,” she says. “I knew my dreams were going to come true.”

They began to come true last year when she beat out about 200,000 candidates to compete on “America’s Got Talent.”

“Immediately after I sang in the audition a producer came out, took my hand and walked up the hall and showed me around. I felt then that I would do great things in the competition, and I did,” she says. “I knew the competition was going to change my life. I knew it was my time.”

She competed for two months — a grueling time in which she expected every week to be sent back to Stockton. She was disappointed when she didn’t win.

“When I got offstage I totally broke down,” she says. “My daughters were there to help me, to hold me up. I wanted to win — but then I thought, ‘I did win. I had national exposure before millions of people.’ I’ve been places I had never been before. Look at me now; I’m in Las Vegas.”

She’s staying at the Hilton while performing in the show while her family remains in Stockton.

A couple of weeks ago her eldest daughter, Briann, auditioned for “America’s Got Talent” but doesn’t know yet if she’s been picked for the show. If she has the talent and tenacity of her mother, Briann should do well.

“It was always my goal to be a performer,” David says. “To be successful you have to envision it, you have to see yourself doing it. I had dreams long ago of being onstage in front of thousands of people.”