Broadway Star Melissa Errico Will Present “The Story of a Rose: A Musical Reverie on The Great War” a Scintillating Evening of Song and Story at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall
Interview with Melissa Errico By Jordan Wright April 18, 2025
Melissa Errico’s Upcoming Show
The Story of a Rose: A Musical Reverie on The Great War will star Melissa Errico in a world premiere performance on May 7th for one night only at Alexandria, Virginia’s Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center. In a unique mix of song and speech of the period, Errico relates the story of the oft-overlooked epoch of World War One in all its complexities. Produced by The Doughboy Foundation the concert benefits its work in support of America’s National World War I Memorial in Washington, D.C. The show is also presented by the Gary Sinise Foundation. Established by actor and humanitarian Gary Sinise to honor our nation’s defenders, veterans, first responders and their families, the organization creates and supports original programming designed to entertain, educate, inspire and support these heroes.
As an actress, recording artist and writer Melissa Errico has been called, at her Carnegie Hall debut in 2022, “a unique force in the life of the New York theater– there’s no one quite like her!” A Tony-nominated actress for her mentor Michel Legrand’s “Amour” on Broadway and star of such Broadway musicals as “My Fair Lady”, “High Society”, “White Christmas”, “Les Misérables”and other smash hit shows, she has come into her own in recent years with concerts and cabarets, touring the world in productions that spin together a vital and witty script with her sublime voice that had Opera News dub her “the Maria Callas of American musical theater.” The songbooks of Stephen Sondheim and Michel Legrand, among others, have been the subjects of her solo concerts. Her 2019 album “Sondheim Sublime” was called, by the Wall Street Journal, “The finest solo Sondheim album ever recorded.” Currently, Errico is touring her new album, the acclaimed “Sondheim in the City” – that will culminate in her London solo concert hall debut at Cadogan Hall on July 12, 2025.
Melissa Errico (Photo/Michael Hull)
She has also recently appeared as Mrs. Patrick Campbell in the play “Dear Liar” at the Irish Rep and premiered the role of Eleanor of Aquitaine last fall in an unforgettable concert at the Metropolitan Museum’s Cloisters, singing a new David Shire/Adam Gopnik musical penned expressly for her. Errico writes regularly about the comic twists and turns in the life of a performer for The New York Times in a series dubbed by the newspaper “Scenes From An Acting Life”.
From Paris, where she appeared last summer with her frequent concert mate Isabelle Georges at the Bal Blomet, to London, where she is a regular at Crazy Coqs cabaret – from the Elysée Palace to the stages of the Grand Rex, Montreal Jazz Festival and Carnegie Hall – she brings her inimitable mind, spirit, voice and soul to audiences around the world.
This orchestral one-woman concert, enhanced with evocative visuals, ravishing period costumes, and an all-star jazz ensemble is a stylish and deep reflection on World War I. Using her own great Aunt Rose as her avatar, and the Ziegfeld Follies that Rose starred in as a frame, Errico recreates the songs, hopes and loves of the people of the time. Additionally, acclaimed Broadway actor/musician George Abud (Lempicka, The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical, The Band’s Visit) assists in a variety of onstage roles.
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What drew you to this subject matter? Are you a history buff?
As an art history major, I love doing historic recreation on stage. I’ve played Jefferson’s epistolary lover Maria Cosway in a play, and most recently Eleanor of Aquitaine in a new musical by David Shire and Adam Gopnik. So, when Dan Dayton of the Doughboy Foundation approached me about creating a work on stage with music about the Great War, I leapt at it.
Tell me about your Aunt Rose as your inspiration for this new work?
My Great Aunt Rose was a kind of presiding mysterious figure throughout my childhood. She was a Ziegfeld Follies girl of extraordinary beauty and glamour and I recall her red lipstick and constant cigarettes. She was an Italian immigrant newly arrived in the United States when the war began, so she seemed the perfect heroine for our story. Of course, I’ve reworked her story for dramatic purposes, but her essence is true. She was one of that generation of immigrants to America who sought out opportunities. Fortuitously, she was discovered by Ziegfeld in a subway restaurant, and he made her a star. Later she faced tragedies that often come with sudden stardom – the wrong men, the wrong choices and never enough money. The life of a Follies girl was no longer than the life of a rose.
Aunt Rose in Feathers
Where else will you be performing this?
Dan Dayton plans to make it a permanent touring show, so I’d be delighted to take it anywhere that will welcome us. New York, of course, is always the ultimate destination for a show girl of any generation.
What are your plans for promoting this? Are they filming it? Will you be televising it? Touring college campuses?
I’ve been so consumed with creating the show that I haven’t focused on its extensions, but I do hope they make a record of it – live stream or permanent video – and of course I’d go joyfully to any college that wants it, and us.
Melissa Errico
How did you first get into performing? Who were your earliest inspirations?
On my twelfth birthday, my parents took me to a Broadway revival of “On Your Toes”, the Rodgers & Hart show. By intermission I was weeping. It was so compelling. I hardly realized it was a musical comedy – it was just a dream world I needed to enter, like Alice in Wonderland. “Who are these people?”, I demanded of my mother. “How did they get up there?”. I wasn’t being facetious. I needed to know. In a sense, the rest of my life has been about answering that question.
How old were you when you knew this was what you wanted to be?
At 12 I started going to a summer theatre camp, where I got to do one musical after another. I remember being in a student production of “Bye Bye Birdie” and the audience, including my father, a classical musician, was struck by my singing. I discovered I was pretty good at it. So, by the end of my teens, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and set out to do it. By my early twenties I was already on Broadway. Early success of that kind is both a blessing – you find out what the real thing is like – and a kind of cautionary tale. Throughout my career I’ve found new paths and a desire to include different musical genres.
Melissa Errico
What is it about the American Songbook that you love so much?
It’s funny – when an opera singer like Renee Fleming, sings Schubert or Verdi or whatever, nobody asks them why they like performing that music, or implies that it’s ‘nostalgic’. It’s just part of the musical heritage of humanity. I feel that way about Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hart and all the rest of the great Broadway songwriters. It’s just great music with wonderful lyrics.
Yip Harburg, whose words I love to sing, once notably said. “A song is an idea turned into an emotion.” When I sing his music or those of other great artists, I sense I’m living in a world of feeling and in a world of wit. That combination brings meaning to my life and, if it’s done right, communicates with an audience of any age or background. Some of my best concerts of American classics have been in Singapore. There’s been nothing like it. I remember reading that the great theater critic Kenneth Tynan once said that people just had to recognize that in the middle of the twentieth century the great European musical traditions had emigrated to America and become the music of Broadway and Tin Pan Alley. I think that’s true.
What drew you to Steven Sondheim and Michel Legrand?
They were the two mentors of my musical life. Sondheim for me is the greatest of the great American songwriters – the most musically complex, the most emotionally intricate, the most demanding, and the most rewarding. I’ve done two Sondheim recordings now – he helped enormously with the first while he was still alive – and I know I still have more Sondheim inside me. Working with him, and for him, on a series of shows – “Sunday in the Park with George” and “Passion” – is still the highlight of my theatrical career. Since I was a girl, Michel had been a part of my life, though he didn’t know it. His music became the seduction music in my household. It’s what my father played to entice my mother. I starred in his one Broadway musical, “Amour” and after it closed, he insisted that we do an orchestral record, which became “Legrand Affair”. Michel was one of those uniquely creative people, I’ve only known one or two, whose art just poured right out of them, unspooling before your eyes. You had to stop him before he forgot the music he had just made! They couldn’t be more unlike, Steve and Michel, the arch-sophisticate gay New Yorker and the ingenuous French jazz lover, one acidic and the other ardent. But I loved them both, still do. I suppose they capture the two sides of my own character, intellectual and romantic.
Melissa Errico Performing
How do you juggle motherhood and traveling?
It’s a constant struggle, as for any mother. I did an essay for The New York Times about being a ‘girl singer’ on the road that tried to capture some of the contradictions. Sondheim wrote about it in the song, “The Glamourous Life!”. It isn’t.
I adore my three daughters – the oldest one is now at Duke University. The twins are getting ready for their own leap away from home. They’re the greatest joys of my life and they lift my heart with their laughter and love and beauty every time I see them. Of course, I worry about being away from them, but I pray that giving them the model of a woman fulfilled by her work makes up for sometimes having to say goodnight on FaceTime.
Melissa Errico with her family
Do you accompany your husband Patrick McEnroe to the tournaments?
When the girls were little, we always made Wimbledon a family holiday. As ‘Mayor of the U.S. Open’, that tournament has become a family event as well. I’ve learned so much about competition, discipline and resilience from being absorbed into his tennis world.
What was it like to go to the Palais in France for a dinner with the President of France?
That was one of the epic moments of my lifetime. It shows you what a girl from Manhasset I still am, that when the invitation arrived to have dinner with the President of France at the Elysée Palace, I wrote back to make sure I was invited. I thought there must have been some mistake, but they couldn’t have been more welcoming or charming. I got to dress up and pretend to be a French aristocrat out of “Liaisons Dangereuses”. I love France and sharing a summer performance date in a Paris cabaret with my friend and frequent partner Isabelle Georges (another Michel protégé) has been one of my most treasured shared occasions.
Playwright Larissa Fasthorse’s Zany Farce Reveals an Insider’s Guide to American Indian Identity and How to Become Native as a Pastime
Fake It Until You Make It Arena Stage Jordan Wright April 12, 2025 Special to The Zebra
Noah Bean (Theo) and Shyla Lefner (Wynona) in Fake It Until You Make It at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater running April 3 – May 4, 2025. (Photo/Daniel Rader)
Fake It Until You Make It is a wildly funny farce that provides us with a modern-day interpretation of Indian Country vis à vis White America with all its struggles and challenges. It is a co-production with Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group.
For a wonderfully fascinating eight years, I became immersed in the heart of Native culture for Indian Country Media Network, and as beautiful, fascinating and historical it is, it can be a tangled web. No one is quite certain of the racial or cultural definition of what it means to be American Indian, for example how much ancestral Indian blood allows membership in a tribe, or if a White person can properly represent their interests. This raucous comedy addresses all those familiar controversies with lampooning, caricatures and cheeky humor.
Burgandi Trejo Phoenix (Grace), Noah Bean (Theo), Shyla Lefner (Wynona), Eric Stanton Betts (Mark), and Brandon Delsid (Krys) (Photo/Daniel Rader)
Playwright Larissa Fasthorse, who defines herself as a DC-born nonbinary Two Spirit Afro-Indigenous (Quechua-Kichwa) Latine actor, writer, director and musician, tackles these thorny issues with extraordinary humor, a side eye and a wink. Her six characters have differing viewpoints as to what makes an Indian an Indian, as they go head-to-head in a political farce that is wacky and wonderful with a cat (Yes, a cat!) that takes star turns in thewomen’s catfights.
Five of the characters have offices in a building dedicated to Native American Organizations. River (Amy Brenneman) is White, yet she’s ingratiated herself among the tribal elders with her non-profit group “Indigenous Nations Soaring”, and like the other NGO directors she is fighting for grants. Wynona (Shyla Lefner) runs N.O.B.U.S.H, a non-profit that promotes native plants and shuns the invasive butterfly bush. Thus, the ‘no bush’. She calls people who appropriate her native culture “Pretendians”. In her spare time, she is having a hot and heavy romance with Theo (Noah Bean) who’s an invasive plant remover and, as Wynona calls him, her “ecological warrior and undercover spy. She knows Theo is White but chooses to ignore that little detail to keep him as her lover.
Shyla Lefner (Wynona) (Photo/Daniel Rader)
Grace (Burgandi Trejo Phoenix) is an attorney whose concept of being Native American she describes as a personal choice. She calls it “race shifting”. In other words, you can be whatever race and culture floats your boat. To that end she morphs into Japanese, Middle Eastern and even White. And then there’s Krys (Brandon Delsid), an out gay man who goes to powwows with Grace and is a scene stealer and heart stealer in the very best way.
There are feuds and cock-ups as they challenge each other as to who is Native and who will snag the big grant. In one scene River does a TED talk and screws up her message by performing a slinky belly dance thinking she’ll charm her way to the top. She most decidedly does not. Theo pretends to be Native American in order to spy on River for Wynona. River needs a real Indian to front her organization. When the suave and handsome Mark (Eric Stanton Betts) shows up for his interview to be River’s Executive Director, Theo, who’s pretending to be Indian, gets caught out as a poser and everything goes utterly off the rails.
Describing the characters and their relationships does not in any way detract from the over-the-top high jinks, the chases, the spying, and the alliances. In the end, there are DNA tests that stun everyone as to who is a real Indian.
Burgandi Trejo Phoenix (Grace), Brandon Delsid (Krys), Eric Stanton Betts (Mark), Noah Bean (Theo), and Shyla Lefner (Wynona) (Photo/Daniel Rader)
Designer Sara Ryung Clement has created very effective moving sets of offices with doors and plate glass windows designed for us to see and hear everything that goes on inside. It’s a little bit like the TV show, “The Office” with mayhem and freakouts at every turn and I loved every bit of it.
With great respect local theaters have been paying homage to the American Indian tribes in our region, acknowledging they are sitting on their indigenous lands. On press night, several Native ambassadors were present to address the audience showcasing their music, language and culture and singing the Navaho national anthem.
A terrific cast directed by Michael John Garcés reveals an insider’s guide to American Indian identity and how to become Native as a pastime.
With Costume Design by E. B. Brooks, Lighting Design by Tom Ontiveros, Sound Design by John Nobori, Fight Director Edgar Landa.
Through May 4th at Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth Street, SW, Washington, DC 20024. For tickets and information call the box office at 202 554-9066 or visit www.ArenaStage.org.
A Stunner of a Dramedy at Shakespeare Theatre Company Stars Downton Abbey Patriarch Hugh Bonneville in this Simon Godwin Directed Uncle Vanya
Uncle Vanya Shakespeare Theatre Company Jordan Wright April 4, 2025 Special to The Zebra
4 The cast of Uncle Vanya at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo by DJ Corey Photography.
Simon Godwin’s direction of Uncle Vanya starring Downton Abbey’s patriarch and Royal Shakespeare Company alum and Britain’s National Theatre celebrated actor, Hugh Bonneville, is a once-in-a-lifetime theatrical experience with a brilliantly in synch cast that sparkles like a supernova.
The classic Chekhov play focuses on a dysfunctional Russian family of intellectuals and their closely knit coterie. In a tour de force performance, Bonneville imbues Vanya with engaging depth and larger-than-life passion, ranging in emotional delivery from subtle gestures and unique reactions to hugely expressive physical drama. He is consistently balanced by an experienced cast who readily absorb and match his energy, along with the complex character intricacies called for in these weighty roles.
2 Ito Aghayere and Hugh Bonneville in Uncle Vanya. Photo by Kevin Berne/Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Each character interaction is riveting, dangerously precipitous and yet recognizably familiar. As Tolstoy famously said, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family in its own way.” And this family is no different – both joyful yet tragic.
There are the money struggles, the romantic intricacies, the cheating, the lying, the family celebrations (Are they ever what we planned?), breakdowns and breakups – plus liquor and a gun. A disastrous combination that never goes well.
3 Nancy Robinette and Craig Wallace in Uncle Vanya at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Photo by DJ Corey Photography
Using brief musical interstices from a cellist slightly offstage, Godwin’s clever choice to bring the intensity back to a dull roar prepares the audience for the next familial battle royale. I don’t need to offer up the plot, either you already know it or can readily google it. Another well-thought out directorial choice is to eschew Russian accents. Bonneville keeps his British accent and all others their American accents. It works because the play’s the thing and we don’t need to be distracted by unnecessary stylings. In an unusual opening scene an ordinary stage is set and the actors enter in street clothes. While the audience settles in (You are advised to come early to the theater so as not to miss this change-up.), they move the props around as if readying for the play and suddenly exit offstage. When they reappear, the stage is reconfigured and the actors are sporting the Victorian fashions of the landed gentry.
1 Tom Nellis and Kina Kantor in Uncle Vanya. Photo by Kevin Berne/Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Both humor and pathos in this dramedy keep Vanya’s family teetering on the edge of total collapse. Will they fight to the finish? It’s close. Will they lose their family estate? It’s iffy. Will Yelena (Ito Aghayere) decide to leave her pompous professor husband Alexandre (Tom Nelis) for Vanya or perhaps the dashing Astrov (John Benjamin Hickey)? It’s a toss-up. Can Nana (Nancy Robinette) rein in her son’s madness? “Old people are just like children. They want everyone to feel sorry for them,” she quips in the understatement of the century. They’re an emotionally land-locked duo. Is Ilya aka ‘Waffles’ (Craig Wallace) the observant philosopher, the grounding force? Cue the guitar and some wise words. Is Granmaman (Sharon Lockwood) keeping the peace? Can Sisyphus? Lastly, will the despondent and compassionate Sonya (Melanie Field) rise to the occasion to keep this family’s spinning-out-of-control madness to a dull roar? Thank God, she does, and that’s no spoiler.
Local actors and STC company members Wallace and Robinette bolster this wonderful cast with memorable performances in this co-production with Berkeley Rep.
5 Sharon Lockwood, Nancy Robinette, Ito Aghayere, and Hugh Bonneville Photo by Kevin Berne/Berkeley Repertory Theatre
Adapted by Conor McPherson, Scenic Design by Robert Brill, Costume Designs by Susan Hilferty & Heather C. Freedman, Lighting Design by Jen Schriever, Sound Design by Darron L. West, Dramaturgy by Drew Lichtenberg, Fight and Intimacy Consultant Danielle O’Dea.
This is the front runner of the season. Do not miss it!!!
Through April 20th at Harman Hall, 610 F Street, NW, Washington, DC 20004. For tickets and information call the box office at 202.547.1122 or visit www.ShakespeareTheatre.org.
Hilarity and Highjinks Abound in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at The Little Theatre of Alexandria
Much Ado About Nothing The Little Theatre of Alexandria Jordan Wright April 2, 2025 Special to The Zebra
Paul Brewster, Amelia Jacquat, Jess Rawls, Tameka Taylor, Judy Rolph Ebner (Photo/Mark Alan Andre)
Pull up a barstool at the Bar Messina. We’re in the courtyard and a duo is playing a jazzy rendition of “A Sunday Kind of Love”. It’s present day in the French Quarter of New Orleans where this unconventionally told love story begins. Surely The Bard never envisioned his classic romcom set in the wilds of NOLA, and neither could we, but this rendition seems, well, just right, which is precisely the magic of Shakespeare – its relevancy to our modern times.
Director Joey Pierce, a New Orleans transplant, gives us all the flair and fabulousness we could ever dream of, plus a tremendous 19-actor cast that keeps the merriment at peak performance. There’s the feisty, clever-tongued Beatrice who scorns all suitors and her wordplay match, Benedick, who sets his cap for her. Claudio and his maiden, Hero, a charmer, who crushes on Claudio much to his amazement until Don Pedro, a swashbuckling soldier (who in this incarnation is gay) and his illegitimate brother, Don John who along with Borachio foments a plot against the lovers. And, lest you forget, there’s Leonato, Hero’s father who with his wife, Antonia (an introduced character), seek to protect their daughter against all slyly invented scandal.
Smithchai Cutchainon (Photo/Mark Alan Andre)
Amid all this undermining, scheming and duly faithful affection, our characters show us a festive time. There’s line dancing – the Electric Slide! – and massive doses of comedic pratfalls, secretive plots, frequent drinking, a madly funny scene with Benedick hiding behind the bar listening in to a men’s convo led by Don Pedro about how Beatrice adores him all the while pretending they don’t know he’s there. It’s the consummate set up to convince him she’s in love with him. When our heroine, Bea, hooks up with her gal pals, to share the exciting news, they all do shots. Well, it is New Orleans, after all. Make me a sazerac!
Later we encounter an ersatz sheriff with his band of nincompoops, aka “The Watch”. In fine comic form they have been deputized to arrest the duplicitous men who are lolling about engaged in a TV show about swamp creatures. Cue the Cajun accents and conjure up the Keystone Kops.
Jaye Frazier, Brendan Chaney, Michael Townsend, Ruth Sherr (Photo/Mark Alan Andre)
The whole play is witty, silly, charming and absolutely hilarious – played to the hilt and beyond. Julie Fischer’s two-level set design is oh-so-clever and Joan Lawrence’s costumes nail the styles with Benedick, Claudio and their cohorts in military camouflage, the ladies in brightly colored dresses, and Hero’s faux funeral scene that has all the hallmarks of a New Orleans’ style homegoing.
With Paul Brewster as Leonato, Amelia Jacquat as Hero, Jess Rawls as Beatrice, Seth Rue as Benedick, Zachary Litwiller as Don John, Michael McGovern as Don Pedro, Lily Larsen as Margaret, Brendan Chaney as Borachio, Smithchai Chutchainon as Claudio, Judy Rolph Ebner as Antonia, Jeff Elmore as Dogberry, Megan Fraedrich as Balthasar Sister/Sexton, Tamika Taylor as Ursula, Michelle Hughes as Balthasar Sister, Dan Lavanga as Verges/Friar Francis, Leo Mairena as First Watchman, Ruth Scherr as Second Watchman, Jaye Frazier as Messenger/Third Watchman and Michael Townsend as Conrade.
Assistant Director Heather Sanderson, Choreography by Melissa Dunlap, Lighting Design by Jeffrey Auerbach and Kimberly Crago (JK Lighting), Sound Design by Alan Wray, Hair and Makeup by Jennifer Finn.
Through April 19th at The Little Theatre of Alexandria, 600 Wolfe Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. For tickets and information call the box office at 703-683-0496 or visit www.TheLittleTheatre.com.
