Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara (ETC) and HFP LIVE will present the Southern California premiere of the musical play “The Piano & Me,” with book by Hershey Felder, dramaturgy by Jerry Patch, and starring Felder as himself and 16 other characters.
“The Piano & Me,” Felder’s newest work, is scheduled to open off-Broadway in New York following the ETC premiere.
Critics have lauded “The Piano & Me,” as Felder’s finest work to date following its world premiere at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, ETC said.
The “The Piano & Me,” replaces ETC’s previously scheduled “Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin.”
“The Piano & Me” runs Thursday, April 30-Sunday, May 10 at the New Vic Theatre, 33 Victoria St., Santa Barbara.
All performances will take place on the same dates and times as originally scheduled. Current ticket holders for “Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin” will be automatically transferred to the corresponding performance of “The Piano & Me” at no additional charge.
Known for his solo composer plays, for the first time Felder unravels the story of how it all happened, according to ETC.
Known for his portrayals of musical geniuses in his beloved composer series, Felder now renders a different musical artist: himself as he pulls back the curtain on his own story.
Growing up in Montreal, Canada, as the child of Polish and Hungarian immigrants, a young Felder discovers the piano, its captivating music connecting him to his unsuspected heritage, while opening up a world of adventure, possibility, heartbreak and connection.
Featuring performances of beloved compositions by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and Bartók, “The Piano & Me” recounts the inspiration behind Felder’s career of more than 6,000 performances worldwide, and offers a poignant portrait of the power of music, according to ETC.
At its world premiere in January, “The Piano & Me” was lauded as “magnificent, enthralling, brilliant and engaging” by David John Chavez, former chair of the American Theatre Critics Association and two-time jurist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
“We are making a change to our scheduled season programming: in place of ‘Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin,’ ETC will now present ‘The Piano & Me’ on the exact same performance dates and times,” said Scott DeVine, ETC’s executive artistic director.
“We love ‘Monsieur Chopin,’ and hope to bring it to Santa Barbara in a future season. But when I attended the world premiere of ‘The Piano & Me,’ I knew immediately that this was something we could not wait to share with Santa Barbara,” DeVine said.
“This is Hershey at his most profound and most personal — a once-in-a-generation theatrical experience that we are honored to bring is newest piece to The New Vic,” he said.
Since the 1998 premiere of his internationally lauded play with music “George Gershwin Alone,” Felder has appeared on important stages in the U.S. and abroad in original works that include “George Gershwin Alone,” “Beethoven,” “Maestro Bernstein,” “Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin,” as well at the appearances of “Our Great Tchaikovsky,” and “A Paris Love Story – Debussy.”
His film world premieres at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills include several of his award-winning movies: “Musical Tales in the Venetian Jewish Ghetto,” “The Assembly,” and “Noble Genius Chopin & Liszt.”
Felder is currently the artistic director of Florence, Italy’s most historic theater, Teatro Niccolni (1648), where he presents celebrated American and international artists such as Jeff Goldblum to Helen Mirren, Malcom McDowell, and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
“The Piano & Me” previews at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 30 and 8 p.m. Friday, May 1, and opens at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 2.
Ticket prices are $40-$119. All patrons age 35 and under are always $35. Student tickets are $25. Single tickets available through the ETC ticket office, 805-965-5400, or online at etcsb.org. Prices subject to change.