One-man show star and playwright Hershey Felder returns to TheatreWorks Silicon Valley this week for the world premiere of his new show, “The Piano and Me.” The play is slated to run Saturday, Jan. 17 through Feb. 8 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St.
“The story is how a child of European immigrants, who doesn’t fit in anywhere, finds his place through music,” Felder said. “I’m telling how my career was built and created, and how it led to a lifetime of characters on the stage.”
In “The Piano and Me,” Felder plays both himself and the people he met who made his acting and playwriting career possible. Intertwined with his characters, Felder will perform classical piano pieces related to his experiences and stages of life, including works by composers Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin.
“I didn’t have to go on a fishing expedition for the music, because it was inherent to the story itself,” Felder said. “When I talk about a specific piano lesson, the music is from that piano lesson. When I talk about something with my grandparents, that was music I played.”
Felder is no stranger to occupying a stage solo for hours at a time. In his more than 30-year career, Felder has performed more than 6,000 shows – most of them self-written one-man plays, including his 2016 TheatreWorks debut “Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin.”
“Ten years ago, our founding artistic director Robert Kelley heard about Hershey Felder, this virtuoso on the piano,” TheatreWorks artistic director Giovanna Sardelli said. “He invited Hershey to perform here, and I think Hershey knew he was really showing up to a place that values and respects him as an artist.”
“The Piano and Me” will be Felder’s sixth show at TheatreWorks. A world premiere, Sardelli said, this is an “honor” for the community.
“Now he’s ready to tell the story of why those composers matter to him, how he found the music, what they’ve meant to him personally,” Sardelli said. “I hope people realize how special this is, because it’s truly extraordinary to be gifted a world premiere from Hershey.”
Felder said each rehearsal and live performance of his new show will be an opportunity to revise lines and delivery to better captivate audiences – a skill he said he’s developed throughout his one-man show career.
“The story must be told economically so it’s not overloaded with things that will bore people, that it actually communicates an idea,” Felder said. “There’s a rope between us – myself and the audience. They pull on it if they’re interested and they let go if they’re not, and I feel that connection.”
Despite changes that might be made on the fly, Felder hopes the play’s central idea remains.
“I just want the audience to take away that I’ve been honest in telling the story, and it’s sometimes very hard to share,” Felder said. “A lot of it is laughing at myself and my circumstances, and at the same time, being mesmerized by these great composers who gave me a voice in the world.”
For times, tickets ($34-$115) and more information, visit tinyurl.com/OneManHershey.
