Virtuoso pianist Hershey Felder returns to the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts playing George Gershwin beginning tonight. TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s limited engagement of the hit solo show “Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone” is set to run through Sunday.
In time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Gershwin’s opus “A Rhapsody in Blue,” which premiered Feb. 12, 1924, actor, virtuoso pianist and filmmaker Hershey Felder returns to TheatreWorks for a solo performance that has drawn in audiences around the world, including on Broadway and on London’s West End.
“Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone” shares the composer’s story, including his prolific partnership with his brother, lyricist Ira Gershwin. George Gershwin was born in 1898 to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in Brooklyn and composed his first hit at age 21. All told, George Gershwin wrote more than 1,000 songs for the stage and screen, as well as works for the opera house and the symphony orchestra. Gershwin died of an undiagnosed brain tumor in 1937 at the age of 38, leaving behind a legion of bereft fans and an astonishing legacy of enduring music that has never dimmed in popularity.
The show incorporates songs ranging from popular hits such as “Fascinating Rhythm,” “I Got Rhythm,” “’S Wonderful,” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me,” to excerpts from his groundbreaking musicals “Porgy and Bess” and “An American in Paris,” as well as a complete performance of Gershwin’s opus “A Rhapsody in Blue.”
Audiences seeking more of the musician can also purchase tickets to the one-night-only performance of “Hershey Felder’s Great American Songbook Sing-Along” Monday. In this special participatory event, Felder will share stories and lead the audience through 100 years of American music, featuring a selection of songs by beloved composers including George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim and many more.
Thanks in part to his partnership with TheatreWorks, Felder has become a favorite among Bay Area audiences. Most recently he performed for a one-night-only fundraiser that brought in $140,000 to the Save TheatreWorks campaign.
In a August 2022 review of his solo show “Chopin in Paris,” Town Crier reporter Jennah Pendleton praised the performer for his “incredible scholarship and musical talent,” saying that it molded her “into a Felder fangirl for life.”
“The truly special thing about a Felder show is not his technical music ability, nor the incredible amount of academic rigor that goes into cultivating a historically accurate play, nor the improvisation that brings spontaneity to each performance – it is the way he seamlessly brings each of these elements together to paint a nuanced portrait (of the musician),” Pendleton wrote.
TheatreWorks will require face masks to be worn for the 2 p.m. Feb. 11 performance. For up-to-date information on COVID-19 health and safety procedures, visit TheatreWorks.org/safety.
The performances run through Sunday at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St.
Tickets start at $37.
For tickets and more information, call (877)-662-8978 or visit TheatreWorks.org.
