Hershey Felder Press Page

Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone

July 1 - 10, 2011
Old Globe Theatre
Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage
Conrad Prebys Theatre Center

Music by George Gershwin
Written by Hershey Felder
Directed by Joel Zwick

First presented at the Globe in 2006, actor, playwright and Steinway concert artist Hershey Felder returns with a special limited engagement of his celebrated work about the legendary American composer. Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone incorporates Gershwin’s best-known songs, from "The Man I Love" and "Someone to Watch Over Me," through passages and songs from An American in Paris and Porgy and Bess, to a complete performance of "Rhapsody in Blue." The first popular composer to use jazz as the foremost musical element in the serious concert hall, Gershwin absorbed the musical styles, rhythms and sophistication of the American spirit and created a musical language that made its mark on both classical and popular music throughout the world. Hershey Felder brings to life the spirit and talent of the legendary composer and pianist, leading audiences through the fascinating rhythms of Gershwin’s legendary songbook, while telling the tale of his tragically short life.

Hershey Felder in Concert: The Great American Songbook

July 11 - 17, 2011
Old Globe Theatre
Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage
Conrad Prebys Theatre Center

Text by Hershey Felder

Hershey Felder in Concert: The Great American Songbook features an entire century of American music from such masters as Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. Hershey Felder leads the party from the piano on a journey through a century of America's greatest music.

Hershey Felder in Maestro: The Art of Leonard Bernstein

July 22 - August 28, 2011
Old Globe Theatre
Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage
Conrad Prebys Theatre Center

Music by Leonard Bernstein
Written by Hershey Felder
Directed by Joel Zwick

Hershey Felder in Maestro: The Art of Leonard Bernstein is a new work from the creators of George Gershwin Alone, Monsieur Chopin and Beethoven, As I Knew Him. With a story spanning the entire 20th century, Leonard Bernstein, one of America's greatest musicians, broke through every artistic ceiling possible to become the world's musical ambassador. Conductor, composer, pianist, author, teacher, librettist, television star . . . for Leonard Bernstein, boundaries simply did not exist. Hershey Felder and Joel Zwick collaborate for the fourth time at The Old Globe – bringing to life the composer of West Side Story, Candide, On the Town, Mass and many more.

Publicity Photos for Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone

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Hershey Felder. Photo courtesy of The Old Globe.

Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone. Hershey Felder photo by Mark Garvin.

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Hershey Felder in Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone, written by Hershey Felder, music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin and directed by Joel Zwick, at The Old Globe July 1 - 10, 2011. Photo by Mark Garvin.

Publicity Photos for Hershey Felder in Maestro: The Art of Leonard Bernstein

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Hershey Felder. Photo courtesy of The Old Globe.

Hershey Felder in Maestro: The Art of Leonard Bernstein. Photo illustration courtesy of The Old Globe.

Hershey Felder in Hershey Felder in Maestro: The Art of Leonard Bernstein, written by Hershey Felder, music by Leonard Bernstein and directed by Joel Zwick, at The Old Globe July 22 - Aug. 28, 2011. Photo by Michael Lamont.

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Cast and Creative Team

(click on image to download a high-resolution photo)

	Hershey Felder (Performer/Playwright) has appeared on Broadway and London's West End in George Gershwin Alone. His regional and international appearances of the “Composers Sonata” 1999 - 2011 – George Gershwin Alone, Monsieur Chopin, Beethoven, As I Knew Him and Maestro: The Art of Leonard Bernstein – include The Old Globe, Asolo Repertory Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, Geffen Playhouse, Laguna Playhouse, Ford’s Theatre, Cleveland Play House, Pasadena Playhouse, American Repertory Theater, Hartford Stage, Ravinia Festival, Chicago’s Royal George Theatre, Prince Music Theatre (Philadelphia), The Gilmore International Keyboard Festival, Uijeongbu Theatre Festival (South Korea) and many others. Command Performance of Monsieur Chopin for the Polish Ambassador to the United States, Polish Embassy, Washington. He is the winner of a 2007 Los Angeles Ovation Awards, Best Musical and Best Actor for George Gershwin Alone. His compositions include Aliyah, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; Fairytale, a musical; Les Anges de Paris, Suite for Violin and Piano; Song Settings, poetry by Vachel Lindsay; Saltimbanques for Piano and Orchestra; Etudes Thematiques for Piano; An American Story for actor and orchestra. His recordings include Love Songs of the Yiddish Theatre, Back from Broadway, George Gershwin Alone and Monsieur Chopin for the WFMT Radio Network Recordings label, Beethoven, As I Knew Him and An American Story for the Eighty-Eight Entertainment label. George Gershwin Alone received a worldwide live broadcast in July 2005 and May 2011. Felder's current projects include a new musical, An American Story, which had its world premiere in Los Angeles in November 2009. It was recorded with the Ars Viva Symphony Orchestra, comprised of members of the Chicago Symphony and Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestras and conducted by Alan Heatherington. Mr. Felder has been a Scholar in Residence at Harvard University’s Department of Music.
	Joel Zwick (Director) directed My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time, produced by Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson and Gary Goetzman. His recent films include Fat Albert (with Bill Cosby) and Elvis Has Left the Building starring John Corbett and Kim Basinger. Zwick directed the Broadway production of George Gershwin Alone at the Helen Hayes Theatre as well as all other productions of the show. Zwick began his theatrical career at La Mama E.T.C. as director of the La Mama Plexus. He has directed on Broadway, Off Broadway and Broadway touring companies. Currently, Zwick is recognized as one of Hollywood’s most prolific directors of episodic television, having the direction of more than 525 episodes to his credit. These include having directed 21 pilots that have gone on to become regular series. His television credits include “Laverne & Shirley,” “Mork & Mindy,” “Bosom Buddies,” “Webster,” “Perfect Strangers,” “Full House,” “Step by Step,” “Family Matters,” “It’s a Living,” “The Wayans Bros.,” “Joanie Loves Chachi,” “The Jamie Foxx Show,” “Kirk,” “The Parent ’Hood,” “Angie,” “On Our Own,” “Two of a Kind,” “Love Boat: The Next Wave,” “Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper” and others. His previous New York productions have included Dance with Me (Tony Award nomination), Shenandoah (Broadway National Tour), Oklahoma (National Tour) and Cold Storage (American Place Theater). He acted in the original New York production of MacBird. He also directed Esther (Promenade Theater), Merry-Go-Round (Chicago and Las Vegas) and Last Chance Saloon and Woycek (West End). Zwick has taught drama at Yale University, Brooklyn College, Queens College, Wheaton College and the University of Southern California. He is currently in pre-production on Sleepless in Seattle – the Musical and Serrano. He recently directed Jamaica Farewell for Falcon Theatre and is busy directing television shows for It's a Laugh Productions.
	François-Pierre Couture (Scenic Design/Lighting Design/Projection Design, Maestro) moved from Montréal to UCLA to complete his Master’s degree in scenic and lighting design in 2006. He then joined The Actors’ Gang Theatre and designed the scenery and lighting for the critically acclaimed production of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. He was also nominated for an Ovation Award for his scenic design of A Picasso at the Geffen Playhouse, received a Garland Award for the scenery of The Quality of Life also at the Geffen Playhouse and was nominated for best scenic design at the 2010 LA Weekly Awards for Stranger at the Bootleg and received a Ticket Holder Award for best lighting design for Solitude at the LATC. Other productions he has designed include: Scenery for 1951-2006 written and directed by Donald Freed at the LATC; lighting for Dementia at the LATC; scenery for Beethoven, As I Knew Him at The Old Globe, Geffen Playhouse, Chicago Water Tower; lighting for Porphyrion’s Revenge at Highways Performance Space; scenery and lighting for KLÜB at The Actor’s Gang Theatre; scenery and lighting for Wounded, Spring Awakening and Survived at the Power House Theatre.
	Yael Pardess (Scenic Design, George Gershwin Alone) is an award-winning set designer specializing in multidisciplinary visual development of immersive live theatre shows, special events and multimedia projects. She first collaborated with Hershey Felder on George Gershwin Alone in Los Angeles, followed by productions on Broadway, London and throughout the U.S. Her work has been seen on Broadway and many major regional theatres including Mark Taper Forum, Pasadena Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse, A.C.T., American Repertory Theater and The Old Globe. Ms. Pardess began her theatre career designing sets and costumes in Israel. Since moving to the U.S., she has designed more than 150 original sets throughout North America as well as in Israel, Japan and Europe. She art directed theatre shows with multiple stages and sets, multimedia and special effects for Movie Magic (in collaboration with Steven Spielberg) for Universal Studios Japan, The Star of Destiny (Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, Austin), Lincoln Eyes (Lincoln Library, Springfield IL) and Beyond All Boundaries for the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
	Michael T. Gilliam (Lighting Design, George Gershwin Alone) has designed the Broadway productions of Brooklyn, Big River and Stand-Up Tragedy and the West End production of George Gershwin Alone. His Off Broadway credits include Striking 12, Blue, End of the World Party, Zooman and the Sign and Menopause: The Musical. His National Tours include Brooklyn, Big River and Guys and Dolls. He has worked regionally at Goodman Theatre, Guthrie Theater, Pasadena Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse, The Kennedy Center, Ford’s Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Prince Music Theater, Denver Center, Arizona Theatre Company, Arena Stage, The Old Globe, Mark Taper Forum and Seattle Repertory Theatre. Gilliam has received Los Angeles Ovation Awards (for George Gershwin Alone), Drama-Logue Awards, Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, Garland Awards, Robby Awards and the 1999 Career Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle.
	Margaret Hartmann(Lighting Director/Assistant Lighting Design) has been designing in Chicago for seven years. She is a member of Plasticene Theatre Company and Big Picture Group Theatre Company and has designed at the Royal George Theatre, Provision Theatre Company, The Chicago Hip Hop Festival, Bailiwick Theatre and CIRCA Theatre Company. She has also associate designed Almost, Maine at Milwaukee Repertory’s Stiemke Theater and assisted designers at Goodman Theatre, Writers’ Theatre, Marriott Lincolnshire Theatre and Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
	Erik Carstensen (Sound Design, Maestro) has been the Master Sound Technician at The Old Globe since 1997. Production Engineer on over 60 productions at the Globe, including Floyd Collins, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, The Full Monty, Dirty Blonde, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Chita Rivera—A Dancers Life, Hershey Felder’s George Gershwin Alone, Monsieur Chopin, Beethoven, As I Knew Him (sound design), A Catered Affair and Robin and the 7 Hoods. Erik is a member of IATSE Local 122.
	Andrew Wilder (Projection Design, Maestro) and his experience in lighting design, photography and all things computerized have led to the world of projection and media design. He is thrilled to be working with the Eighty-Eight Entertainment team once again, after having had such a great time designing for Beethoven, As I Knew Him. When not working in a theatre, Andrew spends his time writing about diet and nutrition.
	GiGi Garcia (Production Stage Manager, Maestro) is one of the original stage managers for George Gershwin Alone and has called close to 1,000 performances for Eighty-Eight Entertainment. For 14 years, she has been a resident artist at A Noise Within where she has worked as a production manager, stage manager and assistant director. Other theatres include The Old Globe, Pasadena Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse, Cleveland Play House, Arizona Theatre Company, Laguna Playhouse, The Kennedy Center, The Hollywood Bowl, Drury Lane Water Tower Place – Chicago, Cuillo Center for the Performing Arts, L.A. Theatre Works, Tiffany Theatres, Occidental Theatre Festival, Bottom’s Dream, Eclectic Theatre Company, Virginia Avenue Project and Scottsdale Conservatory Theatre. Ms. Garcia currently leads the Drama Ministry for Montrose Church where she has produced and directed several plays and films.
	Nate Genung (Production Stage Manager, George Gershwin Alone and Maestro) has worked on Harps and Angels, The Subject Was Roses and Pippin (Mark Taper Forum) and Gigi, How to Succeed..., An Evening with Sutton Foster and A Party with Marty (Reprise). His other LA credits include Equivocation (Geffen Playhouse), Summer of Love (Musical Theatre West), Medea (UCLA Live), Ring of Fire (McCoy Rigby), The Kathy & Mo Show with Kathy Najimy and Mo Gaffney (Palm Springs Convention Center), world premieres of Life Could Be a Dream (Hudson Theatre), Norman’s Ark (Ford Amphitheatre) and Dawn’s Light (East West Players).
	Matt Marsden (Production Manager/Technical Director) is Owner/President of Resolution Productions. While Production Manager at the Royal George Chicago, he was part of the production teams for HATS! The Musical, Forbidden Broadway: SVU, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, Bleacher Bums, Graham Norton: Red Handed and The Flying Karamazov Brothers. Working on his own for Resolution Productions, he has been part of the Eighty-Eight LLC production team for the World Premieres of Monsieur Chopin, Beethoven, As I Knew Him and Maestro: The Art of Leonard Bernstein. Resolution Productions has also been part of the teams for Chicago Children’s Theatre and Criterion Productions’ festival management in Chicago. Mr. Marsden’s career has included working for Olympic City at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. As a Project Manager for Chicago’s Becker Studios, he has worked on feature film PR campaigns, national conventions and trade shows and retail environments. In the theatre, he worked to open Chicago’s Drury Lane Theatre (at Water Tower Place) and production managed their inaugural show The Full Monty and then Mornings at Seven starring Katherine Helmond. He more recently managed Million Dollar Quartet’s Chicago production for AWA Management, Don’t Dress For Dinner in Chicago for The British Stage Company and White Noise co-produced by Whoopi Goldberg.
	Jeffrey Kallberg (Musical History Consultant, Maestro; Ph.D., University of Chicago; Associate Dean for Arts and Letters and Professor of Music History, University of Pennsylvania) is a specialist in music of the 19th and 20th centuries, editorial theory critical theory and gender studies. Kallberg has published widely on the music and cultural contexts of Chopin, most notably in his book, Chopin at the Boundaries: Sex, History, and Musical Genre (Harvard University Press). His critical edition of Luisa Miller, for The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, has been performed throughout the U.S. and internationally. His current projects include a book on Chopin and the culture of the nocturne, an examination of the convergences of sex and music around 1800, and a study of Scandinavian song in the first half of the 20th century. Kallberg was elected Vice President of the American Musicological Society for the term 2004-2006. He served as Review Editor of the Journal of American Musicological Society and is presently general editor of New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism (Cambridge University Press). He has won numerous awards for publications and received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He has also twice been guest-of-honor at the International Fryderyk Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Poland. In 2005, the Palmer Theological Seminary called upon Kallberg to identify and authenticate an autographed manuscript of Beethoven's Grosse Fuge that was discovered in their library. The manuscript, one of the last that Beethoven completed, preserves fascinating evidence of his compositional thinking; its reappearance after some 115 years caused considerable excitement across the musical world. In December 2005, the manuscript sold at auction for nearly $1.9 million.
	Lee Kaufman (Associate Producer) is a business entrepreneur with an interest in classical music that extends from Gregorian chants in the Middle Ages through to the modern composers. In the St. Louis community college system, he teaches a classical music listening course as well as one dealing with the role of music in the movies. He also teaches at the Chautauqua Institution in New York and Washington University in St. Louis, continuing education.
	Samantha F. Voxakis (General Manager) is a proud native of Baltimore, Maryland where her 12 years with the Baltimore Orioles included a number of extraordinary events, including the opening of Camden Yards and Cal Ripken, Jr.’s 2131st game. She now keeps busy with the day-to-day operations of Eighty-Eight LLC and with playing proud den mother on the road. Although there was a time she took great pleasure in playing the piano, she has given it up as comparisons to her boss are simply too painful.
	Eighty-Eight, LLC (Producer) was created in 2001 by Hershey Felder and is devoted to the creation of new works of musical theatre. Eighty-Eight’s projects include the “Composer Sonata” featuring the lives and work of George Gershwin: George Gershwin Alone, Fryderyk Chopin: Monsieur Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven: Beethoven, As I Knew Him and Leonard Bernstein: Maestro. Current projects include An American Story, a new musical based on a little-known story about President Lincoln’s final day. All members of Eighty-Eight LLC productions are creative artists in their own right, and all members are asked to advise and contribute on all aspects of production.