Award-winning actor and piano virtuoso Hershey Felder in his wildly acclaimed one-man show, HERSHEY FELDER AS IRVING BERLIN at 59E59 Theaters (Val Day, Artistic Director; Brian Beirne, Managing Director). The production, featuring music and lyrics by the great American songwriter Irving Berlin, book by Hershey Felder and directed by longtime Felder collaborator Trevor Hay, will play from August 24 through October 28, 2018, with opening night scheduled for Wednesday, September 5. Felder returns to 59E59 Theaters, where he recently played a sold out engagement of MAESTRO (Leonard Bernstein) and adapted, directed and designed the sold out THE PIANIST OF WILLESDEN LANE.

Isn’t it ironic that a Jewish immigrant from Belarus wrote “White Christmas,” one of the most beloved Christmas songs, as well as one of the most patriotic American songs, “God Bless America?” For these musical contributions and others, Irving Berlin, born Israel Beilin, is considered to be one of the greatest songwriters in American history; for these two songs, however, Berlin also received hate mail. The audience at 59E59 Theaters learns these facts and others through the one-man show Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin. Felder has made a career of portraying famous musicians, including George Gershwin, Franz Liszt and Tchaikovsky and most recently, Leonard Bernstein in Maestro. Felder assumes the persona of Berlin and addresses the audience as if it’s a group of carolers singing outside his NYC apartment. Later he invites the carolers to sing along. Despite being the son of a hazzan (cantor) Berlin himself did not possess a strong singing voice. I’m not sure if Felder purposely tries to imitate Berlin’s voice but his singing is definitely a weakness in the show.  Sometimes, it even lessens the power of the message. In the prime of his career, Berlin mounted his own shows and hired …Read more