Column: Variety Magazine’s Corona Chronicles
When coronavirus hit the news, I was flying from NY to Ft. Lauderdale on 3/9 to begin a six-month concert tour of my new album (Legrand Affair: Deluxe Edition) singing the music of my mentor Michel Legrand. Next stop was Palm Springs, London, Vegas, LA, Paris, and more. 3/12 at Lincoln Center was to be […]
Column: The Purist
Those who know me best may say that I am more than a singer, that I am a multitasker, a mom, a writer, an actor, someone who rarely misses your birthday, makes time for family and friends—and sometimes my closest loved ones think I simply am doing too much. When, with a 2-year old already […]
Column: The Purist
Standing behind a large movie screen this summer, I watched The Thomas Crown Affair in reverse. I was the curator of The Summer of Michel Legrand, a film festival at the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in New York City devoted to the great French film composer. I made welcome speeches and then slipped backstage to regroup […]
Get Out of My Light, Honey. I’m Auditioning Here.
Get Out of My Light, Honey. I’m Auditioning Here.
Melissa in France
Original expanded essay (originally published on Playbill.com) We were in the middle of a six-course epicurean dinner and I had just had been served my main course, which looked shockingly spare to my American eye. Two scallops, three shrimp, and little else on the large, white plate. It didn’t take me three minutes to disappear […]
The Extravagance and Genius of Michel Legrand (An Expanded Memoir)
English Edition, expanded from her New York Times memoir published in January 2019 As first published in La Regle Du Jeu I can still hear Michel Legrand’s voice in my head: “Melissa! Hurry! Come!” This was morning at the Music Box Theatre, an early rehearsal during the first previews of the Broadway musical Amour which […]
Column: The Purist
Transcendental Meditation is a demanding companion. I started TM just a year ago because, outwardly, enough people told me I should; and inwardly, because I knew I needed something deep within to slow down the speed of my mind and the pace of my days, and even find some comfort and pleasure far inside myself. […]
Playbill: Melissa Errico Trips the Light Fantastic With Stephen Sondheim—Or Is It the Light Fandango?
Mr. Stephen Sondheim recently came backstage after the final performance at the 92 Street Y Lyrics & Lyricists production of Wordplay, written and hosted by Ted Chapin, gracing us all with warmth and positivity. With due reverence and never taking his presence for granted, I greeted him with (and this is something of a running joke between us), “You […]
Swept Up in the Whirlwind Known as Michel Legrand
I still hear Michel Legrand’s voice in my head: “Melissa! Hurry! Come!” It was morning at the Music Box Theater, an early rehearsal during the first previews of his 2002 Broadway musical “Amour.” It was 10:01 a.m., and we were all moving slowly, nursing coffee cups in the palms of our hands. We had performed […]
Sondheim Sublime: The Liner Notes
The first time I sang for Stephen Sondheim I was in the bath. Raul Esparza and I were doing Sunday in the Park with George at the Kennedy Center, and I played Dot, who is a painter’s model to the greatest of dot-makers, Georges Seurat. I had been an art history major in college and, […]
The Purist: Singing the Sublime
Being an actor is a hard life, and a strange life. But those of us who are musical theater actors cannot imagine our lives, cannot imagine the experience of being an actor at all, without the influence of Stephen Sondheim.
I Love Performing Those Songs. But What About the Gender Politics?
“It’s problematic,” my millennial co-star whispered grimly. “The misogyny in this musical.” “Which moment of misogyny?” I asked cautiously. We were sitting in the corner of the theater, on the first day of rehearsal for the current revival of Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane’s 1965 musical “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever,” now […]