Melissa and Billy will go “back-to-back” in their appreciations of the Streisand songbook, in a joyful series of duets, conversations, and more.
54 Below will welcome back Broadway and cabaret star Melissa Errico on May 27 – 29 at 7pm. After the triumph of The Streisand Effect, her homage to the great Barbra last fall, Melissa Errico returns with a new edition of the show – but this one blessed with the presence of the great piano-man and singer Billy Stritch, a Streisand favorite and a frequent Errico stage husband. Once again, the music of their shared collaborators and mentors, the Legrands and the Bergmans and Sondheim and the standards will ring out. But this time Melissa and Billy will go “back-to-back” in their appreciations of the Streisand songbook, in a joyful series of duets, conversations, witty entanglements and just wonderful music making.
The strength of the Errico-Streisand connection was apparent in last fall’s concert tour: the hamische Jewish-comedienne-chanteuse and the intellectual-Italian enchantress who has for so long been inspired by her, share many of their greatest collaborators, from David Shire to Stephen Sondheim to Marvin Hamlisch. Certainly, the great songwriting team of Michel Legrand and the Bergmans have never had two more committed interpreters, and the Legrand songbook, from “The Way He Makes Me Feel” to “The Summer Knows,” will once again make its efflorescent presence felt.
But, more than just a shared songbook, there’s a shared style between Barbra and Melissa — a unique quality of passion and intelligence brought to the American songbook. Both are “Daughters of Fire,” in the phrase that David Shire has turned into a newly composed anthem for Melissa’s show – both radiant with inspiration and even when called for, a little indignation.
Now, Billy will throw his own stylish kindling into that fire, sharing with Melissa some of the great Streisand-inspired duets that she couldn’t get to the first time around [from her Sinatra-shared “I’ve Got a Crush on You” to the legendary Judy Garland “Get Happy” to the “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”].
Come if you love Barbra, come if you love Melissa, come if you love Billy – or just come for the joys of the of the most high-hearted and affirmative side of the American songbook.