Interview with Melissa Errico
By Jordan Wright
April 18, 2025
The Story of a Rose: A Musical Reverie on The Great War will star Melissa Errico in a world premiere performance on May 7th for one night only at Alexandria, Virginia’s Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center. In a unique mix of song and speech of the period, Errico relates the story of the oft-overlooked epoch of World War One in all its complexities. Produced by The Doughboy Foundation the concert benefits its work in support of America’s National World War I Memorial in Washington, D.C. The show is also presented by the Gary Sinise Foundation. Established by actor and humanitarian Gary Sinise to honor our nation’s defenders, veterans, first responders and their families, the organization creates and supports original programming designed to entertain, educate, inspire and support these heroes.
As an actress, recording artist and writer Melissa Errico has been called, at her Carnegie Hall debut in 2022, “a unique force in the life of the New York theater– there’s no one quite like her!” A Tony-nominated actress for her mentor Michel Legrand’s “Amour” on Broadway and star of such Broadway musicals as “My Fair Lady”, “High Society”, “White Christmas”, “Les Misérables”and other smash hit shows, she has come into her own in recent years with concerts and cabarets, touring the world in productions that spin together a vital and witty script with her sublime voice that had Opera News dub her “the Maria Callas of American musical theater.” The songbooks of Stephen Sondheim and Michel Legrand, among others, have been the subjects of her solo concerts. Her 2019 album “Sondheim Sublime” was called, by the Wall Street Journal, “The finest solo Sondheim album ever recorded.” Currently, Errico is touring her new album, the acclaimed “Sondheim in the City” – that will culminate in her London solo concert hall debut at Cadogan Hall on July 12, 2025.
She has also recently appeared as Mrs. Patrick Campbell in the play “Dear Liar” at the Irish Rep and premiered the role of Eleanor of Aquitaine last fall in an unforgettable concert at the Metropolitan Museum’s Cloisters, singing a new David Shire/Adam Gopnik musical penned expressly for her. Errico writes regularly about the comic twists and turns in the life of a performer for The New York Times in a series dubbed by the newspaper “Scenes From An Acting Life”.
From Paris, where she appeared last summer with her frequent concert mate Isabelle Georges at the Bal Blomet, to London, where she is a regular at Crazy Coqs cabaret – from the Elysée Palace to the stages of the Grand Rex, Montreal Jazz Festival and Carnegie Hall – she brings her inimitable mind, spirit, voice and soul to audiences around the world.
This orchestral one-woman concert, enhanced with evocative visuals, ravishing period costumes, and an all-star jazz ensemble is a stylish and deep reflection on World War I. Using her own great Aunt Rose as her avatar, and the Ziegfeld Follies that Rose starred in as a frame, Errico recreates the songs, hopes and loves of the people of the time. Additionally, acclaimed Broadway actor/musician George Abud (Lempicka, The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical, The Band’s Visit) assists in a variety of onstage roles.
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What drew you to this subject matter? Are you a history buff?
As an art history major, I love doing historic recreation on stage. I’ve played Jefferson’s epistolary lover Maria Cosway in a play, and most recently Eleanor of Aquitaine in a new musical by David Shire and Adam Gopnik. So, when Dan Dayton of the Doughboy Foundation approached me about creating a work on stage with music about the Great War, I leapt at it.
Tell me about your Aunt Rose as your inspiration for this new work?
My Great Aunt Rose was a kind of presiding mysterious figure throughout my childhood. She was a Ziegfeld Follies girl of extraordinary beauty and glamour and I recall her red lipstick and constant cigarettes. She was an Italian immigrant newly arrived in the United States when the war began, so she seemed the perfect heroine for our story. Of course, I’ve reworked her story for dramatic purposes, but her essence is true. She was one of that generation of immigrants to America who sought out opportunities. Fortuitously, she was discovered by Ziegfeld in a subway restaurant, and he made her a star. Later she faced tragedies that often come with sudden stardom – the wrong men, the wrong choices and never enough money. The life of a Follies girl was no longer than the life of a rose.
Where else will you be performing this?
Dan Dayton plans to make it a permanent touring show, so I’d be delighted to take it anywhere that will welcome us. New York, of course, is always the ultimate destination for a show girl of any generation.
What are your plans for promoting this? Are they filming it? Will you be televising it? Touring college campuses?
I’ve been so consumed with creating the show that I haven’t focused on its extensions, but I do hope they make a record of it – live stream or permanent video – and of course I’d go joyfully to any college that wants it, and us.