Up at Bat: Melissa Errico
Actors turn night into day. Our lives on the stage have this effect. This is a story of how I have used a showgirl’s wisdom—or is it madness?—to turn winter into summer. In September 2019, I found myself overworked, and down with a painful case of shingles, having sung concerts all summer followed by autumn […]
Back in the Girdle Again: Getting Fitted After a Year Untouched
Confessions of an actress seeking reassurance — and sleeves — as she steps before a live concert audience again. Here I am, back at the confessional at last. Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. It has been 13 months since my last visit to you. The father-confessor, to whom I am looking for absolution, is Eric […]
Melissa Errico Reflects on Finding the Music in a Turbulent Year
From Covid quarantining to Inauguration Day, Errico discusses music’s promise of hope. The past year has been full of shocks — philosophical, practical, fundamental — and perhaps the one that stalled me into a state of frozen disbelief was the idea that singing — the central act of my life — was now toxic. The […]
Essay: on Happiness and Yip Harburg
In this essay, Errico reflects on Harburg’s legacy as she celebrates the release of the new single “Happiness is Just A Thing Called Joe,” a collaboration with pianist Lara Downes I consider myself an acolyte in the church of Yip. By Yip, of course I mean E.Y. “Yip” Harburg, one of the lyricists in The […]
Just Me and the Music and the Green Screen
As the pandemic wore on, the new technology became a theatrical force, allowing, among other things, actors to reunite for shows they’d done earlier.
Column: The Purist
I was weeping. Not just crying, or quietly tearful—but full out shoulder-shaking and wracked with sobs, alone in my seat in a suburban movie theater. My three young daughters—the oldest, 13, the twins, 11—and I had just seen Greta Gerwig’s wonderful adaptation of Little Women, and they were surprised—maybe even alarmed—by my reaction. Oh, I […]
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 […]