The Tony Award nominee will play a week of shows from February 10th through the 14th.

Melissa Errico has a real romance going with Noir. Film Noir, the music of the cinematic genre, the look, the feel, the history of the oeuvre – it just speaks to the singing actress, author, and chanteuse extraordinaire. For the last year, the Tony Award nominee has been enjoying sharing her passion for Noir with her fans and with new audiences discovering the magic of Melissa. With the release of her album Out of the Dark – The Film Noir Project (read the Broadway World review HERE) came a companion show that played 54 Below (read the review HERE) and one sold-out show after another, as the people flocked to the musical storyteller to learn more about Noir and how it has informed her life.

This week Melissa Errico will open at Birdland Theater for five nights of A NOIR ROMANCE, February 10th through the 14th, with two shows nightly at 7 pm and 9:30 pm (ticket link HERE) and, in anticipation of the engagement, Ms. Errico stopped by the studio for a photo shoot designed to capture the mood of the musical storytelling show, and, later, shared some of her thoughts and feelings on all things NOIR.

This interview was conducted digitally and is reproduced with minor edits.

The first Film Noir I remember seeing is:

I may have seen others before but seeing Jules Dassin’s jewel robbery-and-betrayal movie “Riffi” in college turned me inside out. I even began my Noir show at the FIAF (French Institute/Alliance Francaise) in a trench coat – with a suggestion of little beneath! – singing the theme from that movie.

The quintessential Film Noir is:

So hard…but probably “Double Indemnity.” It has Stanwyck, sex, murder, betrayal, fatalism, and great hard-boiled dialogue. The last bit of dialogue, when Fred MacMurray says “Know why you couldn’t figure this one, Keyes? I’ll tell ya. ‘Cause the guy you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from ya.” And then the Robinson character says, “Closer than that, Walter.”-that thrillingly sums up the genre: we’re all closer to the dark side than we know before we enter it.

Photos by Stephen Mosher