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. […]
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, […]
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 […]
Column: The Purist
It was green with white lines from the very beginning. Just over 20 years ago, I set foot in the world of professional tennis. I was 25 years old and had been set up to meet Patrick McEnroe, a boy I had grown up with and had known since I was 4. From the evening […]
Column: The Purist
All over the world, people take time off. Thousands of people right this minute are either upside down on mats on yoga retreats or upside down under tables in Napa Valley. I have a tendency to spot where pleasure can go, but not make room for it, to say “I love going to hear live […]
Column: The Purist
Spring cleaning makes me think of my messy makeup drawers, or all the size 4 dresses that are sitting there and probably never going to fit again. Time to clean a little, make space for the new. Important no doubt, but an experience with my 9-year old and her teacher rises to the top and […]
Column: The New York Times
Broadway people spend most of their lives as people not on Broadway. A minority of actors make it to New York’s biggest stage, and a further minority of those who do are there now. One need only to have starred in a Broadway musical a year (or 20 years) ago to be billed as a […]
Column: NYMetro Parents
How I juggled motherhood with a dream role in a special musical. My kids regularly see me get ready for auditions, dressing up like a lawyer or the Queen of England, only to come home later and say I might not have gotten the job. We laugh. It’s Mommy’s life. They have learned that actors […]
Column: The New York Times
The ingénue police are at my door. Is this Melissa Errico? The actress? Do you understand that Sharon in “Finian’s Rainbow” should be around 27 years old? Would you please come with us? Then I wake up. Sleeping actors are known to forget their lines, or what play they are in, or where their pants […]