Hershey Felder: A Paris Love Story Explores Debussy's Life and Music

Following the successes of Our Great Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, celebrated virtuoso Hershey Felder returns to the Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts with Hershey Felder: A Paris Love Story, directed by Trevor Hay, from Friday, May 24 through Sunday, June 9, 2019, in The Wallis’ Bram Goldsmith Theater. Doubling as playwright and performer, Felder takes audiences on his own personal journey as he explores the life and music of Impressionist composer Claude Debussy, bringing to life a visionary who proclaimed nature his religion and romance his milieu. From the sweeping La mer to the evocative Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and the mystical Clair de lune, the celebrated composer created music of ravishing beauty, color and compassion. This production is the latest work in Felder’s critically acclaimed “Great Composer Series” of one-man shows, which have included George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Irving Berlin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

 

Critics have described Felder in this production, which had its world premiere earlier this year at TheatreWorks, Silicon Valley, in Northern California, as “phenomenal … exceeds expectations by incorporating his great gift of storytelling, historical knowledge and virtuoso piano playing with a deep, loving personal connection to Debussy” (Broadway World).

 

"Hershey Felder’s return to The Wallis for his portrayal of a man who was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries has been enthusiastically anticipated by our audiences since he announced this production last year on our stage," says The Wallis’ Artistic Director Paul Crewes. "We are fortunate to enjoy a long-term partnership with Hershey and his associates.”

 

Hershey Felder: A Paris Love Story features scenic design by Felder, lighting and projection design by Christopher Ash, sound design/production management by Erik Carstensen, costume design by Stacey Nezda, wig & hair design by Anastasia Pautova and historical and biographical research by Meghan Maiya, M.A. Assistant lighting designer is Erik Barry, assistant video designer is Brian McMullen and additional movement is by Diego Funes. Louisa Pancoast is assistant to Mr. Funes. Joel Zwick is consulting producer.

 

Tickets, $35 to $105, are on sale now and, available at TheWallis.org/Debussy. The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts is located at 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills. To purchase tickets and for more information, please call 310-746-4000 or visit: TheWallis.org/Debussy.

 

About the Artists:

 

HERSHEY FELDER (Claude Debussy/The Boy/Playwright), named to Time Magazine’s 2016 Top 10 Plays and Musicals, has played over 5,000 performances of his self-created solo productions at some of the world’s most prestigious theatres and has broken box office records consistently. American Theatre Magazine has said, “Hershey Felder is in a category all his own.” His shows include George Gershwin Alone (Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre, West End’s Duchess Theatre); Monsieur Chopin; Beethoven; Maestro (Leonard Bernstein); Franz Liszt in Musik, Lincoln: An American Story, Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin, Our Great Tchaikovsky, and A Paris Love Story. His compositions and recordings include Aliyah, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; Fairytale, a musical; Les Anges de Paris, Suite for Violin and Piano; Song Settings; Saltimbanques for Piano and Orchestra; Etudes Thematiques for Piano; and An American Story for Actor and Orchestra. Felder is adaptor, director and designer for the internationally performed play-with-music The Pianist of Willesden Lane with Steinway artist Mona Golabek; producer and designer for the musical Louis and Keely: ‘Live’ at the Sahara, directed by Taylor Hackford; and writer and director for Flying Solo, featuring opera legend Nathan Gunn. Upcoming projects include a new musical based on the award-winning book Out on a Ledge by Eva Libitzky. He has operated a full-service production company since 2001, has been a scholar-in-residence at Harvard University’s Department of Music and is married to Kim Campbell, the first female Prime Minister of Canada.

 

TREVOR HAY (Director) directed the world premieres of An American Story for Actor and Orchestra, Abe Lincoln's Piano, Hershey Felder as Franz Liszt in Musik, Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin, and Our Great Tchaikovsky. He is Associate Director for Mona Golabek's The Pianist of Willesden Lane. He is a former member of the historic Old Globe Theatre in San Diego where, at the age of nine, his first position was selling Old Globe memorabilia. Over the next 32 years, Hay went on to various aspects of production on more than 80 presentations, including the Broadway productions of Jack O'Brien's Damn Yankees, How The Grinch Stole Christmas and Twyla Tharp's The Times They Are A-Changin'. Included in his 23 seasons at the Old Globe were eleven seasons of the Summer Shakespeare Festival Repertory, as well as work on Tracy Letts' August: Osage County, directed by Sam Gold, and Hershey Felder's George Gershwin Alone, Monsieur Chopin and Maestro Bernstein.

 

JOEL ZWICK (Consulting Producer) directed My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the highest-grossing romantic comedy of all time. Recent films include Fat Albert and Elvis Has Left the Building. Zwick directed the Broadway production of George Gershwin Alone at the Helen Hayes Theatre. He began his theatrical career at La Mama E.T.C., as director of the La Mama Plexus. He has directed on Broadway, Off-Broadway and Broadway touring companies. He and Hershey Felder have collaborated on Monsieur Chopin, Beethoven As I Knew Him and Maestro. Currently, Zwick is recognized as one of Hollywood’s most prolific directors of episodic television, having the direction of over 650 episodes to his credit. New York productions have included Dance with Me (Tony nomination), Shenandoah (Broadway national tour), Oklahoma (national tour) and Cold Storage (American Place Theater). He acted in the original New York production of MacBird. He directed Esther (Promenade Theater, NY), Merry-Go-Round (Chicago and Las Vegas), Last Chance Saloon and Woycek (West End). Zwick has taught drama at Yale University, Brooklyn College, Queens College, Wheaton College, and the University of Southern California. He is a graduate (B.A., M.A.) of Brooklyn College.

 

CHRISTOPHER ASH (Lighting and Projection Design) is based in Philadelphia, PA. His work has been seen in thirteen countries and nominated for fourteen awards. On Broadway they include Saint Joan and Sunday in the Park with George. Regional credits include Wilma, Bearded Ladies Cabaret, Guthrie, Yale Rep, Philadelphia Theatre Co., Bucks County Playhouse, Classic Stage Co., Hartford Stage, Soho Rep, Engeman, Paramount, Drury Lane Oakbrook, Chautauqua Institute, Old Globe, Geffen, South Coast Rep, San Diego Rep, Victory Gardens, Laguna Playhouse, The Wallis and Theatreworks. His opera credits include Paris Opera, Lyric Opera Chicago, Canadian Opera and Houston Grand. Dance credits include Charlotte Ballet, Heidi Latsky, Anadolu Ates¸i (Istanbul) and CoisCéim (Dublin). MFA Yale School of Drama.

 

ERIK CARSTENSEN (Sound Designer/Production Manager) has worked for Eighty-Eight Entertainment since 2008. He has served as sound designer on Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin, Jamaica Farewell, Baritones Unbound, Louis and Keely: ‘Live’ at the Sahara, Jack Lemmon’s Son, Rockstar, An American Story, The Pianist of Willesden Lane (2012 Ovation Award Nomination), Maestro Bernstein, Our Great Tchaikovsky, and Beethoven As I Knew Him (2009 Ovation Award Winner). Formerly, he was the master sound technician at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego and was production engineer on over 60 productions, including Allegiance, Robin and the Seven Hoods, A Catered Affair, Hershey Felder’s George Gershwin Alone, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Chita Rivera-A Dancers Life, Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, The Full Monty, Dirty Blonde, and Floyd Collins. He is a member of IATSE Local 122.

 

STACEY NEZDA (Costume Design), an Orange County, CA, native, was a dresser and stitcher at Laguna Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, and other regional theatres for twenty years before joining Hershey Felder Presents. Her favorite credits include her nieces' and nephew's annual Halloween costumes, especially the Frodo Baggins complete with big, hairy hobbit feet.

 

DIEGO FUNES (Additional Movement) studied at the School of American Ballet and danced with Cincinnati Ballet, New York City Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and Baletto del Sud. His credits also include Broadway, touring and international productions of Cats, Hello, Dolly!, Riverdance, Anything Goes, A Chorus Line and The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. He danced in videos for MTV and alongside artists such as Liza Minnelli, Whitney Houston and Will Smith. Choreography credits include Beauty and the Beast, Hello, Dolly!, And the World Goes Round, Zorba!, Leader of the Pack, Subways Are for Sleeping, shows for Tokyo Disney and the film, P.S. I Love You. His filmmaking debut, the short film, “Rendez-vous,” has been screened at film festivals all over the world, winning Best Dance Video at the Super Short Film Festival and the Love Film Festival in Barcelona. Funes lives in New York City, where he is the founder and artistic director of De Funes Dance, and is the Director of the Peridance Youth Ensemble.

 

MEGHAN MAIYA (Historical and Biographical Research) is the Director of Research and Special Projects for Hershey Felder Presents (HFP). She has been doing biographical and historical research for HFP’s new theatrical productions since 2013. Productions include Hershey Felder as Franz Liszt in Musik; Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin; Our Great Tchaikovsky; Hershey Felder, Beethoven; and Hershey Felder in A Paris Love Story. Additional projects include Production Research & Imagery for Louis and Keely ‘Live’ at the Sahara. Formerly, Maiya worked in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego as a Senior Program Evaluation Specialist and Project Manager. She coordinated multiple research projects in the fields of Integrative Medicine and Behavioral Health. Additionally, she spent thirteen years as a psychology professor at San Diego State University and local community colleges and institutes.

 

KAREN RACANELLI (Executive Producer) comes to Hershey Felder Presents from Berkeley Repertory Theatre, where she worked as General Manager for 21 years, overseeing daily operations, and produced several shows performed and/or directed by Hershey Felder. She has represented the League of Resident Theatres during negotiations with both Actors’ Equity Association and the union of Stage Directors and Choreographers, served on LORT’s Executive Committee and served as a panelist at several LORT meetings. Prior to her tenure at Berkeley Rep, Racanelli worked as an independent producer at several Bay Area theatre companies and has served on the boards of Climate Theater, Overtone Theatre Company, Park Day School, and the Julia Morgan Center. She was named a 2016 “Unsung Hero of Arts Administration” by the national arts and culture organization, Fractured Atlas. She is married to Bay Area arts attorney MJ Bogatin.

 

SAMANTHA F. VOXAKIS (Producer/Company Manager) spent twelve memorable years in the front office of the Baltimore Orioles prior to joining Eighty-Eight Entertainment in early 2004. Since soon after her first company assignment, she has been responsible for the day-to-day operations of Eighty-Eight LLC and Hershey Felder Presents.

 

HERSHEY FELDER PRESENTS (Producer) Hershey Felder Presents is the newest division of Eighty-Eight Entertainment which was created in 2001 by Hershey Felder and is devoted to the creation of new works of music-theatre. Hershey Felder Presents endeavors in theatrical presentation in multiple musical and theatrical formats throughout the world.

 

About the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts:

Since opening its doors in October 2013, The Wallis has produced or presented more than 250 dance, theater, opera, classical music, cinema and family programs to an ever-expanding audience. Located in the heart of Beverly Hills, California, The Wallis brings audiences world-class theater, dance and music, performed by many of the world's most talented and sought-after artists. Featuring eclectic programming that mirrors the diverse landscape of Los Angeles and its notability as the entertainment capital of the world, The Wallis offers original and revered works from across the U.S. and around the globe. The mission of The Wallis is to create, present and celebrate unique performing arts events and educational programs that reflect the rich cultural diversity of our community. Nominated for 48 Ovation Awards, seven L.A. Drama Critic's Circle Awards and the recipient of six architectural awards since opening in 2013. The Wallis is a breathtaking 70,000-square-foot venue that celebrates the classic and the modern and was designed by Zoltan E. Pali, FAIA, of Studio Pali Fekete architects. The building features the restored, original 1933 Beverly Hills Post Office (on the National Register of Historic Places) that serves as the theater's dramatic yet welcoming lobby, and houses the 150-seat Lovelace Studio Theater, GRoW at The Wallis: A Space for Arts Education (a gift of Gregory Annenberg Weingarten and Family and the Annenberg Foundation) and the contemporary 500-seat, state-of-the art Bram Goldsmith Theater. Together, these structures embrace the city's history and its future, creating a performing arts destination for L.A.-area visitors and residents alike.   For more information about The Wallis, please visit: TheWallis.org.