Broadway Legend Tovah Feldshuh Explores Fame, Family In New Memoir LILYVILLE

Broadway icon and four-time Tony, two-time Emmy nominee Tovah Feldshuh has announced that she will release a new memoir titled LILYVILLE, a heartwarming and hilarious exploring the mother-daughter relationship that challenged shifting socio-cultural expectations of women and shaped a magnificent career.

Calling Tovah Feldshuh a master performer would be akin to dismissing a tornado as a stiff breeze. Her first major role in Yentl earned her multiple awards and a Tony nomination, paving the way for a robust theater career and acclaimed television performances in Holocaust, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and The Walking Dead.

She has never shied away from strong characters or demanding commitments, playing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, headlining the longest-running one-person show in Broadway history, and celebrating her 60s by swinging from a trapeze 30 feet off the ground. Yet, perhaps Tovah's most influential, challenging, and, eventually, fulfilling role was one she never auditioned for: Lily Feldshuh's daughter.

In her own way, Lily was a force of nature too. As the epitome of a 1950s housewife-impeccably dressed, a master of etiquette, and completely devoted to her husband-she expected perfection from her only daughter and often believed that as a mother, it was her duty to point out Tovah's every mistake. Tovah, headstrong and free-spirited, found herself constantly torn between living a life on her own terms and a desperate need to gain her mother's approval. Despite all of Tovah's success on-stage and on the screen, it ultimately would take the birth of her own children and the death of her beloved father to truly bring the two women together.

In LILYVILLE: Mother, Daughter, and Other Roles I've Played (Hachette Books; 04/13/21; $29; ISBN: 9780306924026) Tovah Feldshuh reflects on her extraordinary life in the best way she knows how: as a play.

Tovah immerses readers in a journey through the acts and scenes of her personal and professional life, from her tomboy childhood in the refined community of Scarsdale, New York, to becoming Broadway royalty alongside Christopher Plummer and Barbra Streisand-all held together by the twisting thread of her often-complicated relationship with Lily.

A perfect gift for Mother's Day and theater-lovers, LILYVILLE is a heartfelt memoir celebrating the lives and bond of two very different, but equally strong and vibrant, women coming to terms with themselves, each other, and the changing ways of the world.