Chronicles of a Girl Singer: Sondheim On The Road

Following up on her standout “Girl Singer” essay in the New York Times (part of her series “Scenes From an Acting Life”), Melissa muses today for BroadwayWorld as she tours the country.

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Headed to Las Vegas in the midst of a tumultuous time I find myself once again singing Sondheim. I’ve been singing Sondheim on the road almost continuously for the past decade. As with all classic songs — let me expand that thought to, as in all great works of art — they reveal new things each time they are visited. 

Last night in Erie, I sang my concert “Sondheim In The City,” and tomorrow I bring it to Las Vegas at the beautiful Myron’s Jazz Club of The Smith Center. “Do you like to gamble?” I was asked on the local Vegas news a few days ago. Not really, would have been the honest answer. (I’m a strange creature to be a nightclub singer: I never gamble and never drink.)  I certainly hadn’t gambled on the world being as troubled as it has become. But true to the promise of my profession, the show had to go on— and I am realizing that it is possible to make a contribution , however small, towards healing some of our divisions.  I do it through Sondheim.

My show is about the memory, the music and the city of Stephen Sondheim. He often said he lived his entire life in a 20-block radius of Manhattan. Every night, I tell a story that acts as mucilage for the songs: it’s about going on a real estate tour of Steve’s townhouse after he died — under the false pretenses that I could afford it (I actually had an idealistic dream that I might get a museum to help turn it into a study center!) Anyway, isn’t that what actors are supposed to do? Act under false pretenses? 

I found the house itself to be a profound way of looking at his work, especially his urban-based scores. The house, I found, consisted of outward facing windows, of course, looking at a vibrant city. What surprised me was the interior garden and the windows looking inward – as if he counter-balanced his days with quiet, interiority and reflection. I heard his songs suddenly in groupings, as if written from these vistas. Front facing and inward facing. The dining room where we gossip. The bedroom where we fight. (I, too, was born in New York City, that “city of strangers” where another hundred people seem to arrive every minute. In my show, I weave memories of my own ecstatic, exiled-to-the-suburbs teen self who wanted to arrive on the LIRR within Sondheim’s words and music.)

Performing this music this particular week, after the election, I was floored by the response and by the lessons that flooded back to me as each note and word passed through my throat. A song like “Take Me To The World” was a prayer to our beautiful plurality— in an imaginary urbanity in Evening Primrose — a place where so many wanted to get to … to find freedom, to remove limitations, to find acceptance and “a world that smiles that’s bursting with surprise / to open up your eyes for joy.” As I sang, I felt confident that the pockets of change and peace that I have seen developing in the theater and arts community would survive. I also felt that singing the song was an opportunity to express the highest possible wish for humanity: not to live in fear. :“Just hold my hand and know you’re not alone. We shall have the world to keep / such a lovely world/ we’ll weep. We shall have the world forever, for our own.”

Note, it says “we.” Not “me.”

I noted that.

Other songs seemed richer in meaning than they ever have. I opened with “Everybody Says Don’t” and was struck by “Everybody says no, everybody says stop everybody says mustn’t rock the boat/ mustn’t touch a thing. Everybody says don’t, everybody  says wait/ everybody says can’t fight city hall/ can’t upset the cart/ can’t laugh at the king.”  — my heart stopped!! The song goes so fast, my heart was beating, I went on: “well I say try! I say laugh at the kings, or they’ll make you cry.”

My next song, “Not While I’m Around” , though from my first album, felt essential . I wanted to make sure each felt then that the foundation of the night would be love. I sang the lines” Being close & being clever ain’t like being true.” Sondheim knows the difference between posturing and true reliability. 

The night had so many highs, and lessons, it is hard to pick them out. But I felt a few things were clear: my audience needed assurances , lots of them, and that Steve’s wisdom was so substantial that I was like a cook with an abundance of delicious food to share with people who were bruised by something – by something difficult to describe yet universally felt. It’s not my role in this world to describe it, but I saw the faces and I was honored to keep the songs flowing and the storytelling drawing them along.

I tried something new, fun, this week — a costume that is new to me : a first act outfit of a top hat and a gown that is something of a vested suit. It isn’t my usual ‘look’. I can’t identify how this idea evolved, but it may be related to the album photoshoot I did at key monuments in Manhattan last fall, where one day I took a quick spontaneous portrait sitting in Central Park on the “Alice in Wonderland” statue. A tribute, I hoped, to the energy and wit — be who you are!— of city life. We all know the Mad Hatter has a hat on; and since Sondheim explores so many complexities and ambivalences in the “Sorry, Grateful” maturity of relationships, I thought it might be fun to imagine a flirtation with the hatter. And of course, a Facebook comment immediately said “Look, Melissa made a hat.” There is the eternal metaphor of hats in Steve. Was I making my own playful game? 

The audience seemed to need the “meaning of life” moments in my set list — songs like “Move On” and “With so little to be sure of” resonating almost more than ever. “If you can know where you’re going / you’ve gone. Just keep moving on.” 

And I was moved to get a cheer when I finished “another hundred people just got off of the train” and then added, “or boat,” and explained that my family immigrated from Italy on a boat. The story of my Aunt Rose, who danced on the actual New Amsterdam stage that inspired “Follies,” was every bit as important as ever. A family with a dream, coming to America. 

I hit the stage in Vegas tomorrow. November 9th. I can’t wait! Hope to see you there.

I’ll be joined by some special guests, the result of years of living in Manhattan. I love how we form artistic families there. Making hats! Making music! Making families!  Children & Art.  It’s all there is, as he knew.

— Melissa

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View Melissa Errico's full tour dates on her website at melissaerrico.com.

Tickets to the 11/9 show in Las Vegas are available on the Smith Center's website.

Her next NYC show will be 12/26 to 12/30 at 54 Below (tickets are available on 54 Below's website)

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