Melissa Errico to Lead a Sondheim Performance Workshop at 92NY

The 92nd Street Y will lead a two-day workshop devoted to the art of singing his music. This two-day workshop, titled Interpreting Sondheim from Stage to Concert, will take place October 25 and 26.

Teaching alongside Melissa will be award-winning cabaret performer and historian Michael Kirk Lane, and acclaimed cabaret musical director Yasuhiko (Yaz) Fukuoka. This team will also be joined by songwriter and playwright Michael Mitnick in this immersive workshop. Designed to shed light on the practice and techniques of singing Sondheim, it will also touch on the ways that Errico, famously, ‘turns a set list into a story’ — goes about taking songs from their original theatrical context while reimagining them in a cycle that has a narrative arc and meaning all its own.

On Friday night, the students will be asked to arrive with a Sondheim number they particularly want to sing, rehearse it, and share it with the class. All day Saturday, Melissa will work with the students on deepening their interpretation and sharpening their Sondheim sensibilities — and suggest how to offer the song ‘on its own terms’, not necessarily as a character study within the original show’s story, but as a story in itself. Drawing on her own many years of work with Sondheim himself, she will educate the students both on the mechanics of singing and on shaping the inner dramatics of a Sondheim concert.

Pre-Screening Process:

· Performers interested in working with Melissa Errico must register as auditors and complete this short pre-screening form

· Please note: students must register and complete the form no later than Friday, October 11 to be considered.

· If you are invited to work with Melissa Errico, you will be contacted by the School of Music Office and an additional tuition fee will be charged at that time.

· Those not interested in performing are invited to join the workshop as auditors.

About the Artists:

Melissa Errico

is a Tony Award-nominated Broadway actress, singer, and author. Touring the world with her inimitable thematic concerts, from Singapore to Paris to San Francisco and beyond. The New York Times summed up her appeal simply: “Any chance to hear Melissa Errico sing is a chance worth taking.”

Her concerts in the past year alone have included a Paris duet in 2023 with her frequent singing partner Isabelle Georges, broadcast nationally on Radio France, followed by a sold-out cabaret at the historic Le Bal Blomet. In that same summer, she opened for music icon George Benson at the Montreal Jazz Festival. She has also sung countless concerts of American song, ranging from Randy Newman to Irving Berlin, including stints at The 92nd Street Y, Birdland, Joe’s Pub, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center’s Allen Room, and Feinstein’s/ 54 Below.

First known for her starring roles on Broadway, including My Fair Lady, High Society, Anna Karenina, White Christmas, Dracula, and Les Misérables, Melissa has had a wide-ranging career from television and film to recording. She starred in the CBS show Central Park West and played roles on Blue Bloods, The Knick, and more, as well as Billions on Showtime. She has starred in many non-musical roles by Shaw and Oscar Wilde, including Dear Liar in the spring of 2023, playing George Bernard Shaw’s original Eliza Doolittle.

Errico’s history with Sondheim began when he selected her to star as Dot in Sunday In The Park With George at The Kennedy Center, then as Clara in Passion at Classic Stage Company; then in the NY City Center Encores! production of Do I Hear A Waltz? In 2020, she sang “Children and Art” in the Sondheim 90th birthday concert Take Me To The World, and was featured on PBS television in a documentary special in which she sang a feminist version of “Finishing The Hat” and joined Adam Gopnik and Raul Esparza to talk Sondheim on Poetry in America. She was also featured in The New York Times tribute to Sondheim in November 2021 as one of the top ten interpreters of his work. Her 2018 album, Sondheim Sublime, was called by The Wall Street Journal “The best all-Sondheim album ever recorded.” Her second Sondheim album, Sondheim In The City, was released on February 16, 2024, and earned her still more praise from the Times as, “one of Sondheim’s deepest-hearted but lightest touch interpreters.”

She is currently working on expanding her collected New York Times essays about a singer’s strange life on the stage and road, gathered under the heading “Scenes From An Acting Life”, into a book. She has three daughters and is married to tennis player and journalist Patrick McEnroe.

Michael Kirk Lane

is 2-time Manhattan Association of Cabaret Award winner, having most recently won in 2022 for Best Virtual Presentation. Along with 3 previous MAC nominations, Lane has been nominated for 13 BroadwayWorld Cabaret Awards, winning in 2018 for Best Show. Stephen Mosher of BroadwayWorld Cabaret has called Lane “one of the most popular performers and people working in cabaret today.” Cabaret Scenes Magazine has deemed Lane’s work “musical comedy heaven.”

Beyond his own experience performing in cabaret, Lane’s experience managing two of the city’s most renowned cabaret venues (The Laurie Beechman Theatre, Don’t Tell Mama) offers him a unique vantage point and perspective on the art form. He is also the host of 92NY’s award-winning interview series “Cabaret Conversations”

As a teaching artist for over 20 years, Lane has taught all ages from pre-school to retirement homes. In each class he brings the same philosophy to his teaching, no matter the age of the students. “Art, Theatre, and Music are ways for us to connect with our most authentic self, and to explore the world around us.”

Yasuhiko “Yaz” Fukuoka is a Drama Desk and MAC Awards nominated pianist, film composer, arranger, and music producer based in NYC. He also music-directs new musicals and cabaret shows. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Birdland, Festival de Cannes and other venues in North America, South America, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit www.yahzy.com.

Michael Mitnick is a playwright and songwriter. Theatre works include Scotland, PA (New York Times Critics’ Pick, The Roundabout Theatre Company), Fly By Night (Drama Desk-nominated Best Musical, Playwrights Horizons), Mysterious Circumstances (The Geffen Playhouse), Sex Lives of Our Parents (Second Stage), The Siegel (South Coast Repertory), and Spacebar: A Broadway Play by Kyle Sugarman (The Wild Project). His music and lyrics have been sung at Lincoln Center, The Guggenheim, Joe’s Pub, 54 Below, and on HBO.

The 92NY School of Music is under the direction of Yana Stotland.
 

Registration details here.

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