RACHMANINOFF AND THE TSAR by Hershey Felder To Play Balboa Theatre in August

HFP LIVE and San Diego Theatres will present pianist/actor/playwright/producer Hershey Felder, for a strictly limited engagement of RACHMANINOFF AND THE TSAR, a new musical play, at Balboa Theatre, August 27 - 31, 2024.

Having safely left Russia during the 1917 revolution, legendary pianist-composer Sergei V. Rachmaninoff made his home in the United States. In 1942, at the age of 68, he received American citizenship and bought a home in Beverly Hills, but his soul never left Russia. Six months thereafter, a terminal illness brought forth the memory of a long ago encounter with Russia's last Tsar, Nicholas II, and the Tsar's daughter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, a memory that would haunt him until the very last.

RACHMANINOFF AND THE TSAR features Hershey Felder in the role of Sergei Rachmaninoff, and for the first time, Felder will play opposite another artist, British-Italian Jonathan Silvestri in the role of Tsar Nicholas II.

Tickets are available now via Ticketmaster. For more information, please visit sandiegotheatres.org.

This exploration of Sergei Rachmaninoff's itinerant but extraordinary life illuminates the master's sense of home and family and how those elements influenced his art. Featuring his world-famous C# minor Prelude to his second piano concerto, his symphonies and his Paganini Variations, Rachmaninoff did leave Russia but Russia stayed with him until the very end influencing every aspect of his life. This world premiere promises to be another mystical musical journey in the Hershey Felder style that audiences have come to know and love.

Rachmaninoff and the Tsar features the music of Sergei V. Rachmaninoff with a book by Hershey Felder. The production is directed by Trevor Hay. Dramaturgy by Jerry Patch. Concept design is by Hershey Felder. Lighting is by Erik S. Barry, sound and production management is by Erik Carstensen, Projections are by Stefano Decarli, Costumes are by Marysol Gabriel and hair is by Tom Watson.

Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in 1873 in the Russian village of Semyonovo, more than one thousand miles to the east of Moscow. Beginning piano lessons at four, when he was ten, he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory later moving to the Moscow Conservatory. He was known as a first-rate pianist, a world class conductor and heir to Tchaikovsky as composer. He spent most of his life performing as a pianist in Europe and the US. While he was world renowned as a pianist and conductor, and beloved for his compositions, he was not critically well received by cognoscenti until the second half of the 20th century. He died just days before his 70th birthday in Beverly Hills, only weeks after finally receiving his American citizenship.

About Hershey Felder

(Sergei Rachmaninoff/Book) Recently named as Artistic Director of the historic Teatro della Signoria in Florence Italy, American Theatre Magazine has said, "Hershey Felder, actor, Steinway Concert Artist and theatrical creator is in a category all his own." Following 28 years of continuous stage productions and over 6,000 live performances throughout the U.S. and abroad, Hershey Felder created Live from Florence, An Arts Broadcasting Company, based in Florence, Italy, which has produced more than eighteen theatrical films to date. They include the recently-released Noble Genius-Chopin & Liszt; The Assembly; Violetta, the story of Verdi's Traviata; Dante and Beatrice; Mozart and Figaro in Vienna; the world premiere musicals Nicholas, Anna & Sergei; the story of Sergei Rachmaninoff; Puccini, the story of famed opera composer Giacomo Puccini; Before Fiddler, a musical story about writer Sholem Aleichem; Great American Songs and the Stories Behind Them, Leonard Bernstein and the Israel Philharmonic, a documentary, and the popular Musical Tales in the Venetian Jewish Ghetto. Two seasons of programming are currently available at www.hersheyfelder.net with season 3 being launched in spring of 2024. Hershey has given performances of his solo productions at some of the world's most prestigious theatres and has consistently broken box office records. 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 and Monsieur Chopin. 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, and the opera IL QUARTO UOMO that premiered in Fiesole, Italy in the summer of 2023 with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Hershey is the 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. Hershey has operated a full-service production company since 2001. He has been a scholar-in-residence at Harvard University's Department of Music and is married to Rt. Hn. Kim Campbell.

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