Hershey Felder’s one-night ‘Great American Songbook’ show will benefit TheatreWorks
Hershey Felder, a TheatreWorks Silicon Valley audience favorite for years, will head back to the Peninsula this fall for a one-night-only benefit for the financially strapped theater company.
The pianist-actor-playwright, who has been bringing the world’s great composers to life in sold-out shows, will turn his attention Oct. 11 to an array of notable U.S. composers with the “Great American Songbook Sing-Along.”
He is donating his performance fee and all proceeds from the evening to the cause of TheatreWorks’ solvency. In early August, directors of the Tony Award-winning stage company announced that they need to raise $3 million by November — or risk closing the doors. The most recent update posted on the website said that a little over half that amount had been raised.
Most recently, Felder, who has chronicled the works and histories of Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky and others, performed “George Gershwin Alone” at TheatreWorks in March.
In this benefit, he’ll take the audience through 100 years of American classics, from the works of composers Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, and Rodgers and Hammerstein up through Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, with some songs made famous by Elvis Presley added for good measure.
Tickets for the event at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts run from $175 to $1,000. Tier 1 seating includes a pre-concert event with Felder featuring hors d’oeuvres and wines from J. Lohr Vineyards; premium left-side seating with a view of Felder’s piano work; and a post-show reception with champagne and dessert. Tier 2 seating includes the post-show reception.
Details: The event will begin at 7:30 p.m. at 500 Castro St., Mountain View. Tickets, https://theatreworks.org/support/hershey-felder/.