Porchlight Music Theatre is proud to partner again with Hershey Felder Presents for their latest offering: Hershey Felder as Claude Debussy in A Paris Love Story - Live from Florence, Italy, Sunday, Nov. 22 at 7 p.m. CST. Tickets for Felder’s one-man show are $55 per household and are available for purchase at PorchlightMusicTheatre.org. This production will benefit national US theatres and arts organizations including Porchlight Music Theatre. Tickets are now on sale at PorchlightMusicTheatre.org and include the live broadcast and a week of extended “on-demand” viewing access to the recording (available one-hour after the live broadcast ends). The broadcast will also be available for latecomers to purchase through the week of “on demand” access. Viewing access for all ends Sunday, Nov. 29 at 11:59 p.m. CST.
A Paris Love Story is a very personal journey through the beloved city of Paris through the music of Claude Debussy (“Clair de Lune,” Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune…) and how this music shaped a whole new world of color in sound. This new world of “musical impressionism” gave us the beginnings of what we have come to know as “Movie Music.”
This Live from Florence production of A Paris Love Story is directed by Stefano Decarli and Felder and based on the stage plays directed by Trevor Hay. The production team includes Felder (production design); DeCarli Live Film Company (film production and live editing); Erik Carstensen (live broadcast and sound design production); Meghan Maiya (historical and biographical research); Isabelle Gerbe (costumes and hair) and Pierre Gerbe (scenic construction).
Ticket holders will receive their live stream link Friday, Nov. 20, via the email used to register for the event. The performance may be streamed from a smart TV, computer, smartphone or tablet.
ABOUT HERSHEY FELDER
Named to Time Magazine’s 2016 Top 10 Plays and Musicals, Hershey Felder has played over 6,000 performances of his self-created solo productions at some of the world’s most prestigious theatres and has broken box office records consistently. American Theatre Magazine has said, “Hershey Felder is in a category all his own.”
An actor, pianist, writer, director, composer, conductor, and producer, Hershey Felder has created lauded shows about composers Claude Debussy, George Gershwin, Fryderyk Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Leonard Bernstein, Irving Berlin, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Felder’s solo shows have been seen across America at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Geffen Playhouse, Pasadena Playhouse, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage, San Diego Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Old Globe Theatre, American Repertory Theater, Cleveland Playhouse, and Seattle Repertory Theatre, with long runs at Chicago’s Royal George Theatre and engagements at New York’s Town Hall, 59E59, and the Streicker Center and more as well as Broadway’s Helen Hayes Theatre and in London’s West End. He has also created and/or produced plays for other artists including the award-winning The Pianist of Willesden Lane for Mona Golabek, Flying Solo for Nathan Gunn and Louis and Keeley Live at the Sahara for Vanessa Stewart and Taylor Hackford, among others.
ABOUT PORCHLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE
Porchlight Music Theatre is the award-winning center for music theatre in Chicago. Through live performance, youth education and community outreach we impact thousands of lives each season, bringing the magic of musicals to our theatre home at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts in the city’s Gold Coast and to neighborhoods across the city. Porchlight has built a national reputation for boldly reimaging classic musicals, supporting new works and young performers, and showcasing Chicago’s most notable music theatre artists, all through the intimate and powerful theatrical lens of the “Chicago Style.”
Now in its 26th season, our quarter-century production history includes more than 70 mainstage works with 15 Chicago premieres and five world premieres. Porchlight’s commitment to the past, present and future of music theatre led the company to develop the Porchlight Revisits and New Faces Sing Broadway program series, both quickly becoming audience favorites.
Porchlight's education and outreach programs serve schools, youth of all ages and skill levels, and community organizations, and we love our ongoing collaboration with Chicago Youth Centers. We annually award dozens of full scholarships and hundreds of free tickets to ensure accessibility and real engagement with this uniquely American art form.
The company’s many honors include 178 Joseph Jefferson Award (Jeff) nominations and 42 Jeff awards, as well as 33 Black Theatre Alliance (BTA) nominations and 12 BTA awards. This past season, Porchlight Music Theatre “graduated” to the Large Theatre tier of the Joseph Jefferson Equity Awards, stiffening our competition for the Jeff committee’s recognition. We await the virtual award ceremony and how Porchlight fared with our eight nominations in both technical and artistic categories, most notably Best Musical/Revue and Best Ensemble noms for Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies.
Through the global pandemic, Porchlight has emerged as one of Chicago’s leaders in virtual programming, quickly launching a host of free offerings like Sondheim@90 Roundtables, Movie Musical Mondays, Porchlight by Request: Command Performances, and WPMT: Classic Musicals from the Golden Age of Radio. For the 2020-2021 season, Porchlight has announced a full Fall schedule of all-new ticketed virtual programs including Broadway by the Decade, New Faces Sing Broadway 1987, as well as collaborations with LA Theater Works, and much more coming in the new year.
Porchlight Music Theatre is proud to partner again with Hershey Felder Presents for their latest offering: Hershey Felder as Claude Debussy in A Paris Love Story - Live from Florence, Italy, Sunday, Nov. 22 at 7 p.m. CST. Tickets for Felder’s one-man show are $55 per household and are available for purchase at PorchlightMusicTheatre.org. This production will benefit national US theatres and arts organizations including Porchlight Music Theatre. Tickets are now on sale at PorchlightMusicTheatre.org and include the live broadcast and a week of extended “on-demand” viewing access to the recording (available one-hour after the live broadcast ends). The broadcast will also be available for latecomers to purchase through the week of “on demand” access. Viewing access for all ends Sunday, Nov. 29 at 11:59 p.m. CST.
Porchlight Music Theatre is partially supported by generous contributions from the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation, Actors’ Equity Foundation, Allstate, Bayless Family Foundation, Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, Chapman | Spingola, Attorneys at Law, the Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Elegant Event Lighting, James P. and Brenda S. Grusecki Family Foundation, Hearty Boys, A.L. and Jennie L. Luria Foundation, The MacArthur Fund for Culture, Equity, and the Arts at Prince, the Pritzker Traubert Foundation, Daniel and Genevieve Ratner Foundation, The Saints, Dr. Scholl Foundation, the Stuart Family Foundation, the Topfer Family Foundation. The season program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, a state agency, and by a CityArts Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events.