Ensemble Theatre Company to Present Hershey Felder in THE PIANO & ME
In this play, Felder pulls back the curtain on his own story.
Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara (ETC) and HFP Live will present pianist/actor/playwright/producer present the Southern California premiere of Hershey Felder starring in a new play, The Piano & Me, with book by Hershey Felder and dramaturgy by Jerry Patch.
This newest work is scheduled to open Off-Broadway in New York following the ETC premiere. The previously scheduled Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin will be replaced by The Piano & Me, a new musical play. All performances will take place on the same dates and times as originally scheduled. Current ticket holders for Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin will be automatically transferred to the corresponding performance of The Piano & Me at no additional charge. Known throughout the world for his solo composer plays, for the first time Felder unravels the story of how it all happened. The Piano & Me will open on Thursday, April 30 and run through Sunday, May 10 at the New Vic Theatre, 33 Victoria Street in Santa Barbara.
Known for his hit portrayals of musical geniuses in his beloved composer series, Felder now renders a different musical artist: himself. In this moving new play, Felder pulls back the curtain on his own story. Growing up in Montreal as the child of Polish and Hungarian immigrants, a young Felder discovers the piano, its captivating music connecting him to his unsuspected heritage while opening up a remarkable new world full of adventure, possibility, heartbreak, and connection. Featuring performances of beloved compositions by Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, Bartók, and more, Hershey Felder: The Piano & Me recounts the inspiration behind Felder’s illustrious career of more than 6,000 performances across the globe and offers a poignant and profoundly touching portrait of the power of music. Santa Barbara audiences have a rare opportunity to experience this celebrated production on its world premiere tour before it makes its Off-Broadway debut in New York City in July 2026.
The Piano & Me was universally lauded by all professional critics in its world premiere in January of 2026, with David John Chavez, former chair of the American Theatre Critics Association as well as two-time jurist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, calling it “Magnificent, enthralling, brilliant and engaging.”
“We are making a change to our scheduled season programming: in place of Hershey Felder as Monsieur Chopin, ETC will now present The Piano & Me on the exact same performance dates and times. We love Monsieur Chopin and hope to bring it to Santa Barbara in a future season. But when I attended the world premiere of The Piano & Me, I knew immediately that this was something we could not wait to share with Santa Barbara. This is Hershey at his most profound and most personal — a once-in-a-generation theatrical experience that we are honored to bring, his newest piece, to the New Vic,” comments Scott DeVine, Executive Artistic Director, Ensemble Theatre Company of Santa Barbara.
Since the 1998 premiere of his internationally lauded play with music George Gershwin Alone, Hershey Felder has appeared on world-renowned stages throughout the United States and abroad, giving more than six thousand performances in original works that include George Gershwin Alone, Beethoven, Maestro Bernstein, Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin, as well as appearances in Our Great Tchaikovsky, A Paris Love Story – Debussy, and more. Film world premieres at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills include several of his award-winning films: Musical Tales in the Venetian Jewish Ghetto, The Assembly, Noble Genius Chopin & Liszt, and more. In all, Hershey Felder has performed on more than one hundred stages in leading theatres worldwide. He is currently the Artistic Director of Florence, Italy’s most historic theatre, Teatro Niccolini (1648), where he presents great and celebrated American and International Artists from Jeff Goldblum to Helen Mirren, Malcolm McDowell, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and many more.
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