Melissa Errico to Bring Streisand Tribute Back to 54 Below with Billy Stritch

 54 Below will welcome back Broadway and cabaret star Melissa Errico on May 27 – 29 at 7pm. After the triumph of The Streisand Effect, her homage to the great Barbra last fall, Melissa Errico returns with a new edition of the show – but this one blessed with the presence of the great piano-man and singer Billy Stritch, a Streisand favorite and a frequent Errico stage husband. Once again, the music of their shared collaborators and mentors, the Legrands and the Bergmans and Sondheim and the standards will ring out. But this time Melissa and Billy will go “back-to-back” in their appreciations of the Streisand songbook, in a joyful series of duets, conversations, witty entanglements and just wonderful music making.

The strength of the Errico-Streisand connection was apparent in last fall’s concert tour: the hamische Jewish-comedienne-chanteuse and the intellectual-Italian enchantress who has for so long been inspired by her, share many of their greatest collaborators, from David Shire to Stephen Sondheim to Marvin Hamlisch. Certainly, the great songwriting team of Michel Legrand and the Bergmans have never had two more committed interpreters, and the Legrand songbook, from “The Way He Makes Me Feel” to “The Summer Knows,” will once again make its efflorescent presence felt.

But, more than just a shared songbook, there’s a shared style between Barbra and Melissa -- a unique quality of passion and intelligence brought to the American songbook. Both are “Daughters of Fire,” in the phrase that David Shire has turned into a newly composed anthem for Melissa’s show – both radiant with inspiration and even when called for, a little indignation.

Now, Billy will throw his own stylish kindling into that fire, sharing with Melissa some of the great Streisand-inspired duets that she couldn’t get to the first time around [from her Sinatra-shared “I’ve Got a Crush on You” to the legendary Judy Garland “Get Happy” to the “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”].

Come if you love Barbra, come if you love Melissa, come if you love Billy – or just come for the joys of the of the most high-hearted and affirmative side of the American songbook. 

Patron/Member presale begins on Fri, Feb 13 at 2pm. Tickets go on sale to the General Public on Thur, Feb 19 at 12pm.

Melissa Errico

is a Tony nominated Broadway leading lady, celebrated concert and cabaret artist, and acclaimed recording interpreter of Stephen Sondheim and Michel Legrand. Opera News called her “the Maria Callas of the American musical theater” for a voice and style that move fluidly between theater, jazz, and the Great American Songbook. After debuting on Broadway at nineteen as Cosette in Les Misérables, she went on to star as Eliza in the Broadway revival of My Fair Lady, as Venus in One Touch of Venus, and as Clara in Sondheim’s Passion. A prolific international performer, she has appeared everywhere from Carnegie Hall to Cadogan Hall, toured globally, and headlined major festivals from Paris to Montreal. Her Sondheim albums have defined her artistic identity—Sondheim Sublime was hailed by The Wall Street Journal as the finest all-Sondheim recording, while her jazz-inflected Sondheim in the City earned praise from The New York Times and led to a sold-out London concert-hall debut. Beyond recording with luminaries like Arif Mardin, Phil Ramone, and Michel Legrand, Errico has starred in a PBS American Songbook special, frequently performed with U.S. symphony orchestras, and was a longtime favorite of Marvin Hamlisch. She also writes a popular New York Times column, “Scenes from An Acting Life,” and brings that literary sensibility to her newest album, I Can Dream, Can’t I?, exploring illusion, memory, and the enduring beauty of classic American song. Barbra Streisand will not appear at this performance