Porchlight Music Theatre Local Beneficiary of HERSHEY FELDER AS GEORGE GERSHWIN ALONE

Porchlight Music Theatre has announced it is the local Chicago beneficiary for the live streamed broadcast of Hershey Felder as George Gershwin Alone - Live from Florence, Italy on Sunday, Sept. 13 at 7 p.m. CDT from Teatro della Pergola. Featuring the music and lyrics of George and Ira Gershwin, book by Felder, directed by Stefano de Carli and Felder, and adapted from the stage play directed by Joel Zwick. 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. Porchlight Music Theatre is a beneficiary of 50% of ticket sales from the live performance sold via Porchlight's website.

George Gershwin Alone tells the story of America's great composer, who with the groundbreaking Rhapsody in Blue, made a "Lady out of Jazz." The show incorporates the composer's best-known songs from "The Man I Love" and "Someone to Watch Over Me," through the hits of An American In Paris and Porgy and Bess, to a complete performance of Rhapsody In Blue. George Gershwin Alone has had over 3000 performances worldwide, including Broadway, London's West End, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington DC and more.

Ticket holders will receive their live stream link on Friday, Sept. 11, via the email used to register for the event. The performance is able to be streamed from a smart TV, computer, smartphone or tablet. Purchase of ticket includes the live broadcast AND a week of extended "on-demand" viewing access to the recording of the live broadcast (available one-hour after the live broadcast ends). Viewing access ends on Sunday, September 20 until 1:59 p.m. CDT. Tickets cannot be transferred or shared.

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."

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. 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. 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.

Upcoming projects include Anna and Sergei, a new play featuring the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff, as well as a new musical based on the award-winning book Out on a Ledge by Eva Libitzky. Hershey has operated a full-service production company since 2001, and in 2020 created a new brand LIVE FROM FLORENCE, that operates a "theatre at home broadcast company," based in Florence, Italy. He has been a scholar-in-residence at Harvard University's Department of Music and is married to Kim Campbell, the first female Prime Minister of Canada.