Following 28 years of continuous stage work and over 6,000 live performances throughout the U.S. and abroad, Hershey Felder created Live from Florence, An Arts Broadcasting Company, which has produced eighteen theatrical films to date. They include the recently-released The Assembly; Musical Tales in The Venetian Jewish Ghetto; Chopin and Liszt in Paris; Violetta, the story of Verdi’s Traviata; Dante and Beatrice in Florence; Mozart and Figaro in Vienna, the world premiere musicals Nicholas, Anna & Sergei; the story of Sergei Rachmaninoff; Puccini, the story of famed opera composer Giacomo Puccini; Before Fiddler, a musical story about writer Sholem Aleichem; Great American Songs and the Stories Behind Them, Leonard Bernstein and the Israel Philharmonic, a documentary. Two seasons of programming are currently available at www.hersheyfelder.net Felder has given performances of his solo productions at some of the world’s most prestigious theatres and has consistently broken box office records. His live 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 and Chopin in Paris. His compositions include the opera The Fourth Man which will have its world premiere in Florence, Italy in July 2023, 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. Hershey has operated a full-service production company since 2001. He has been a scholar-in-residence at Harvard University’s Department of Music and is married to Kim Campbell.
A New Musical Play
The Music of Sergei V. Rachmaninoff
Book by Hershey Felder
Hershey Felder as Sergei Rachmaninoff
Jonathan Silvestri as Tsar Nicholas II
Directed by Trevor Hay
Segerstrom Stage
FEB. 19 - Mar. 2, 2025
$70-$110
Inclusive of fees
HONORARY PRODUCER
Michael Ray
RACHMANINOFF
AND THE TSAR
Hershey Felder's newest musical play will feature him in the role of composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff alongside British-Italian actor Jonathan Silvestri in the role of Tsar Nicholas II. Having safely left Russia during the 1917 revolution, Rachmaninoff eventually made his home in Beverly Hills, but always longed for the Tsarist Russia that he knew and loved as a young man. Featuring Rachmaninoff's most beloved compositions, this promises to be another mystical musical journey in the Hershey Felder style that patrons have come to know and love.
