Melissa Errico sings at Birdland, the famous New York City Jazz Club, accompanied by jazz pianist Ted Firth. (Photo courtesy of artist management)
Broadway actress and concert singer Melissa Errico performs in a concert titled “The Life and Loves of a Broadway Baby" on Sunday, March 10 at 7 p.m. at Aventura Arts & Cultural Center in Aventura as the finale of the three concerts of City of Aventura’s Broadway Concert Series that starred Judy Kuhn and Beth Leavel earlier this season.
Errico will perform solo in concert, performing 20 to 30 songs from her 35-year career on the music theater and concert stages, accompanied by a pianist.
“I love the intimacy of the Aventura Center venue as I feel like I can communicate with the audience both musically and verbally,” says the 53-year-old Errico, who has performed at Carnegie Hall and other large venues around the world.
In addition to singing, Errico will also share many amusing anecdotes about her many adventures both on and off the Broadway and concert stages.
Errico says that her genes predicted that she would be destined to be on Broadway. Born and raised in Manhasset (a Long Island suburb not far from New York City), Errico has a strong family lineage in music. Her father is both an orthopedic surgeon and a concert pianist, her brother is a singer/songwriter and her grandmother was an opera singer.
Melissa Errico performs at the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center on Sunday, March 10. (Photo courtesy Aventura Arts & Cultural Center)
“Music was the staff that our family was played out against. Is that true of all Italian families? What beautiful memories of music I had growing up. I remember my father trying to seduce my mother by playing Michel Legrand melodies. I remember my brother playing Steely Dan and being thrilled by rock music.”
She says in a telephone interview that she was certain early on what career path she wanted to pursue.
“For me, I knew from age 12 that my ambition was to be a singing actress on Broadway. In fact, the one person in my family who I honor the most was my Great Aunt Rose, who was a beautiful honest-to-God Ziegfeld girl.”
At age 18, while enrolled at Yale University studying art history, Errico caught her big break on Broadway by winning an audition from producer Richard Jay Alexander, who was known throughout Miami Beach where he lived for 30 years until moving West in 2022 as well as Broadway, to play “Cosette” in “Les Miserables”.
“Richard (Alexander) saw me with my kinky hair and tap shoes and he thought I was meant to play ‘Cosette’. I knew and sang ‘In My Life’ and decided to hire me for the role.”
After the Broadway run of “Les Miserables” ended, Errico returned to Yale University to finish her degree. She went on to star as Eliza in “My Fair Lady” on Broadway co-starring Richard Chamberlain, then co-starred with Tyne Daly in the New York City production of “Call Me Madam”.
Throughout her 35-year-career, she was cast in leading roles on Broadway and performed on cabaret and concert stages.
Among her many acclaimed performances are from numerous Stephen Sondheim musicals, such as “Passion” and “Sunday in the Park With George.” She also played lead roles in the Broadway musicals “Amour” by Michel Legrand, “Anna Karenina,” “Dracula the Musical” and “High Society” among other musical theater productions.
Being cast as the ingénue when she was in her forties may be one of the many funny anecdotes that Errico may cite in her show.
“I played the young girl Sharon for a second time in 'Finian’s Rainbow’ (2016) and I thought to myself ‘When should Sharon strop wearing a ponytail and dancing with leprechauns?’”
Melissa Errico comes to the Aventura Performing Arts & Culture Center in a night of Broadway songs. (Photo courtesy of Aventura Performing Arts & Culture Center)
She says one of the most pressing topics for women currently in the business is ageism.
“Women in musical theater still tend to be segregated as either romantic interests or worldly There needs to be more roles for aging women.”
Errico has recorded seven solo albums and ten cast albums from her many Broadway shows. Her favorite albums, she says, come from composers Legrand (“Legrand Affair” 2011 album) and Sondheim (two albums recorded) whom she considers as artistic mentors.
“Legrand and Sondheim are my two great artistic husbands- or should that be fathers? Legrand was a close collaborator, who orchestrated an entire unreal set of songs for me with a giant European symphony. I shook when I first heard the sound of his beautiful melodies.”
She says she feels a different kinship to Sondheim.
“Sondheim was a more distant presence. We went back and forth through hundreds of emails but he’s been my preoccupation in the albums ‘Sondheim Serene’ (2018) and more recently ‘Sondheim in The City’ (2024).”
Errico recalls a memory from collaborating with Legrand.
“Michel (Legrand) always had wild energy and enthusiasm. When he asked my husband and I to fly to Spain with him on a plane, I didn’t know that Michel was a pilot and that he would fly us on his tiny plane. It was a memorable flight that I will never forget.”
Errico last appeared in South Florida in March of 2020 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale for a tribute concert to Michel Legrand. She has a crystalline quality to her voice that is both emotional and powerful especially in the Legrand classics “Papa Can You Hear Me” and “The Windmills of Your Mind” in the last Broward Center concert before the pandemic.
“I remember that concert so well. After the show, my husband and I returned to New York and he caught COVID, maybe on the flight home from Florida.”
In addition to singing songs from Broadway musicals that she has starred in, Errico will also include Broadway standards from Harold Arlen, Lerner and Lowe, Cole Porter and contemporary songs by Taylor Swift.
Swift is widely known for her relationship with professional football player Travis Kelce in creating a partnership of sports with music. Errico also is known in sports circles, as she has been married for 25 years to former American tennis player Patrick McEnroe, the younger brother of famed pro tennis star John McEnroe.
“I knew Patrick since we were kids in grammar school. Like Taylor (Swift), I know many sports stars, not in football, but in tennis and it is a lot of fun to be part of two worlds. Many tennis players, such as Chris Evert, have attended my concerts and I have attended many tennis tournaments.”
Melissa Errico sings a ballad from her performance at New York City Jazz Club Birdland (Photo courtesy of artist management).
Errico and McEnroe have three daughters, the eldest being an aspiring tennis player and the two youngest twin daughters having an interest in dance.
“I can tell you many funny anecdotes about the trials and tribulations of raising three girls and being a wife while juggling my professional career. Maybe I will share these stories in the concert,” says Errico.
Broadway actress/singer Melissa Errico performs in concert “The Life and Loves of a Broadway Baby” featuring songs from Broadway and contemporary songs intertwined with humorous anecdotes that Errico shares about her life on and off the stage on at 7 p.m. Sunday, March 10 at Aventura Arts & Cultural Center, 3855 NE 188 Street in Aventura.
Tickets range from $57-62. For tickets, aventuracenter.org or call 954-462-0222 VIP tickets are available and include a meet and greet/photo opportunity with Melissa Errico. To purchase VIP tickets, call 954-660-6307.
