Attending “Live Theater Readings” at Guild Hall with “World-Class Actors” is always special, especially in August. On Saturday, August 16th, at 8:00 p.m., Guild Hall will be presenting THE FITZGERALDS: A READING WITH MUSIC, starring Alec Baldwin and Melissa Errico.
Melissa Errico, a friend of Hamptons.com over the years, once again was most forthcoming with her thoughts about this special presentation and so much more. She said this project came about when, “Alec (Baldwin) called me on the phone, quite calmly and exuberantly a few months ago.” She continued, saying, “This is a project very near to his heart, and we have been friends for… I’ll say 20 years, though it may be a decade longer. Alec and I met when I was in my 20s and he was a comedic character in the delightful revival of CALL ME MADAM at City Center. I played the Princess of Lichtenstein, who had a very winky opening song called ‘The Ocarina.’” In that role, Ms. Errico remembers there were many double entendres that she was “too young to understand,” and included a glorious duet, “‘It’s a Lovely Day Today,’ which is still, somewhat mystifyingly, one of my most popular tracks on Spotify.”
She said that “Alec was brilliant in the show playing a politician, alongside Chris Durang. Our friendship has been steadfast and one of the greatest things in my career. Alec has advised and supported and championed me since the dawn of my dream to be an actress and a part of the fabric of Manhattan. He’s the epitome of a great New Yorker and has my eternal respect and friendship.”
Errico said about this show/reading that she loves the way the language flows, using letters, fragments of their (the Fitzgeralds’) books, and others’ diaries and memoirs. She went on to emphasize the dialogue of the show: “…has an unspooling feeling of natural conversation. It’s brilliant! You’ll learn a lot about these two people, and not just as simple exchanges of love letters, but as side-by-side parallel meditations and soliloquies drawn from their writing.” Ms. Errico proclaimed, “Zelda may not have been as accomplished a novelist as Scott, but she was an amazing natural writer, and I want to give her words their full dignity and sparkle.”
About performing with Alec Baldwin in the past, Ms. Errico said, “One of the memories that comes to mind was the staged reading we did of THE GIFT OF THE GORGON, which was the American world premiere of Peter Shaffer’s devastating and dark play, which had been done in London with Judi Dench in my role.” She joked that had she known that then, “I might have shied away!”
Continuing, she then said, “Alec and I had a profound chemistry with that material, which was both intellectual and personal. His own passionate interest in politics probably helped energize his thunderously intense portrayal, and my character was experiencing a kind of deep state of motherhood agony, from a lost child. I remember Alec and I both drew from our deepest selves and were left remembering that we felt we made a very trusting team as actors. There was no music in it. But a lot of soul. This next project is about spirit yet again, and I think we will enjoy exploring another script. I love the art of collaboration, and I think we make a powerful team.”
There is no doubt Melissa Errico has created a special relationship with the Hamptons audiences. Her husband, tennis pro and announcer Patrick McEnroe, has been coaching and teaching tennis out east for quite some time. They have three daughters. It must be mentioned that at a show last summer in Sag Harbor, he watched proudly as his talented wife sang an encore duet with Broadway legend Stephen Schwartz.
About East End audiences, she said, “Every summer, I feel like I’m engaging with old and current friends. I love and know the world of it. My best friends are in the Hamptons. My husband and I fell in love in Sag Harbor eons ago. I’ve been singing concerts out east since the days of starring on Broadway in MY FAIR LADY and then spending days by the pool with Julie Andrews and Comden & Green.”
Errico recalls, “One performance I gave at Bay Street Theater, Julie signed my guest book ‘with love, from the Other Eliza.’ Imagine!”
Speaking of singing, Melissa will be giving a concert on August 31st at the Southampton Arts Center. She said, “It’s devoted to a series of songs I’ve been exploring—classic American songs of the twenties and thirties, including songs like ‘I Can Dream, Can’t I?’ and ‘Dancing on the Ceiling,’ that somehow occupy a special dream-space in the American songbook.” In tying everything together, she said, “They’re very… Zelda songs, really: dream songs from the flapper time that reach out to the mysterious romances of our own time, full of sweet erotic metaphors. It’s my all-Zelda summer!”
For ticket information: www.guildhall.org
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