A LIFE IN THE KEYS

Hershey Felder’s deeply personal journey
proves as compelling as the music that shaped it

Hershey Felder in The Piano and Me at 59E59 Theatres

Hershey Felder steps onto a stage with a grand piano surrounded by piles of old suitcases (the kind without wheels). In other words, lots of baggage. On top of one stack of luggage sits an old radio, he tells us, that once belonged to his Hungarian grandparents and from which he first heard, at the age of 6, the music of Franz Liszt.

From this moment, Felder builds—with humor, suspense, and gripping narration—the story of his own life: a life driven by a love of the piano and of music, and one in which a series of family tragedies is slowly revealed. Interpolated with his storytelling are Felder’s piano interludes, musical recollections of his discoveries of Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, Gershwin, and John Williams. He plays one brief passage of music he composed himself in a moment of great grief, but for the most part, the play is about his encounters with other composers.

Hershey Felder

Felder’s impressive résumé includes more than 6,000 solo productions portraying the lives of numerous composers and musicians, including George Gershwin, Frédéric Chopin, Irving Berlin, Ludwig van Beethoven, and many others. In The Piano and Me, he shifts the focus to his own life, beginning with a childhood and adolescence marked by acute musical sensitivity, an extraordinary gift for memorization, and lessons from a series of demanding taskmaster teachers. His story progresses to an early job interviewing survivors of medical experiments at Auschwitz on behalf of the Steven Spielberg Foundation. He was chosen because of his command of multiple European languages, stemming from his immigrant heritage, and his ability to play music that helped calm people reliving trauma. Through the story of one of these survivors, a man imprisoned in Auschwitz who was known for his ability to whistle Rhapsody in Blue, Felder discovers the calling that would define his career: presenting musical biographies.

That calling has allowed him to combine his unique talents as pianist, storyteller, and actor for audiences around the world. Until The Piano and Me, however, those audiences had little opportunity to know the man behind his acclaimed theatrical portraits of history’s greatest composers.

Hershey Felder

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photos courtesy of Hershey Felder Productions

The Piano and Me: A New Play with Music
59E59 Theaters, 59 E. 59th St.
1 hour 50 minutes, no intermission
ends on August 23, 2026
for tickets ($27–$131), visit 59E59 Theaters

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