Melissa Errico’s creative spirit is irrepressible.
Known primarily as a leading Broadway musical actress, she is a historian who can tell you the story behind every Great American Songbook number she sings, an indefatigable creator of cabarets and concerts that cover several themes, an art history major at Yale, and a writer whose wry look at aspects of her career have been published in The New York Times.
She’s also the mother of three daughters, two of whom come seeking Mom for advice or permission while we’re on the telephone discussing her “Countdown to London” mission, a tour that brings her program of Stephen Sondheim music to various venues before it reaches its ultimate destination, London’s Cadogan Hall in July.
Luckily, that tour includes a stop next Sunday in Princeton, where Errico will do her “Sondheim in the City” show at 4 p.m. as part of this year’s busy and star-laden Princeton Festival, located at Morven, New Jersey’s original governor’s mansion at 55 Stockton St.
Errico likes gearing her shows to specific themes and stories.
“Sondheim in the City” concentrates on the late composer’s songs about New York.
Sondheim was able to see an early version of Errico’s show and provide comments.
They had a friendship that goes back to Errico appearing in several Sondheim musicals and includes her making a suggestion heloved for a crucial scene in “Sunday in the Park with George.”
“Sondheim in the City” touches on several of Errico’s abiding interests: her love for Sondheim music; her delight at living and working primarily in New York (Well, she lives in Yonkers, but it’s close enough); her pride in being from an immigrant family that prospered in America; and a family lineage that includes her aunt, Rose Mariella, who was a star showgirl in the Ziegfeld Follies for several seasons.
“Sondheim’s ‘Broadway Baby,’ a song about an actress walking off her tired feet to get a job in the theater, could have been about my Aunt Rose,” Errico says. “I hear it, and I think, ‘That’s my aunt’s story.’ ”
Naturally, the song is in “Sondheim in the City.”
Rose is also prominently featured in another of Errico’s concerts, “The Story of a Rose,” which she performed by invitation at Washington’s Schlesinger Concert Hall in May to commemorate World War I, and which featured songs from the early 20th century by George Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin.
“I studied World War I and its music for years before I wrote the show, which draws on my aunt’s experiences in the Ziegfeld Follies and vaudeville in general.
Before I ask, I know some of the songs Errico will perform in “Sondheim in the City,” and I tell her that an obscure Sondheim tune, “What More Do I Need?” is playing in my head as she speaks, and she says, “Yep, that’s in the show,” along with “Another Hundred People,” which Errico reminds me can be related to immigration, and “Can That Boy Foxtrot?” which is just plain fun.
“With Cadogan Hall as the goal this summer, I’ve been doing ‘Sondheim in the City’ all year. That adds up to 45 concerts, in addition to the World War I show and something I’m doing with Alec Baldwin later this summer.
“New York has also been a passion of mine. When my family landed in the United States from Italy, a storm kept them from docking in New York. They debarked in Boston, but the drive to get to the biggest city, one in which they thought they had the best chance to find the success and prosperity they sought was so strong, they came without a pause to New York.
“For me, as someone who has been attracted to the arts and determined to continue Aunt Rose’s tradition, being in New York is essential. It allows opportunities to experience art, study it, and perform it that no other place offers.”
To make Errico’s point, one of her daughter’s visits involved staying in Manhattan overnight after a dance rehearsal. Not just any dance rehearsal, but one with a major company.
Errico’s children are achievers like their parents.
Errico is married since 1998 to former tennis tour pro and current ESPN commentator Patrick McEnroe, who she met while they attended grade school together.
One daughter is a serious ballerina. Another is more involved with jazz, tap and modern dance. One is on the tennis team at her school, which I agreed not to mention.
And there are other performance and athletic pursuits.
Among a lot of topics, we return to Sondheim, with whom Errico maintained an “epistolary relationship” because of the letters and notes they exchanged in addition to conversations.
“Stephen loved New York, from the hidden garden he had at his 49th Street home to the stories he saw on the street and that came from his experiences. He knew the city, and I love presenting his take on it. He was such an active person in the theater, and in the lives of the people who were in his shows.
“I’ll always remember the telephone call I received from Raul Esparza telling me Stephen was dead. I thought a perspective about New York has died, too.”
Just as she evolves as a performer, Errico is an ongoing tale. One thing I must say is I have seen her several times in shows (“My Fair Lady,” “Call Me Madam,” “One Touch of Venus”) and in concerts, most recently at New Hope’s Bucks County Playhouse.
She not only studies songs, she presents them with a point of view in a full, expressive voice.
Errico is not alone in bringing luster to the Princeton Festival.
On Saturday, opera star Renée Fleming, who also has extensive Broadway experience, appears in concert. Three performances will be given of Puccini’s “Tosca.”
Violinist Tessa Lark appears in solo on Thursday, June 12. Baroque, soul music, Vivaldi, ABBA, and the Princeton SymphonyOrchestra conducted by Rossen Milan, are also part of the mix.
Visit www.princetonsymphony.org or call 609-497-0020 for information.
Senators to debate
Pennsylvania’s U.S. Sens. John Fetterman (D) and Dave McCormick (R), debate at 9 a.m. Monday as part of the Senate Project, discussions between sitting senators sponsored by two late senators’ foundations.
The senators’ conversation streams live on Fox Nation and is moderated by Shannon Bream, the anchor of “Fox News Sunday.”
The Senate Project is a cooperative effort by the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate and the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation.
Kennedy (D-Mass) and Hatch (R-Utah) were significant members of the Senate for many years.
The Fetterman-McCormick debate takes place at the Kennedy Institute in Boston. It is the fourth in the Senate Project series and the first between senators from the same state.
Fetterman, who seemed avidly progressive as a senatorial candidate in 2022, has become controversial for his independent stance on several issues.
Fellow Democrats have been critical of him veering from party line to speak his mind and vote his conscience.
McCormick earned his seat in 2024 in a squeaker — less than 1% difference in votes — against longtime incumbent Bob Casey (D).
Other Senate Project debates, all moderated for Fox by Bream, featured Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) vs. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) vs. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), now secretary of state, vs. Chris Coons (D-Del).
The purpose of the debates, as stated by the Kennedy Institute and Hatch Foundation, is to foster civil bipartisan debate with a goal of identifying solutions and bridging partisan divides.
Will Llamas bring balance?
A changing of the guard occurs Monday night as Tom Llamas takes the “NBC Nightly News” anchor chair that was vacated by Lester Holt on Friday.
It seems to me this switch is made with less fanfare than in earlier eras of television news.
Llamas is an experienced reporter and anchor who made his name reporting crucial stories, serving as weekend anchor, and sitting in for David Muir when needed at ABC News.
He moved in 2021 to NBC News as senior national correspondent and has frequently been seen as a substitute anchor for Holt and on NBC’s morning program, “Today.”
The question with any anchor or reporter on television news today is how objective they are in telling the news. Do they take what I call (and prefer) the “Dragnet” approach — “The facts, ma’am, just the facts” — or they put a spin on a story, giving it a decided politically partisan slant?
Having watched Llamas at ABC, where his reporting of breaking stories was usually more admirable than not, especially on the international front, and reviewing via YouTube several editions of “The Top Story with Tom Llamas,” which streamed nightly on NBC News Now, I see tinges of partisanship, particularly in stories involving Donald Trump’s administration and the current White House, while stories that leave no room for bias, such as those regarding severe storms in parts of the U.S,, are handled with journalistic objectivity.
No legacy network news department is free of political bias.
A lot depends on the reporter or anchor involved.
ABC’s David Muir, during President Trump’s 2025 inauguration, showed he can suspend personal comment when asked — unlike Martha Raddatz — but in general he lets you see where he leans.
During her days at CBS, Norah O’Donnell was blatantly partisan in favoring leftward stances.
Lester Holt, at NBC, may have been the fairest of all when left to his own devices, but when teamed with the uncontrollably opinionated Savannah Guthrie and others at NBC, he joined his colleagues at the network in being the worst offender in skewing news.
Llamas doesn’t seem to be as open to such influence as Holt, but he is one of the guys when it comes to being one-sided in his attitude towards the current White House or any brand of politics that is out of fashion with the loud left.
It has been my contention for years that television news, the Fourth Estate, thinks it should call shots and have its way as the FirstEstate.
A case in point is Llamas beginning Thursday’s “Top Story” with a graph that clearly shows stock market trends rising quickly when the U.S Court of International Trade rules President Donald Trump’s tariffs void for being contrary to the law the White House cites to impose them and falling as precipitously after that decision is challenged.
The visual that says 1,000 words and seems to support the direness of Llamas’ report doesn’t have as much impact later when NBC business and data reporter Brian Chung joins Llamas at the anchor desk and says that while stock prices tumbled some, they remain up 3% for the day, and Wall Street is taking a wait-and-see attitude.
Llamas didn’t blatantly mislead. He just let the graph be dramatic and implied harm by his tone. Chung, as enthusiastic a commentator as you can find, provided perspective.
He didn’t say the news was good or bad. He put it in context and cited sources on Wall Street.
Llamas or any other anchor is entitled to his opinions, but while reporting the news, he has to demonstrate the balance that Chung did.
The point is news, from the anchor desk and from the anchor’s mouth has to be as free from commentary as possible. As an anchor, Llamas will find a place in the newscast — labelled, I hope, as commentary — to be critical or state what he thinks.
The lead story is not the place to do this.
Muir, for instance, while behaving himself so well during ABC’s live coverage of Trump’s inauguration, was able to have his say during a 10 p.m. special program inauguration night.
Llamas, and all anchors — anchors who are universally guilty, even on NPR radio and KYW News Radio, of skewing the news by using a particular tone or adjective — should be careful about when to simply report news and when to share his or her ideas with viewers.
On the first day of his “Nightly News” tenure, the jury is out of Llamas’s performance — it must be judged as new — but there were a couple more unsettling moments in the Thursday “Top Story” I’ve chosen as examples.
A small business owner, a winemaker from New York state, commented on how tariffs are affecting his business and what he worries about for the future. The winemaker was articulate.
He even pronounced his “d’s” and “t’s” with care. The trouble from a journalistic point of view is he only represented one side of the story.
His testimony is not to be negated, but it may have been a better journalistic idea to have someone from Wall Street who might presage what Brian Chung would say or even another small business owner reinforcing (or modifying) the winemaker’s comments.
By having one person give one side of a story, that skews the story to that side.
It shows NBC’s and perhaps Llamas’ intention to make what the winemaker says the prevailing story and attitude.
“Top Story” gives White House press secretary Kathryn Leavitt chances to give the White House side of a few stories, but usually something is said by Llamas or another reporter to undercut her.
I would never say Leavitt nor the the White House can’t be challenged, but there was something sour in the way the challenge was presented, and that is something else I hope a Llamas era at NBC might fix.
Tony awards coming up June 8
June 8 is Tony Day, the evening when the American Theatre Wing and Broadway League give out this year’s Tony awards.
The ceremony airs 8 p.m. Sunday on CBS and Paramount+.
“Wicked” star and Tony recipient for the 2016 revival of “The Color Purple,” Cynthia Erivo, is the host.
Usually, I load the column with Tony lore, the theater being first among the arts I spend my time studying, although classical music and books compete these days.
This year, health and finances kept me from going to New York at all, so I am as much without favorites as most viewers who will watch the Tonys without seeing a show.
From what I see, revivals of musicals are more interesting than the new musicals.
Also, it will be fun to see whether the marvelous Audra McDonald adds to her “Most Tonys Ever” count by taking one home for the current revival of “Gypsy,” in which she stars as Mama Rose.
Source: Berkshire mont
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