Hershey Felder: The Piano & Me
The King of Composer Bios Tells His Own Story
By: Victor Cordell - Jan 25, 2026
Sometimes an actor is able to create an identifiable niche that makes the performer the darling of casting directors – the wizened cowhand, the craven felon, the doting grandmother. Some singers or bands seek to establish distinct identities, like Madonna, The Grateful Dead, or Kiss.
Multivariate artist Hershey Felder has written his own ticket, finding an undeveloped space that suits him well. Combining his skills as a piano virtuoso, an incisive playwright, and a deft raconteur and actor, he has created a cottage industry of authoring and performing one-man-show biographies of great composers. Playing at a Steinway piano and strolling the stage, he regales with the composer’s music and the story of his life. He has portrayed Gershwin, Berlin, Bernstein, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Beethoven, and Debussy. The Bay Area has proven a devoted audience, with his productions appearing in concert with two of its most esteemed companies, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley and Berkeley Rep.
Felder has returned to TheatreWorks with a world premiere, but this time, an autobiography. Having seen and appreciated all of the above-mentioned bios, this reviewer approached a self-referential work with some trepidation. But unlike his previous works, the artist’s life story is delivered with a unique sense of authenticity that derives from revealing personal experience. There are numerous anecdotes from his life that resonate with significance, and his storytelling ability gives a heartbeat even to the mundane. Coming from an immigrant and multilingual household as well as taking on accents for his parts in previous works, he brings a catalog of voices and accents to embellish this one.
Another factor enriches The Piano & Me. In his biographies, he must depict the composer’s ouvre by performing 10 or 12 pieces by the composer, some of which he may not relish. In The Piano and Me, he plays music that he loves or that has held special places in his development as a pianist.
Born and raised in Montreal, Felder is Ashkenazy Jew on both sides, having had a dour Polish father and an angelic Hungarian mother. The vignettes he tells are of his growth as a pianist and of the people who impacted it, particularly family and teachers. A surprising portion is dedicated to Holocaust related stories, given the chilling effect that they have, but they are a deeply felt gash for all Jews and any human beings with compassion, and the reality of these heinous deeds should not be forgotten. A small sample of his tales follows.
Growing up, he characterized himself as fat, different, and subject to ridicule. But he was drawn to the piano, and his parents supported the endeavor. A fast learner, he tells of playing part of a classical piece for his first piano teacher. She then gave him the daunting task of memorizing the full score of the piece for the next lesson, but he failed to mention to her that he visualized it before him and had already memorized it. (Incidentally, Hershey, in the audience Q&A after the Friday performance, I was the one who asked whether you had photographic memory and if it was music specific.)
In speaking of the Holocaust, like virtually any Jew in the world, Felder’s family suffered losses at the hands of the Nazis. On his paternal side his grandparents had a total of 20 siblings, and only two survived the Holocaust. Decades after the war and living in Canada, his maternal grandparents kept a suitcase filled with beloved religious possessions in case they were forced by hostility to evacuate hastily.
On a different note, perhaps because of the diaspora, many Jews engage in what I call Jewish geography, which my Jewish wife has played. In Felder’s case, he made connections, one of which was finding that he was a distant cousin to Joel Zwick, a Hollywood player best known as the director of the TV series Full House and the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Despite Zwick’s initial abruptness and dismissiveness, he would be instrumental in launching Felder’s composer biographies line-of-business, when the Gershwin family gave permission to this unknown to perform a biography of George for a mere two weeks. That seed 30 years ago is what led to Felder’s life’s work.
Many other stories and quips entertain. As always, Felder’s piano playing of sometimes very challenging pieces mesmerizes. The performance engages throughout.
Hershey Felder: The Piano & Me is a world premiere with book by Hershey Felder, presented by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, and plays at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro Street, Mountain View, CA through February 8, 2026.