On Monday, August 17, Tony Award-nominated Broadway star, singer, author, and New York Times contributor Melissa Errico returns to Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor with her acclaimed concert, “The Streisand Effect: Melissa Sings Barbra.”
Melissa will be accompanied by legendary pianist Billy Stritch, a long-time collaborator of Barbra Streisand, and a swinging quartet for an evening that is funny, glamorous, and deeply personal. The show will draw inspiration from the music, mystique, and emotional impact of one of America’s most iconic entertainers.
The concert features songs like “People,” “The Way We Were,” “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” “The Music That Makes Me Dance,” and “Send in the Clowns.” It combines jazz arrangements, storytelling, and theatrical conversation into a moving exploration of ambition, reinvention, influence, and self-discovery.
We spoke to Errico to learn more ahead of her sold-out show.
What can audiences expect from the upcoming show “The Streisand Effect: Melissa Sings Barbra”?
I always tell people this isn’t an impression of Barbra Streisand. No one can “do” Barbra. What fascinates me is the effect she had on all of us — singers and people — the permission she gives artists to be utterly personal, intellectually curious, emotionally fearless, and gloriously individual. Her zaniness, her sense of humor, her intelligence, her feminism. Her fashion!
The evening is really a journey through the songs she made unforgettable, from Broadway to film to the Great American Songbook. Even her portrayal of Fanny Brice feels familiar to me since I have a real-life Ziegfeld Follies ancestry. My Aunt Rose was in shows with Fanny! I wasn’t born at the exact right time to get all these incredible messages when I started out— I’ve discovered her in depth since her new book came out. I’ve solidly arrived in midlife and feel so energized by her!
I discovered that I have been gathering favorite music and composers my whole life — Sondheim! Michel Legrand! Marvin Hamlisch! — like flowers in a vase, only to realize they are from Barbra’s own gorgeous garden. She had grown these roses exquisitely, before I realized. There are funny stories, intimate moments, and hopefully a feeling that we’re all gathered around the piano together.
So, it’s a celebration, and it’s a garden party. And, above all, I want audiences to experience the joy of great songs, beautifully played and honestly sung. The composer Shire, one of Barbra’s lifelong collaborators, and the writer Adam Gopnik helped bring to life page 729 of her biography, where she writes that someone had called her a “daughter of fire.” They wrote me a song with that title, and I think it conjures up, in a groovy 1970s sound, the force of her inspiration.
I hope that song leaves people — daughters and sons — ready to take chances.
Is there a particular song in this set that feels especially meaningful to you right now?
Every time I sing “Lazy Afternoon,” I feel as though time stops. It’s one of those miraculous songs that seems almost suspended in the air. Barbra recorded it with such intimacy, but the song itself belongs to anyone willing to slow down enough to enter its dream. I am bringing a quartet to Bay Street and my keyboardist, Andy Ezrin, is a deeply groovy jazz musician who has created a really exotic arrangement of it. He currently tours with Chris Botti.
At this stage of my life, after raising three daughters and continuing to discover new chapters as an artist, I’m drawn to songs that invite fantasy and stillness. They remind us that life isn’t only about striving — it’s also about noticing. That’s become increasingly meaningful to me.
I just came back from a trip to London where I made my debut at the legendary Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club singing the music of Michel Legrand, another Streisand favorite. He wrote the film musical “Yentl” for her. I starred in Legrand’s only Broadway musical, and have sung his music, which veers from the cinematic to the jazzy, for over 20 years. Jazz has taught me to listen.
Your career has spanned Broadway, concert stages, and recordings. What has each taught you about connecting with an audience?
Broadway taught me discipline and the power of storytelling. Every night you serve the play before yourself.
Recording taught me to trust intimacy. A microphone hears every thought, not just every note. It rewards honesty over volume.
Concerts have perhaps taught me the most. There is no character to hide behind. It’s just me, extraordinary musicians, and an audience that has chosen to spend an evening together. I’ve come to realize that people want a story, even a purpose, to bind the songs, not just a list of your favorites. They come looking for a connection — to me, to history, and to finding meaning in this complex thing called life. If you’re fully present, they meet you there. Sometimes I think my concerts have become like performance art shows — everything is interwoven for an experience. The music is surrounded by ideas, and the ideas are surrounded by music.
It’s funny — I don’t share Streisand’s longstanding fear of performing, though of course I feel compassion for her. I feel close to the people who come. As I’ve gotten older, I think I’ve become less interested in singing at an audience and much more interested in singing with them. Not that it’s a singalong — though people do tend to sing a few of the disco numbers with us! — but in the sense that I want them to feel that I feel what they’re feeling, rather than wanting them to feel the power of my feelings. If that feeling makes any sense!
What do you hope people are talking about as they leave Bay Street after your show?
If people walk out a little more hopeful, a little more romantic, a little on fire, and a little more in love with beautiful music than when they arrived, I’ll feel I’ve done my job.
I hope they’re singing the songs!
And I hope they’re taken back to some of the big, beautiful emotions of Barbra.
I hope someone goes home wanting to listen to “Funny Girl” again, or discovers a Harold Arlen ballad they never knew, or remembers that the American Songbook is still alive because every generation finds something new inside it.
And I hope they leave feeling that Barbra Streisand’s greatest legacy isn’t simply her own extraordinary voice — it’s the courage she gave so many artists to search for what it means to sound like themselves. And sounding like ourselves is what we all, people who sing and people who just speak, need most.
For more info, visit baystreet.org.
