The Pianist of Willesden Lane | December 5 – 22

based on the book
“The Children of Willesden Lane”
by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen
adapted and directed by Hershey Felder

Grammy-nominated pianist and storyteller, Mona Golabeck, shares the gripping and biographical tale of her mother’s escape from Vienna in 1938. When the young Jewish piano prodigy finds her dreams threatened by the looming war, she escapes to England on the Kindertransport. Ms. Golabek tells an incomparable true story while interweaving the music of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy, and even a little Gershwin in this elegant and beautiful production.

Mona Golabek
American concert pianist Mona Golabek has appeared at the Hollywood Bowl, The Kennedy Center and Royal Festival Hall. She is a Grammy nominee who has been the subject of several documentaries, including Concerto for Mona with conductor Zubin Mehta. Her recordings include Carnival of the Animals and Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite featuring Meryl Streep, both recorded with Mona’s sister, Renee Golabek-Kaye. Both daughters were taught by their mother, Lisa Jura, who is the subject of Mona’s acclaimed book, The Children of Willesden Lane. Mona’s father, Michele Golabek, received the Croix de Guerre for his role in the French Resistance.

Mona founded Hold On To Your Music, a foundation devoted to spreading the message of the power of music. With the help of the Milken Family Foundation, Facing History and Ourselves, and the Annenberg Foundation, she created educational resources which, with her book, have been adopted into school curricula across America. Additional educational partnerships have been formed with the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, Mashplant and the USC Shoah Foundation — all helping to bring forth the story of Lisa Jura.

Compositions and recordings include Aliyah, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; Fairytale, a musical; Les Anges de Paris, Suite for Violin and Piano; Song Settings; Saltimbanques for Piano and Orchestra; Etudes Thematiques for Piano; Love Songs of the Yiddish Theatre; Back from Broadway; and An American Story for Actor and Orchestra. He created Eighty-Eight Entertainment in 2001; its newest division, Hershey Felder Presents, continues in the creation of new works of musical theater.

Adaptor/Director Hershey Felder
Felder created and performed George Gershwin Alone, which played on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre, in the West End at the Duchess Theatre, and in theaters around the country. His Composers Sonata — George Gershwin Alone; Monsieur Chopin; Beethoven, As I Knew Him; Maestro Bernstein; Hershey Felder as Franz Liszt in Musik; and Hershey Felder as Irving Berlin — has been presented at dozens of theaters across the U.S. and around the world.

About The Westport Country Playhouse

Westport Country Playhouse is a nationally recognized, not-for-profit, professional theater under the artistic direction of Mark Lamos and management leadership of Michael Barker.

The mission of Westport Country Playhouse is to enrich, enlighten, and engage our community through the power of professionally produced theater worth talking about and the welcoming experience of our Playhouse campus.

Originally built in 1835 as a tannery manufacturing hatters’ leathers, it became a steam-powered cider mill in 1880, later to be abandoned in the 1920s.  Splendidly transformed into a theater in 1931, it initially served as a try-out house for Broadway transfers, evolving into an established stop on the New England straw hat circuit of summer stock theaters through the end of the 20 ^th century.  Following a multi-million dollar renovation completed in 2005, the Playhouse became a state-of-the-art producing theater, preserving its original charm and character.

Today, the not-for-profit Westport Country Playhouse serves as a cultural nexus for patrons, artists and students and is a treasured resource for the State of Connecticut.  There are no boundaries to the creative thinking for future seasons or the kinds of audiences and excitement for theater that Westport Country Playhouse can build.

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Westport Country Playhouse | 25 Powers Court, Westport, CT