Biographie
Melissa Errico is an actress and vocalist who has appeared in television, film, and stage, will join the cast of Billions, an upcoming Wall Street drama written and produced by Brian Koppelman and David Levien (Ocean's Thirteen, Runaway Jury, Runner Runner) and writer Andrew Ross Sorkin (Too Big to Fail).
Melissa Errico has starred on Broadway, on network television and film and is an accomplished recording artist and musical concert performer. While she is best known for her highly-acclaimed work on Broadway, she is unique in that she has throughout her career played many non-musical roles in plays by Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Wally Shawn, to name a few.
She is a graduate of Yale University where she performed in Chekhov's Three Sisters with Ed Norton and Alessandro Nivola. In recent years she has increasingly been cast in strong dramatic roles on television and film. This year, she played the recurring role of Catherine on Stephen Soderbergh's Cinemax show The Knick, and has appeared in guest arcs on Blue Bloods and the Good Wife. Her Broadway credits include starring roles in My Fair Lady, Dracula, White Christmas, High Society, Les Miserables, Anna Karenina and Amour for which she was nominated for a Best Actress Tony Award. She starred in Stephen Sondheim's Passion and His Sunday in the Park With George. She has released three studio albums: Blue Like That (EMI Records) produced by Arif Mardin, Legrand Affair (Ghostlight) produced by Phil Ramone, and Lullabies and Wildflowers (VMG/Universal Records) produced by Rob Mathes. She tours with symphonies around the world.
Melissa Errico was a 2003 Tony nominee for Best Leading Actress in a musical for Michel Legrand's wistful and wittily romantic Broadway debut, "Amour". In 2005, she recorded an album, with Michel Legrand at the piano and arranging, produced by Phil Ramone. This will be Melissa's second solo studio album, her first being "Blue Like That", which was produced by Arif Mardin for Capitol Records EMI. In 2005, she can be seen in the film, Loverboy (2005) (Sundance/ Cannes), directed by Kevin Bacon, with Kyra Sedgwick, Sandra Bullock and Campbell Scott. During the 2004-2005 Broadway season, Melissa starred on Broadway in "Dracula", after appearing in two off-Broadway hit revivals non-musical and musical: Wallace Shawn's "Aunt Dan and Lemon" with Lili Taylor and "Finian's Rainbow" with Malcolm Gets (recorded on Ghostlight Records) in 2004.
Melissa is a graduate of Yale University, with a BA in Art History and Philosophy. She made her critically-acclaimed Broadway debut at Circle in the Square in "Anna Karenina", for which she withdrew from the Yale Graduate School of Acting, Her professional career began during her freshman year at Yale University, when, at 18, she landed the lead in the Premier National Touring Company of "Les Miserables". Her theater credits grew rapidly after graduation with "Anna Karenina", followed that same year by an acclaimed performance as "Eliza Doolittle" in the Broadway revival of "My Fair Lady" (opposite Richard Chamberlain), a role she reprised, triumphantly, in 2003 at The Hollywood Bowl with John Lithgow and Roger Daltrey and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Other Broadway credits: Cole Porter's "High Society", Michel Legrand's 2002 "Amour, Dracula". After a season as "Alex Bartoli" in the CBS television series, C.P.W. (1995), Melissa made an enormous splash with New York audiences and critics, winning raves for her silly and sexy turn as the goddess "Venus" in Kurt Weill's "One Touch of Venus" at City Center, a performance she has reprised at Avery Fisher Music Hall, Lincoln Center. Melissa is a member of the Irish Repertory Theater, where she has had great success in plays such as "Major Barbara" (with Boyd Gaines) as "Barbara", and opposite Eric Stoltz and Nancy Marchand in "The Importance of Being Earnest".
Melissa's other recent television credits include: "Laurel" on Miss Match (2003), Law & Order (1990), The Norm Show (1999) and as "Ed's ex-wife" on Ed (2000). On film, she costars with Angelina Jolie in Twentieth Century Fox's film, Life or Something Like It (2002) and Jim Caviezel in the New Line Cinema film, Frequency (2000); and appeared in many independent films, including Bury the Evidence (1998), with Karen Black, and starred in the harrowing docu-drama, Mockingbird Don't Sing (2001) with Sean Young.
For The Kennedy Center Sondheim Celebration (2002), Melissa was chosen by Stephen Sondheim to star in "Sunday in the Park with George", opposite Raúl Esparza, which followed with a sold-out concert at Avery Fisher Music Hall and a 2003 Helen Hayes Nomination for "Best Leading Actress". For her theater work, Melissa has been honored with four Drama Desk nominations, four Outer Critics Circle Awards and five Drama League Honors, and won the Lucille Lortel Award for "Best Actress" in "One Touch of Venus".
Melissa has appeared for solo engagements in the prestigious cabaret rooms of Manhattan and Los Angeles, such as "The Cafe Carlyle", "The Oak Room" and "Feinsteins". She regularly appears with her band at Joe's Pub, The Cutting Room, Symphony Space, Wolf Trap in Washington DC. She began concert work with her month-long run in May 2000 at Joe's Pub in New York in "Real Emotional Girl: Melissa Errico Sings the Music of Randy Newman", in tribute to her collaboration with Randy Newman on his developing the musical, "Faust". In March 2002, she opened in a show with pianist Lee Musiker, titled "New Standards", which ran for three weeks at the Café Carlyle, featuring jazz standards and modern-day standards of Michel Legrand, Joni Mitchell and Oleta Adams. And in 2004, she had a successful month at The Oak Room at The Algonquin with her Spring Fever, working for the first time with James Taylor pianist Clifford Carter in a programme of original music by her brother and reworkings of classics by Van Morrison, Billy Joel, Eddi Reader and James Taylor with a five-piece band.
On February 25, 2003, Melissa released her debut album, "Blue Like That", on Capitol/ EMI with twelve tracks produced and arranged by industry legend Arif Mardin. Accompanying Melissa is jazz pianist Alan Pasqua, and her own brother, Mike Errico, on guitar and vocals, who also wrote two original songs. Her next album is with Michel Legrand and Phil Ramone.
