Melissa Errico

The Cultural Services were first imagined in the 1930's by Paul Claudel.

In 1945 General de Gaulle appointed Claude Lévi-Strauss as the first Cultural Counselor, with the mission of providing Americans (individuals and organizations) with access and resources to engage with French culture and promote it in their own communities.

Melissa Errico (born March 23, 1970) is an American actress, singer, recording artist and writer.

She is known for her Broadway musical roles such as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and the title role in One Touch of Venus, as well as her recordings of musical theater classics, including albums of songs by Stephen Sondheim and Michel Legrand.

In recent years she has become a contributing writer to The New York Times and served on the National Endowment for the Arts.

Born in New York City, Errico went to high school in Manhasset while taking dance lessons in Manhattan.

Her father is an orthopedic surgeon and concert pianist.

Her mother is a former teacher who now works as a sculptor.

She began her professional career at 12, appearing on the syndicated children's TV series The Great Space Coaster.

Errico's maternal grandmother was an opera singer.

Errico is a graduate of Yale University.

During her freshman year, Errico was asked to audition for the role of Cosette while trying out for a different show, and was cast.

Errico took a leave of absence from Yale and performed in a tour of Les Misérables, then returned to complete a degree in art history and philosophy.

Errico is also a graduate of the British American Drama Academy's 1991 Midsummer in Oxford Programme.

Errico is a guest instructor at HB Studio.

Errico played Cosette in Les Misérables on a national tour.

She also played Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady on Broadway, opposite Richard Chamberlain and Julian Holloway, at the Virginia Theater.

She co-starred opposite Tyne Daly in the New York City Center Encores production of Call Me Madam.

In 2002, Errico played the role of Dot/Marie in Sunday in the Park with George.

The production ran at the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. from May 31 to June 28, and Errico's work was recognized with a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Leading Actress in a Musical.

In 2003 she co-starred in the revival of the Wallace Shawn play Aunt Dan and Lemon at The New Group directed by Scott Ellis.

In 2003 Errico also returned to the role of Eliza Doolittle, alongside John Lithgow and Roger Daltrey, for a production of My Fair Lady at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles; she also starred there in Camelot opposite Jeremy Irons and The Sound of Music with Marni Nixon as Mother Abbess.

Other Broadway starring roles include High Society, Anna Karenina, Dracula The Musical, Amour, and Irving Berlin's White Christmas.

She is the recipient of a Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Musical (Michel Legrand's Amour), and a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in One Touch of Venus.

In 2013 she co-starred as Clara in the Classic Stage Company production of Stephen Sondheim's Passion, earning a Drama Desk Award nomination for her performance.

In 2013, Errico recorded the theme song for the movie Max Rose.

The soundtrack features an original score by Michel Legrand, and Errico sang the main title track, "Hurry Home".

Errico's recording of a song from David Shire's new musical Table was aired in April 2015 on NPR radio on The Jonathan Schwartz show for WYNC.

In 2016, she returned to the New York City Center stage for the Rodgers-Sondheim musical Do I Hear a Waltz?, for which she won rave reviews.

She has also starred in several productions for Irish Repertory Theatre including the musical Finian's Rainbow and her Drama Desk Award-nominated performances in the plays The Importance of Being Earnest and Candida.

At age 46, Errico returned to the ingenue role Sharon in the 2016 Irish Repertory Theatre production of Finian's Rainbow, an experience she chronicled in The New York Times; she also starred in their production of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever in 2018, which she also wrote about in The New York Times.

Errico has been recognized as an interpreter of Stephen Sondheim's work, with Terry Teachout of The Wall Street Journal calling her 2018 album Sondheim Sublime "the best all-Sondheim album ever recorded".

In 2022, The Wall Street Journal said her new album Out Of The Dark: The Film Noir Project "gives us noir music the way we imagine it...melancholy, bittersweet tales of isolation and loneliness, beauty and betrayal—especially relevant at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic...Ms. Errico sings throughout with a tone at once wistful and probing, suggesting that romance and mystery are but different sides of the same coin...we are breathing along with her, seeing what she sees, feeling what she feels...she makes it "uncommonly clear" that we are all silent partners in our own destruction, and that the most we can hope for is a few brief moments of tenderness".

Errico portrayed Alex Bartoli on Central Park West, and has had roles on episodes of Billions and The Knick.

Errico has also appeared on The Jim Gaffigan Show, Blue Bloods, The Good Wife, Law & Order, A Gifted Man, Ed, and Miss Match opposite Alicia Silverstone.

Errico has had roles in a number of films, including Mockingbird Don't Sing, Frequency, and Life or Something Like It.

In 2019, Errico curated a film festival for French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) in New York City celebrating movies featuring the music of composer Michel Legrand.

In 2021 at the height of the pandemic, The New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik and Melissa Errico curated FIAF's new CinéSalon series Out of the Dark: The Mystery of Film Noir.

Incorporating both French and American examples—and some that involve French filmmakers who immigrated to America—the series explored the many sides of the 'noir' vision in cinema with special attention paid to the Franco-American dialogue at its core.

The series was co-presented by The Cultural Services, a division of the French Embassy in the United States.