Joel Zwick Archives - TheaterScene.net

Joel Zwick

Hershey Felder: The Piano and Me

August 1, 2026

Famous pianist Hershey Felder has toured the world with his many shows about legendary composers from Chopin and Tchaikovsky to Gershwin and Irving Berlin giving over 6,000 performances. Now he has chosen to tell his own story from his upbringing in Montreal to the present and proves himself to be a consummate storyteller both on the piano and in words, incorporating the most famous piano show pieces of the last 250 years. Called "The Piano and Me," the show is riveting for both classical music aficionados as well as those unversed in anything other than pop music of today. Playing 16 people who were instrumental in his career, he brings them all to life for us. [more]

Sukkot

July 21, 2026

Matthew Leavitt’s "Sukkot" begins with a deceptively simple premise: a grieving widower builds a sukkah because he believes it is the closest remaining path to his late wife. From that premise emerges one of the most satisfying new family plays to arrive this season, a comedy-drama that understands grief not as a singular emotion but as an unruly collection of contradictions. It is uproariously funny without ever mocking pain, deeply moving without reaching for sentimentality, and wise enough to recognize that families often express love most fluently through irritation. The 6th Act's superb production at 59E59 Theaters, directed with remarkable assurance by Joel Zwick, allows Leavitt's finely calibrated script to breathe, laugh, and ache in equal measure. [more]

Maestro

September 16, 2016

Felder’s play begins with a video of the actual Leonard Bernstein delivering a colorful, yet entertaining, illustrated lecture on music. When Felder sashays down the aisle, a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other, the lack of resemblance is, at first, bothersome. But, somehow, sitting at a piano—which he plays impeccably—his monologue pulls you into Bernstein’s tumultuous life story. [more]