Melissa Errico

Melissa Errico is an American actress, singer, recording artist, and writer born on March 23, 1970, in New York City. She grew up in Manhasset, New York, where she attended high school while traveling to Manhattan for dance training. Her father is an orthopedic surgeon and concert pianist, and her mother, a former teacher, works as a sculptor. Her maternal grandmother was an opera singer. Errico began her professional life at age twelve, appearing on the syndicated children's television series The Great Space Coaster.

Errico holds a degree in art history and philosophy from Yale University. During her freshman year, she was asked to audition for the role of Cosette while trying out for a different production and was cast in a national tour of Les Misérables, for which she took a leave of absence from Yale before returning to complete her studies. She is also a graduate of the British American Drama Academy's 1991 Midsummer in Oxford Programme and serves as a guest instructor at HB Studio.

Her Broadway career spans from 1987 to 2011 and includes roles in productions such as My Fair Lady, High Society, Anna Karenina, Amour, Oliver!, Dracula the Musical, and Irving Berlin's White Christmas. She played Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady at the Virginia Theater opposite Richard Chamberlain and Julian Holloway, a role she reprised in 2003 at the Hollywood Bowl alongside John Lithgow and Roger Daltrey. Her performance in Michel Legrand's Amour earned her a Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actress in a Musical in 2003. She also appeared in Camelot and Brigadoon among her Broadway credits.

Beyond Broadway, Errico played Dot and Marie in Sunday in the Park with George at the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., from May 31 to June 28, 2002, receiving a Helen Hayes Award nomination for Leading Actress in a Musical for that work. She co-starred opposite Tyne Daly in the New York City Center Encores production of Call Me Madam and returned to City Center in 2016 for the Rodgers-Sondheim musical Do I Hear a Waltz? In 2013, she played Clara in the Classic Stage Company production of Stephen Sondheim's Passion, earning a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. She also appeared in the 2003 revival of Wallace Shawn's Aunt Dan and Lemon at The New Group, directed by Scott Ellis, and starred at the Hollywood Bowl in Camelot opposite Jeremy Irons and in The Sound of Music with Marni Nixon as Mother Abbess.

Errico has performed in several productions for Irish Repertory Theatre, including Finian's Rainbow, in which she played the ingenue role Sharon in 2016, and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever in 2018. Her Drama Desk Award nomination also recognized her work in the Irish Repertory Theatre productions of The Importance of Being Earnest and Candida. She received a Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Lead Actress for her performance in the title role of One Touch of Venus.

As a recording artist, Errico has released multiple solo albums, among them Blue Like That, produced by Arif Mardin and released on February 25, 2003; Lullabies and Wildflowers, produced by Rob Mathes and released on April 29, 2008; Legrand Affair, produced by Phil Ramone and released on October 18, 2011; Sondheim Sublime, released on November 2, 2018; and Out of the Dark: The Film Noir Project, released in 2022. A deluxe edition of Legrand Affair followed in 2019, and Sondheim in the City was released in 2024. Her cast album credits include High Society, Amour, Finian's Rainbow, Anna Karenina, and the first complete recording of One Touch of Venus, among others. In 2013, she recorded the main title track, "Hurry Home," for the film Max Rose, which featured an original score by Michel Legrand.

In 2019, Errico curated a film festival for the French Institute Alliance Française in New York City celebrating films featuring the music of Michel Legrand. In 2021, she and New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik co-curated FIAF's CinéSalon series Out of the Dark: The Mystery of Film Noir, a program exploring French and American noir cinema that was co-presented by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States.

Her television work includes a recurring role as Alex Bartoli on Central Park West and appearances on Billions, The Knick, Blue Bloods, The Good Wife, Law and Order, A Gifted Man, Ed, The Jim Gaffigan Show, and Miss Match opposite Alicia Silverstone. Her film credits include Mockingbird Don't Sing, Frequency, and Life or Something Like It. Errico has also contributed writing to The New York Times and has served on the National Endowment for the Arts.