Hershey Felder (born July 9, 1968) is a pianist, actor, and playwright known for his portrayals of classical and American composers on the theatrical stage. Early life Felder was born in Montreal, Quebec, to Jacob Felder (born 1929 in Ustrzyki, Poland) and Eva Surek Felder (born 1946 in Budapest, Hungary). He was raised in a Yiddish-speaking home mainly, from age 13, by his widower father. Career Felder travelled to Los Angeles in 1994 and worked briefly for the Steven Spielberg Shoah Foundation, now the USC Shoah Foundation, with his knowledge of Yiddish and French interviewing Holocaust survivors to preserve their oral histories on film. The following year, he attended the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in Poland, where he met Helmuth Spryzcer who as a boy was made to whistle Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue to the German guards. This led Felder to create Sing! A Musical Journey about two Holocaust survivors, with Rhapsody in Blue at the conclusion. For nearly two years, Felder focused on the persona and music of George Gershwin, meeting with many of Gershwin's family members, and in 1999 created at Los Angeles Tiffany Theatre, a workshop production of a one-man show, George Gershwin Alone that has gone on to play over 40 productions in theatres in the United States, Canada, The United Kingdom and Italy. George Gershwin Alone was followed by Monsieur Chopin (premier Royal George Theatre, Chicago, 2006), Beethoven As I Knew Him (Old Globe Theatre San Diego, 2008). In 2010, he premiered his one-man play-with-music about Leonard Bernstein, Maestro at the Geffen Theatre in Los Angeles. In 2013, Felder received a letter from Russian Theatrical Producers inviting him to portray Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The same month, Russian Duma - Russian Parliament, had passed anti-gay legislation. Since Tchaikovsky is believed to have been homosexual, Felder named his work "Our Great Tchaikovsky", performing it only in the U.S. A 2014 an American Theatre profile referred to Felder as being "in a category all his own". His major portrayals are those of George Gershwin, Frédéric Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Claude Debussy. After a storied gestation period of two years, including meetings with many of the Irving Berlin family members, he has given a much-requested dramatic impersonation of the American songwriter Irving Berlin. In 2013, Felder directed concert pianist Mona Golabek in The Pianist of Willesden Lane, in his adaptation of her