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“The Maria Callas of American musical theater” – Opera News
“One of a kind performer” – The Wall Street Journal
“Ethereal, gorgeous, elegant, popular...with inward emotion and real artistry.” – The New York Times
October 10, 2025 – Tony® Award–nominated Broadway actress, singer and author Melissa Errico (My Fair Lady, Les Misérables, High Society) unveils a new two-song bundle — “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” and “I Didn’t Know About You” — continuing the song-by-song rollout from her forthcoming American Songbook album I Can Dream, Can’t I?, out January 30, 2026. Listen HERE.
Composed by Duke Ellington with lyrics by Bob Russell, “I Didn’t Know About You” began life as an instrumental recorded in 1942 under the title “Sentimental Lady.” The song soon found its words and has since been shaped by great interpreters including Joya Sherrill (who made the first vocal recording in 1944), Jo Stafford, and Lena Horne. The accompanying lyric video, directed by Matthew Edginton, playfully weaves vintage tennis imagery — including a final shot of Errico’s husband, tennis champion Patrick McEnroe, playing — into the song’s flirtatious reverie. Watch the lyric video HERE.
Of the track, Melissa shares: ”I knew right away I wanted to sing it. If ever there was a song about kindred souls, it’s this one. Sometimes we think life is about running around and all we notice are the crowds around us. Zelda Fitzgerald, whom I portrayed in a play this year, once said “Youth doesn’t need friends— it only needs crowds” Well, you get older and if you’re lucky, you suddenly come eye to eye with love. Then, the crowd fades away; and happiness sits down with you at the table. Or, well, maybe the pillow!”
About the video’s tennis motif, Melissa says:“I followed my intuition in asking my director (Matthew Edington) to insert some vintage tennis scenes into our lyric video. Maybe because I fell in love myself with a tennis player? Maybe because it felt flirty. Maybe because tennis, like chess, like life— is about finding that rare window of opportunity.”
Musing on the project as a whole, Melissa added: “Like my title track, this Duke Ellington song feels like an intimate conversation. There’s something internal about it, ending in a sly smile. It’s another song sung in confidence, in complicity. In fact, all the songs we chose for this album are just that: whispered exchanges, sometimes whispered to oneself. Words that I think Sondheim, too, might have liked — emotions caught between happiness and sadness: stories of people bemused, disillusioned, titillated, longing — those subtle shades of real life. An obstacle course run by adults.”
The two-song bundle follows the release of the first single from the upcoming album — a dazzling rendition of the American Songbook gem “When In Rome (I Do As The Romans Do),” and the official lyric video for the title track “I Can Dream, Can’t I?”
Accompanied by Tedd Firth on piano, I Can Dream Can’t I? is a collection of standards that are not standard. Though many of the songs are familiar, even classics, they evade the usual categories of American music: the torch song, the ‘I want’ number, the patter-comedy turn, the wash-that-man-out-of-my-hair song. An intuitively discovered body of work, these are songs of conversation and reflection, songs that ask themselves questions privately, more than they declare their desires loudly and publicly.
Here are songs of self-reliance and self-reflection, often sad, even when the feelings resolve in equipoise. These songs are drawn from what Melissa calls “the field of poppies from which sprang Sondheim’s opium.” Errico’s years singing Sondheim, in the ever-extended Sondheim project, have brought her a new and unusual delicacy with the standards. Her diction, her clarinet of a voice, and all the skill learned in the classroom of the self-conscious ironies and comma-bound contradictions of Sondheim, are applied to rediscover the emotional resources of the American Songbook.Music by Frank Loesser, Cy Coleman, Duke Ellington, Peggy Lee, Van Heusen, Rodgers & Hart, Jerome Kern, Sammy Fain, Dave Frishberg, Dori Caymmi, and Joni Mitchell. Words by Carolyn Leigh, Dorothy Fields, Alan & Marilyn Bergman, Oscar Hammerstein, Johnny Burke and more.
In the end, I Can Dream Can’t I? is a nuanced and powerful view into the American Songbook through Melissa’s own individual lens. Check out the full track listing below.
So far, 2025 has been a landmark year for Errico. She made her London concert hall debut at Cadogan Hall with Sondheim in the City Live!, earning a standing ovation and recently joined Alec Baldwin for a performance in East Hampton, NY during “The Fitzgeralds: A Reading with Music.” This fall, she launches two new live projects: “The Life and Loves of a Broadway Baby” shows in Detroit, MI on October 11th, and The Streisand Effect in November, performing alongside Barbra Streisand’s band in Long Beach, CA and New York, NY. See all tour dates (including a holiday tour) and ticket links HERE.
Stay tuned for more music and announcements from Melissa Errico coming soon.
I Can Dream Can’t I? Tracklist
1. When In Rome (I Do As The Romans Do)
(In the Name of Love, 1964)
Music by Cy Coleman, Lyrics by Carolyn Leigh
2. I Can Dream, Can’t I?
(Right This Way, 1937)
Music by Sammy Fain, Lyrics by Irving Kahal
3. I Didn’t Know About You
(1944)
Music by Duke Ellington, Lyrics by Bob Russell
4. There’ll Be Another Spring
(Beauty and the Beat, 1959)
Music & Lyrics by Peggy Lee, Contributions: Hubie Wheeler
5. But Beautiful
(The Road to Rio, 1947)
Music by James Van Heusen, Lyrics by Johnny Burke
6. Dancing On The Ceiling
(Evergreen, 1930)
Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
7. Remind Me
(One Night in the Tropics, 1940)
Music by Jerome Kern, Lyrics by Dorothy Fields
8. Like A Lover
(Look Around, 1967)
Music by Dori Caymmi, Lyrics by Alan & Marilyn Bergman
9. Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year
(Christmas Holiday, 1943)
Music & Lyrics by Frank Loesser
10. All In Fun
(Very Warm for May, 1939)
Music by Jerome Kern, Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein
11. Listen Here
(1979)
Music & Lyrics by David Frishberg
12. Both Sides Now
(Clouds, 1966)
Music & Lyrics by Joni Mitchell
Bonus Track:
13. After You, Who?
(Gay Divorce, 1932)
Music & Lyrics by Cole Porter
Tour Dates
10/11 - Detroit, MI - The Cube (2 shows)
10/23 - New York, NY - Jazz at Lincoln Center
11/12 - Long Beach, CA - Carpenter Center of Performing Arts
11/13 - Long Beach, CA - Carpenter Center of Performing Arts
11/19 - New York, NY - 54 Below
11/20 - New York, NY - 54 Below
11/21 - New York, NY - 54 Below
11/22 - New York, NY - 54 Below
12/10 - Erie, PA - Walker Recital Hall
12/12 - New Hope, PA - Bucks County Playhouse
12/13 - Brookville, NY - Tilles Center - Krasnoff Theater
12/15 - Austin, TX - Parker Jazz Club
12/16 - Hollywood, CA - Catalina Bar & Grill
12/18 - New York, NY - The Century Association
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