For Tony Award-nominated actor-singer John Herrera, Monday’s Valentine’s Day concert at Park West, “An Evening With John Herrera,” is a literal labor of love: “Valentine’s Day lets the romantic in me wear my heart on my sleeve; I get as passionate as my Cuban roots; I can exploit the Latin lover image for all it’s worth, with a modicum of taste and restraint.”
Herrera is well-known to Chicago audiences for such work as the starring role in Goodman Theatre’s “Sunday in the Park With George,” as Marvin in Wisdom Bridge’s “Falsettoland,” and as Tito in the Apollo Theater’s “Lend Me A Tenor.”
Right now, he’s just glad to be able to sing. That was not a given last year when Herrera was doing his signature role, Che, in a touring company production of “Evita.” On opening night in Philadelphia, a vocal cord hemorrhaged and he faced a critical choice.
“It was complete voice rest or face surgery. I realized I didn’t need to be a singer the rest of my life,” he said.
His voice is back, strong enough for concerts, and will soon have to be up to the grueling challenge of performing eight shows a week in the national tour of “March of the Falsettos.” And at 38 he is exploring new paths: developing a new music/theater workshop and directing new non-commercial chamber music works. He’s working on a cabaret show for New York’s Gay Games and negotiating the rights to direct Paul Rudnick’s AIDS comedy “Jeffrey” at Bailiwick Repertory.
Herrera did a recent benefit concert for gay candidate Tom Chiola, currently running for a judgeship on the Cook County Circuit Court.
Proceeds from the sale of his first recording, the just-released cassette “So Far,” go to Open Hand Chicago, the meals-on-wheels program for homebound people with HIV and AIDS, an organization for which Herrera has done volunteer work, part of his dues as an artist.
“We’ll feel the loss from AIDS for generations-in musicals that aren’t written, sets not designed, dances no one choreographed. A cause like Open Hand deals directly with those who need it the most,” he said.
His Valentine’s Day concert will feature a pop segment (including, inevitably, “My Funny Valentine” but not, Herrera insists, “Feelings”) and, new for him, a romantic Cuban section that features Big Band arrangements (by Tom Mendel) reminiscent of “The Mambo Kings.” Herrera will also make his tap-dancing debut in the show, which begins at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Park West, 322 W. Armitage Ave. (312-559-1212).
He also sings the songs of two great Broadway composers, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim; he’s one of the few Broadway-size talents to succeed equally with both. But he doesn’t admire both equally.
“You do Webber for the money. You do Sondheim for yourself,” he said.
“Despite his operatic aspirations, Webber is a lot closer to the Beatles and Elvis than to Richard Rodgers, let alone Puccini. He doesn’t trust himself to find his style, one reason he offers so much pastiche. Watching a Webber show, I always feel the wink.”
Sondheim, Herrera maintains, works in the great Broadway tradition.
“His music goes right back to Tin Pan Alley,” he said. “It’s so satisfying to do because there’s so much craft. Singing from `Sunday’ takes me to new places; each song carries many emotions.”
The most personal portion of his concert comes from Herrera’s signature work, “Sunday in the Park With George.” (Playing Georges Seurat’s muse and mistress, Dot, will be Janet Metz, familiar as the narrator in the Chicago Theatre’s long-running “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”)
Seurat is Herrera’s favorite part.
“One of the hardest things a performer wrestles with is the relationship between his love life and his work,” he said. ” `Sunday’ shows how artists use their love lives to fuel their work and, to close the circle, use their work to replenish the love.”
