Rising Broadway Star to Debut Show at Landmark

There are two particularly wonderful things about Port Washington — one is its proximity to New York City and the second is the fact that it has a first-rate music venue right in town in Landmark on Main Street. Sometimes these two facts converge, as they will on June 14 at 8 p.m. when a hot young Broadway star — Hunter Ryan Herdlicka — will preview his upcoming one-man show, I Happen to Like New York, on Landmark's stage.

Herdlicka has led a charmed life thus far. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon in 2009, he followed his dream and moved to New York to pursue a career in show business. In less than two weeks, he was hired in the role of Henrik Egerman, opposite Angela Lansbury and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music.

"It was the very first audition I went on," Herdlicka said. "It was an amazing fairy tale story, a dream come true. I never thought that this would happen so quickly. I really didn't expect to achieve everything I wanted at the age of 23."

For the Dallas native, this has been a learning experience. "Catherine and Angela have been incredible," he said. "So wonderful and sweet and generous to me. From Catherine, I learned spontaneity. She's fresh, light, and brings fun to the stage. It's something you have to learn. From Angela, I learned work ethics. She never misses a performance, is never out sick. She gives 500 percent. I once heard her explain why the audience gets silent when she enters the stage. She said 'I demand their attention.'"

A Little Night Music was set to end its run this month, after producers were unable to find high-powered replacements for Zeta-Jones and Lansbury, but Herdlicka had some new information. "Rumor has it," he said, "that Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch will be replacing Catherine and Angela. The news should be out soon." In that case, the show will close as scheduled on June 20, but only for a two-week hiatus.

During his time off, Herdlicka will be performing a one-man show at Feinstein's at Loews Regency in Manhattan at the end of June. Port Washington will be his "out of town tryout" before the Manhattan debut. "It's so wonderful that we get to do this in Port Washington," Herdlicka said.

The show, titled I Happen to Like New York, will be filled with standards from the American Songbook, including songs by Sondheim, Cole Porter and Jerry Herman. "They will be songs people recognize and know," Herdlicka said. "The show is about stories and songs, dreams and dreaming, and goals. That's the tie-in with New York." Herdlicka calls New York his "favorite place in the world," and he's currently living in the heart of it — a block away from Times Square.

Herdlicka's June 14 show is part of Landmark's "Broadway Week" which ends with The Songs of Jerry Herman on June 19 at 8 p.m. Tickets for the two-show package are $45 to $55. Tickets for Herdlicka's performance alone are $15. Tickets are available by calling the Landmark's box office at (516) 767-6444 or online.

Don't miss this rising star's Port Washington debut, so you can say "I knew him when …"