Two-time Tony Award-winner and accomplished singer-songwriter Michael Cerveris returns to Mountain Stage, recorded live on the campus of West Virginia University in Morgantown, W.Va. A native of Huntington, W.Va., Cerveris grew up in a very artistic family with a professional dancer for a mother and a professor of music and community-theater performer for a father. Despite his more classical upbringing, Cerveris is truly a rock 'n' roll fan at heart: He idolizes The Replacements and Pixies, performed in the original punk and anti-folk scenes of New York and even made his Broadway debut as Tommy in the theatrical version of The Who's rock opera, a casting decision that Pete Townshend gave a stamp of approval. At the time of this 2016 Mountain Stagetaping, Cerveris was continuing his Tony-winning role in Broadway's Fun Home, but as he puts it, "There are very few times I will leave a show to be any place else. But a call from Mountain Stage to be back in West Virginia — what are you going to do?"
Cerveris' latest solo release is Piety, out now on Low Heat Records. Following the devastating West Virginia flood of June 2016, he produced a benefit concert featuring such West Virginia musical mainstays as Ona, Tyler Childers and Mountain Stage's own Larry Groce; the nearly two-and-a-half hours of performances are available on Take Me Home: A Benefit Concert for West Virginia via Low Heat Records.
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