During the run of his one-man show George Gershwin Alone at the Tiffany Theatre in Los Angeles, Hershey Felder often noticed celebrities in the audience. " There would be people like Warren Beatty and Annette Bening every night. I wondered why they felt the need to come. " Then one evening, Jerry Herman, the Broadway composer and lyricist, came backstage after the performance. " It was very important for me to see this, " he told Felder. " If that could happen to George Gershwin, I don’t feel so bad about Mack and Mabel anymore. "

Herman was seeing parallels between the initial failure of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and his own spectacular 1974 Broadway flop, which starred Bernadette Peters and Robert Preston and closed after 66 performances. Gershwin died suddenly at the age of 38, still thinking Porgy was a failure after scathing reviews that insisted he didn’t know how to write an opera. The doubt he felt about the success of this work and the ultimate fate of all his music constitutes one of the most poignant themes in Felder’s show.

The first in a projected series of three original plays about composers (the others will be Chopin/George Sand and Beethoven), George Gershwin Alone will be hosted here by the American Repertory Theatre starting this Sunday. Felder, a concert pianist, actor, and singer, plays the role of Gershwin in a production directed by Joel Zwick. Developed in workshops followed by successful runs in both LA and New York, the show takes us into Gershwin’s 1920s living room with its grand piano and family portraits on the wall. Felder evokes Gershwin’s life from a childhood on the Lower East Side to his work as a " piano pimp " in a music-publishing house to his early success as a songwriter. There is an extensive re-enactment of Gershwin’s creation of Porgy with Felder singing all the parts. The show ends with a complete performance of Rhapsody in Blue.

Throughout the play, however, Felder emphasizes the disparity between Gershwin’s fame and the lack of appreciation he felt. Rather than simply " celebrate " the music that is now recognized as a foundation of the Great American Songbook, he felt it was also essential to treat " the tragedy of George Gershwin. " He reminds us, " It’s important to remember from whom the work came. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum but came from a real person. "

Now 33 and a native of Montreal, Felder has been both an actor and a pianist since early childhood. He studied piano at McGill University and at Juilliard. He played his first public concert at 11 and made his concerto debut at the age of 19 with a performance of Rhapsody in Blue. As a child, he acted in the venerable Yiddish theater in Canada; he’s performed roles in Stempenyu, Fiddler on the Roof, Gigi, and Waiting for Godot. He has conducted opera performances as well as The Master and Margarita for the Harold Prince Musical Theatre Workshop. Felder also composes; his several musicals include Fairytale, Noah’s Ark (which he wrote in collaboration with Canada’s former prime minister, Kim Campbell), and, most recently, Chosen by God.

Was Gershwin his musical hero? " No, all great musicians are my heroes. But Gershwin had a story worth telling. " Without taking an authorial point of view or digging up scandalous material (such as Gershwin’s rumored illegitimate child), Felder " tries to tell the audience what it would want to know if given an hour and a half in Gershwin’s presence. " He doesn’t sugarcoat his subject: " You might not like him. You might get confused by his juvenile statements about himself, his childish fascination with himself. " Nonetheless, he says, it was necessary to be " truthful, to let the subject speak for himself. "

As for Gershwin’s early death, Felder finds it heartbreaking. " He literally dropped dead of an undiagnosed brain tumor. You think about this tumor and the pressure it put on his brain and the terrible headaches he suffered. Yet the pain was diagnosed as hysteria. His family treated him as someone who just wanted attention. And Irving Berlin said, ‘There is nothing the matter with George Gershwin that a hit tune wouldn’t cure.’  "

Even so, Gershwin’s musical output and artistic growth were extraordinary. Felder asserts that " his first opera was way better than Wagner’s first grand opera, " and he believes that the composer’s work " was going to get even better " had he lived. " I used to subscribe to the very Jewish idea that one is put on earth to achieve a goal, and that when it is accomplished, your life ends. But I changed that idea as I worked on this project, because some people really do die before their time is up. "

The American Repertory Theatre presents George Gershwin Alone at the Loeb Drama Center June 16 through July 7. Tickets are $32 to $42; call (617) 547-8300.