It’s 8 p.m. at the Ars Nova Theater, the 99-seat venue located in the heart of New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, just within reach of Broadway’s glittering lights—where dreams are born, hope lives, and success stories echo eternally through the streets.
   A perky 30-year-old redhead takes the stage. She cradles her cello as back-up singers fall into place behind her alongside a pianist, saxophonist, and a vibraphonist. The show is about to begin. The audience is waiting. She sings, tongue planted firmly in cheek: “I had killed a bird at Susan’s party/At the zoo/All because I chose to wear my brand new/Jelly shoes/So I will never have a birthday party/At the zoo.”
   Not what you expected? Meet Erin Hall, front woman of the act she calls Erin and her Cello. That is her song.
   This is her story.
   Quirky, vivacious, and undeniably unique, the singer, songwriter, and cellist is fusing the things she loves to do most (musical theater and, of course, cello) in order to do what every inspired performer must: device a plan to “make it.” In the process, she’s stumbled upon a wonderfully innovative way to set herself apart from the pack.
   “I feel like a writer of lyrics, definitely. To be able to combine that with my cello, and still play my cello, and be myself is amazing,” Hall says. “I still get to be myself on stage. I don’t have to be anyone else.”
   But Hall also notes that she never sat down and made an overt attempt to take her cello where no cello had gone before. This isn’t her shtick; it’s her passion. And it all came together quite organically, with a dash of serendipity.
   Let’s go back a bit.
   Hall remembers the day she first fell in love with the cello. She was in fifth grade and the local middle-school orchestra had performed at her elementary school. Captivated by the cello section, Hall, then a violin player, pleaded with her orchestra to trade up. Of course she could, was the response, but with one caveat: Hall must attend summer school.
   She couldn’t and to this day Hall believes the mandatory summer tutelage was a play to deter her from taking up the instrument. Regardless, love conquered all. In the end, Hall wound up with a cello and a beautiful friendship unfolded.
Hall had always sung in the choir, but it was a breakthrough role, that of Miss Adelaide in her high school’s production of Guys and Dolls, that opened an unforeseen door into the world of musical theater. That door never quite closed, though she continued to pursue her cello studies.
   After high school, Hall enrolled at the University of Idaho, where she completed two years of cello performance classes on a full scholarship. But her interest in musical theater beckoned, and eventually Hall left her hometown of Boise for New York City, leaving behind a full scholarship, but looking ahead to a new future.
   “I just didn’t feel that the classical route was for me,” she says of her cello studies. “And the more I realized that, I didn’t honestly put the practice time in and wasn’t sure if that was what I wanted.”
   She auditioned successfully at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy on Manhattan’s Upper West side, before graduating in 2003 with a bachelor of fine arts from the New School. She dived headlong into New York’s musical theater scene, auditioning for roles whenever and wherever, and, more often than not, coming up empty-handed.
   “It was like I was number 130,” she laments. “You have two minutes to go in and tell them how great you are, in song, and then you’re done. It was just depressing.”
   It took a bit of time to adjust to Manhattan’s manic pace of life. No one said it was going to be easy, but was it supposed to be this hard?
   She also began missing her cello.
   After working with acoustic ensembles around Manhattan, Hall was asked unexpectedly to play at an actor’s reading series called Tuesdays at 9. It meant Hall had to compose for the very first time. She was terrified. But with her trusty cello at her side, she knew she could traverse the line that would bring her from simply playing, to playing and composing.
   “What happened is with the first song, they laughed,” she recalls. “And the second song, they laughed and laughed and laughed.”
   Much of Hall’s material is borne out of the love-hate relationship nearly everyone has with the insomniac’s city, drawing upon everyday life’s stories to fill her sets. And while many of her songs do focus on the funnier side of the life, Hall’s songs can take an unexpected tender and poignant turn at a moment’s notice.
   “Bitten Me Bad” is definitely playful, and illustrates the young musician’s gift of the written and spoken work. But it is also a sincere ode to the oft-exasperating emotion that is anticipation, in this case, anticipating whether your latest crush plans to mend or break your bleeding heart.
   “This ain’t a bit from a little cat (meow)/No honey, your bite is much larger than that/This an’t a bit from a basset hound/If so then your bark is a beautiful sound/It’s more like a bite from a sneaky cobra…/With venom inside makin’ me want to know ya.”
   Playing primarily pizzicato bass lines, Hall’s cello has become more akin to an upright bass. She employs her knack for storytelling, acting, and musicianship to bring the stage to an entirely unique performance that is working in her favor. She played on Brady Brock’s album Warm American Sweater, which in 2003 led to her opening for the late indie-rock darling Elliot Smith.
   More recently, Hall has found fans at New York City’s premiere comedy club, Stand Up-New York, and performed in the Red Lab Series at the One-Arm Red Theater.
   “Things have taken a completely different turn,” she says of her self-made niche, “but in the same sense, things have taken the right turn.”

-Tiffany Martini