Hershey Felder in “Monsieur Chopin, A Play With Music.” The show runs at Writers Theatre in Glencoe through May 12. (Courtesy of Hershey Felder)

If you happen to be looking for a synonym to the word “polymath” you are sure to find its very best definition by heading straight to Writers Theatre in Glencoe. That is where the exceptionally multi-talented Hershey Felder is lighting up the stage with his altogether remarkable, nearly two-hour performance of “Monsieur Chopin, A Play With Music.”

Just consider Felder’s own dazzling list of talents: He’s an outstanding pianist, actor, writer, composer, filmmaker and set designer. And, as was announced this past fall, he also has become the artistic and managing director of the newly revived Teatro della Signoria, a landmark in Florence, Italy, the city where this Canadian-born son of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Hungary chose to make his home in 2018.

For many years Felder has brought his invariably engaging one-man shows to stages in Chicago and beyond — celebrating such music masters as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein, as well as Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Debussy. And now, Felder’s grandly reworked portrait of Fryderyk Chopin, the composer whose music was deeply connected to his Polish roots, is serving as a hugely entertaining portrait of that man. As Felder’s Chopin explains early on in the production, the show should serve as “a lesson” for the audience — one that captures both the essence of the composer’s sadly brief life (he died of what is believed to be tuberculosis in 1849, at the age of 39) and his enduring music that, as Chopin himself put it, should emerge “from every note in your soul.”

Hershey Felder in “Monsieur Chopin, A Play With Music.” The show runs at Writers Theatre in Glencoe through May 12. (Courtesy of Hershey Felder)

The “lesson” (performed on an ideally Romantic era set designed by Felder) is at once moving and entertaining, and is driven by Felder’s absolutely virtuosic renderings of 14 of Chopin’s pieces in the style of the polonaise, mazurka, waltz and nocturne. At several brief moments during the show (which has been deftly directed by Joel Zwick), Felder even suggests that members of the audience pose questions about Chopin’s life and music, to which he invariably has witty answers.

Along the way we also learn about Chopin’s personal life, including his thorny relationship with composer Franz Liszt — Chopin’s contemporary and competitor — and Chopin’s complex, decade-long relationship with George Sand (the pen name of the prolific French writer Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil), and her daughter, Solange.

I could go on, but the musical and dramatic magic of this show must be heard and seen as Felder brings Chopin to vivid life.

“Monsieur Chopin, A Play With Music” runs through May 12 at Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Court in Glencoe. For tickets, call 847-242-6000 or visit writerstheatre.org.

Follow Hedy Weiss on Twitter: @HedyWeissCritic