Going Psycho (Cabaret)

I finally caught Psycho Cabaret, the DC Cabaret Network entry in this year’s Fringe Festival.  What a terrific show!  From the moment Chris Cochran, Lonny Smith and Michael Sazonov launch into Stress at the top of the show to the time that the company concludes with As We Stumble Along, the show is 55 minutes of delights.  They’re too numerous to list here, but special favorites include Emily Everson’s take on Don’t Touch Me (from Young Frankenstein), Lonny Smith’s Run Away with Me, Judy Simmon’s Another Winter in a Summer Town (from Grey Gardens), and Terri Allen’s Saturday Night.  I always love Michael Sazonov’s work — his What Is It About Her? was up to his usual standard of excellence; and even though I didn’t quite buy The Lies of Handsome Men told from a heterosexual male perspective, it’s thrilling to watch an artist make fascinating, bold, risky choices.  Also, Jeff Tucker was doing an amazing job mixing sound throughout the show.

I do have to take whoever is doing the marketing for this show to task.  The communications I’ve seen from the DC Cabaret Network have a “please support us” / floss your teeth rationale as the argument why people should see this show.  And I think that does a disservice to the people performing.  People should see this show because it’s a terrific show!

The songs…

• Stress  — Ensemble
• Don’t Touch Me — Emily Everson
• You Wnna Be My Friend — Arlene Hill
• Twisted — Terri Allen
• What Is It About Her? – Michael Sazonov
• I’m Not My Mother  — Chris Cochrane
• Run Away With me — Lonny Smith
• Another Winter in a Summer Town — Judy Simmons
• Sweet Dreams — George Fulginiti-Shkar
• Shattered Illusions — Ensemble
• Lies of Handsome Men — Michael Sazonov
• I Don’t Remember Christmas — Chris Cochrane
• Would You Let Me — Roy Zimmerman
• What Am I Doin’? — Lonny Smith
• Saturday Night — Terri Allen
• Ghost of a Chance — Arlene Hill
• The Best Thing to Happen to Me — Judy Simmons
• As We Stumble Along — Ensemble

Cabaret Convention Dates & Performers Announced

The annual Mabel Mercer Foundation’s Cabaret Convention dates and initial line-ups have just been announced.  One fascinating omission — where is Andrea Marcovicci?

Justin Ritchie’s Summer in the City

Justin Ritchie just got back from the advanced-level Summer in the City workshop in NY, led by Lina Koutrakos and Lennie Watts, and generously shares this report…

I just got back from “Summer In The City” - a five day cabaret workshop in New York with the fabulous Lina Koutrakos and Lennie Watts.  Other than my introduction to cabaret at a class I took at the Theatre Lab last October, this was my first “intensive” class with a focus on cabaret. 

About a week before I left I was mailed a song.  Everyone was mailed a Beatles song and instructed to memorize it lyrically and to know the melody as it was written on the page.  Being a tenor who loves to sing a ballad I was naturally assigned the song “Drive My Car.”  We spent the first three days split up into two groups working with either Lina or Lennie and a musical director, the amazing Steven Ray Watkins and Rick Jensen, on an arrangement for our song.  This exercise was perhaps the most profound lesson I learned.  I personally worked with Lennie and Steven for this exercise, and under their expert direction we took a song that I thought I had absolutely no connection to and made it into a song with an amazing arrangement that I could make my own.   It was a wonderful lesson of really tearing apart the lyric and getting down to what the song is saying and what I am trying to say by singing it.  The music is almost, almost incidental. 

The rest of the weekend we worked on our own music with Lina, Lennie, Steven, Rick, and several amazing guest teachers including Jay Rodgers, Baby Jane Dexter, Kristine Zbornik, Faith Prince, and Steven Lutvak.  I learned lesson after lesson from these amazing artists.  Faith Prince had me sing to her and said while I was singing, “I want to know who you are.”  Steven Lutvak said of our craft, “it is all and always about courage and joy.”  It’s not about singing a pretty song pretty.  That’s the easy part.  It’s about sharing a piece of me and being honest with whoever it is that has come to see me.  It’s about knowing why I want to sing this particular song.  It’s about knowing what I need to say.

I arrived at my first class with tons of nerves with no idea about what to expect.  All I knew was I had a Beatles rock song that I was supposed to try to sing.  After five days of singing and laughing and crying and everything in between, I left full of joy and excitement about this craft I’ve come to love so much!

Even Funnier Propositions…

Well, we got the first show of Funny Propositions under our belts Saturday at the Goethe Institute (lovely performance space — except the un-airconditioned mens room has been repurposed as the dressing room) in the Capitol Fringe Festival.  And we had all the lights blow out during the first of the four sketches.

But Marilyn Bennet and Dwane Starlin  are ever-wonderful in the “Parlor Games” sequence.  And I pray that this show will only get funnier once we get a chance to play it even more in front of an audience. (Here’s the cast as playing cards in a game of computer solitaire.)

Performances remain…

• Sat. July 12, 7:00 p.m.
• Wed. July 16, 7:00 p.m.
• Su. July 20, 6:00 p.m.
• Wed. July 23, 6:30 p.m.
• Sat. July 26, 3:00 p.m.
• Su. July 27, 3:00 p.m.

At the Goethe Institute - Mainstage — 812 Seventh Street NW, Washington, D.C.

For tickets please visit TheaterMania’s website or Capital Fringe’s website at www.capfringe.org.

Summer Sizzles at Signature

OK.  Cabaret Scenes cut my July Washington update column because at the deadline, I had comparatively little to report.  But now, not only do we have all the events announced in the Capital Fringe Festival, Signature Theater has quite a line-up for their Sizzlin’ Summer Nights festival:

July 16, 2008	8:30	Nigerian Singer	Kuku
		Spoken Word	HBO’s Vanessa Hidary
July 17, 2008	8:30	Showtunes Cabaret	Revenge of the Understudies cabaret with Mark Chandler, Stacie Hering, Katie Keyser, Tim Lynch, Patrick McMahan, Robert Mintz, Chris Mueller, Gannon O’Brien, and Kimberly Sherbach, Andrew Sonntag, and Matthew Wojtal
July 18, 2008	7:30	Blues/Jazz	Pam Parker
		Jazz	Bobbe Shore
	9:30	Cabaret	Stephen Gregory Smith in Insomnieoke
July 19, 2008	7:30	Nigerian Singer	Kuku
		Blues/Jazz	Pam Parker
	9:30	Cabaret	Stephen Gregory Smith in Insomnieoke
July 23, 2008	8:30	Cabaret	Jason Rieff
		Cabaret	Natascia Diaz with Paul Scott Goodman
July 24, 2008	8:30	Cabaret	Eric Millegan of FOX’s Bones
July 25, 2008	7:30	Cabaret	Jobari Parker-Namdar
		Cabaret	Michelle Maccarone and Donny Codden
	9:30	Comedy	Comedy Central Comedian Eddie Sarfaty
July 26, 2008	7:30	Cabaret	Jason Rieff
		Cabaret	Zak Sandler with Elisabeth Ness and Tosia Shall
	9:30	Cabaret	Peter Lerman
July 30, 2008	8:30	Cabaret	Natascia Diaz with Paul Scott Goodman
		Cabaret	Michael Sazonov
July 31, 2008	8:30	Cabaret	Michael Sazonov
August 1, 2008	7:30	Jazz	Bobbe Shore
		R&B	Temika Moore
	9:30	Cabaret	Stephen Gregory Smith in Insomnieoke

Road Report — Trudi Mann Open Mic

Ron and I got to spend another great afternoon at Trudi Mann’s Fabulous Open M ic for singers.  We always learn so much from these afternoons and have such a great time.  An La Mann is a spectacularly warm, talented, and caring hostess.  Pat Firth was on keyboards and Tom Hubbard on bass.

Here’s what people sang:

• Dana Avant
  • Almost Like Being in Love
  • Fly Me to the Moon
• Deb Burman
  • Why Did I Choose You?
  • Four
• Paul Caffrey
  • On a Dreamer’s Holiday
  • Incurably Romantic
• Henry Dee
  • Then Was Then
  • I Want to Thank You, Pretty Baby
• Jack Dimonte
  • I’m in Love Again
  • I’ve Never Been in Love Before
• Sybil Evans
  • They Say It’s Wonderful
  • Serenade in Blue
• Judy Gallagher
  • Bewitched
  • Lullaby of Broadway
• Joe Gimble
  • Rules of the Road
  • Here’s to Life
• Ken Greeves
  • Out of This World
  • Happiness is Just a Thing Called Joe
• Peter Kyle
  • From a Distance
  • The Times They Are A Changin’
• Aleshya Littman
  • Your Song
  • Look of Love
• Angelo Lovullo
  • Did You Ever Cross Over to Sneeden’s
• Trudi Mann
  • Paris Blues (Agite)
  • Pretty Little Dress
  • Up Yours
• Michael Miyazaki
  • Let’s Do It
  • The French Song
• Ray Norman
  • Flashing
  • Sleighride in July
• Sonia Perkins
  • Take Love Easy
  • I Wonder
• Chuck Prentis
  • You Turned My Life Round
  • Addicted to You
• Joe Regan
  • Hi Lilli, Hi Lo
  • That’s Her, Over There
• Bernice Sacks
  • My Foolish Heart
  • Singin’ In The Rain
• Stan Silk
  • I’m Always Chasing Rainbows
  • It Can’t Be Wrong
• Ron Squeri
  • Sway
  • False Starts
• Tom Wright
  • Night and Day
  • Time After Time
• Alberto Z
  • That’s My Style
  • One At a Time

Road Report — [title of show]

I just caught a preview of the new Broadway musical [title of show]*.  It is a hyper self-referential piece about the struggles of a songwriting team to write a show and then get the show to Broadway with the help of two actresses.  The twist is that the whole company “plays” themselves.  And in a Pirandellisque manner the show often seems to “write itself.”

About 15 minutes into the show I found myself growing annoyed with what I was experience has a level of narcissism about people writing about their experiences and then playing themselves.  But then I decided that what was occuring onstage was no more self-referential than a Merrily We Roll Along or On the Town (both musicals referenced heavily within the show).  And then I realized that the concept of a cast playing themselves trying to create a show on Broadway on Broadway was the perfect vehicle for this age of Reality TV.

The show was previously produced at Off Broadway’s Vineyard Theater; from the rear, left orchestra of Broadway’s Lyceum Theater, I still felt intimately connected with the people on stage. And the audience (which felt heavily comped) went absolutely nuts.  

The current cast does a terrific job on acting and vocal fronts.  And everyone seems really well cast (not always the case when people play themselves — why people didn’t necessarily play their stories in the original A Chorus Line.)  It will be interesting to see what happens when another cast tries to perform the piece and see what staying power the script has.  However, seeing the people playing themselves in this moment, especially before any reviews come in was really a thrill.

* My dear, dear friend Jim took me to see the show since Ron had to make a train back to DC.  Thanks, Jim!

Psycho Cabaret

Here’s the cast of Psycho Cabaret that just had their first show in the Capitol Fringe festival Thursday night.  Five more chances to catch them starting Saturday night at 7:30pm*.  More details

*That is, for those of you not at my show, Funny Propositions

Googling My Ex Video

Jill Leger has done a little summary video of her revue Googling My Ex for YouTube.  All I can say is that the show was even more fun to do than it looks on screen.

Funny Propositions

Here’s the official press release for the project I’m doing in the Fringe Festival*.  It’s not a musical or a cabaret, but that hasn’t stopped me from wangling some singing in one of my roles!

FINE WINE PLAYERS present FUNNY PROPOSITIONS: SMASHING REALITY At the CAPITAL FRINGE.

Smashing all illusions of reality, The Fine Wine Players are seasoned, senior actors with over 300 years of accumulated life experience.  They will prove that you don’t have to be a 20something to be fringy, quirky, wacky, or plainly off-the-wall.  In a one hour comedy, they take pot shots at the mind-bending, cyberspace obsession with computers.  They will predict a time when only ecommerce is allowed and mall shopping is a criminal offence.  They will show you the marvelous powers that loneliness can generate; and finally, question the reality of marriage.

Meet a deck of cards that comes to life (DECKED), a kindly grandmother who creates her own eerie companions, (LUNCH AT DOROTHY’S), a husband and wife in  the impossible position of playing their marriage out to a national audience, (PARLOUR GAMES) and three fashionistas who invade a defuncted shopping mall of the future.  “Do-loops,” lively advertising logos, mall invaders, and a devilish reality show host invite the audience to be perplexed as reality falls apart. 

In the surrealist tradition of Dada artists the costumes created by Marie Scavetti are wearable art that try to suggest the inner thoughts and feelings of the actors who perform wearing their psyches on their sleeves.

FUNNY PROPOSITIONS: SMASHING REALITY is produced by Marilyn Bennett, written by Ann James, and directed by Char Duguid.  The Ensemble of senior actors (Marilyn Bennett, Morgaine Lowe, Pat Martin, Michael Miyazaki, Meera Narasimhan, Dwane Starlin).  They are joined by Amanda Puskar, currently seven years old, but destined to be Fine Wine.    Lighting design by Marianne Meadows, Original music by Geoff Gowen, Set design by Heather Puskar.

Performances are scheduled for:

• Sat. July 12, 7:00 p.m.
• Wed. July 16, 7:00 p.m.
• Su. July 20, 6:00 p.m.
• Wed. July 23, 6:30 p.m.
• Sat. July 26, 3:00 p.m.
• Su. July 27, 3:00 p.m.

At the Goethe Institute - Mainstage — 812 Seventh Street NW, Washington, D.C.

For tickets please visit TheaterMania’s website or Capital Fringe’s website at www.capfringe.org.

*I always say, it isn’t really a rehearsal until the police show up, which they did at our last run-through.  I suspect that a neighbor on Capitol Hill called it in as suspected domestic violence.  Despite my fears, no one was charged with overacting!