Home Town Heroes
Kim and Lennie put on a show last night. One from Indiana and one from Missouri, giving tribute to their home states and all the song writers that came from, lived in or happened through their home states. They also indulged their mutual love for New York City and its vast array of song material, by singing a few of those tunes as well. I would like to take a moment to explain how these shows get created, since they are put on for the pure joy of the art rather than for any commercial purpose whatsoever. I have often said that if these shows sell out completely there is a decent chance they might break even with the cost of the venue, the cost of the musicians (remember, they must be paid for all their time, whether in performance or rehearsal) and the stage crew gratuities. So, what is it that happens?
At some point, probably during a board meeting of either Manhattan Association of Clubs and Cabarets (MAC) or Singnasium (Lennie’s not-for-profit singing school), someone probably said, “Hey, why don’t you two do a show together?” The performer in people with talent may stay hidden down deep as they go about their routine lives, and it may be consciously suppressed for all the effort that performing entails, but it is never that far from surfacing and wanting to burst forth.
In the past, when Kim has finished a show, we have a habit of driving home with her weeping with post-partum depression and self-doubt and me telling her how silly she is being because she is such a great performer. I imagine some version of that happens with many performers. Why? Think about what is involved. Kim and Lennie spent perhaps three months preparing and rehearsing this “simple” one hour show that they will put on four times and then never touch again. That “simple” show begins with planning out and coming up with a concept or theme for a show. In this case it was that they were both Midwesterners who fulfilled a dream to come to the Big Apple to sing. They have both left their home to create a new home in New York. This may have been prompted because Kim and I are relocating to San Diego in a few months and where no one seems too concerned about my departure, the cabaret community is up in arms about Kim exiting its immediate ranks.
They then must decide what kind of music they want to sing. This is very much Lennie’s province, but Kim has some views and occasionally they will add advice from their musical director, Steven Ray Wadkins. Will it be the Great American Songbook, which is a standard in cabaret? Will it be more pop music that is always popular with the crowd, what Lennie calls “musical crack?” Will it be sad and sultry ballads (please, please, not more than a few)? It is surprising the number of choices and the ideas and preferences chosen by cabaret singers. I think personalities come through with these selections. If you sing what pleases you versus what you feel the audience wants to hear, does that make you independent and iconoclastic or does that just make you self-indulgent? And who the hell knows on any given night what the audience will be like or what it wants to hear. Imagine an artificial intelligence program that could take all the variables from the weather to the economic news into account and serve up a playlist accordingly. That will happen right after cabaret becomes a lucrative gig.
Once they have chosen their theme and their song genre, the dynamic duo have to select specific songs, which is a research task for what is best for their vocal ranges, what weaves together well, what can they put some creative arrangement twists to, and in this show, what comes out of the Indiana and Missouri playlists. There is a whole art to this process, and it is, again, Lennie’s specialty (he is a multi-award-winning producer/director in cabaret). This is what Lennie does 24×7 so he really has attained or exceeded Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour expert status. And the duo’s musical director, Steven, is equally experienced at putting the music together in a compelling way. Between Lennie and Steven, they have more cabaret awards than they have shelf space. Kim is no slouch in this arena, but she has a life beyond cabaret, so she will bow to the experts.
Oh yeah, then you must decide how many instruments and what type will be playing to back up the vocals. This is a complicated decision which should be guided by the repertoire of music but is often most determined by how much space there is on the stage for how many musicians. Cabaret is most often done in small settings and the stages (like the one last night at the Beach Café) are usually very limiting. The owner of the venue bragged about his newly expanded stage, which is funny given that it was postage stamp-sized. Then you must find those musicians, but first you need to set up the venue.
Luckily, New York has many cabaret venues from which to choose. But the favorites are Don’t Tell Mama, The Duplex, Birdland and the Laurie Beachman Theater. They are all west-side spots with Hell’s Kitchen the general area most convenient to where the performers choose to live. I guess we will have to now add the Beach Café to the list, since one of the Grande Dames of cabaret, K.T. Sullivan sponsors it and hold court there. To balance the ballot, Sydney Myer, the even-Grander Dame of the cabaret world and venue manager of Don’t Tell Mama, was in the house to cheer on two of his proteges. I know my perspective on cabaret is limited to Kim’s immediate circle of friends, but I felt as though all of cabaret was there last night for the show. It is a very supportive art-form.
So, after a wonderful one-hour show (one of the great aspects of cabaret in keeping with the attention span and leg circulation limits of its generally older audience), everybody stands around catching up and being social. The early informal returns were ebullient. Kim has stage presence unlike many lesser performers. Lennie has a clear and well-tuned voice, not to mention very funny patter to fill in the empty spots. They do a great job together. While there are only supposed to be three more performances in November, I will take a wild guess that this show goes on the road to Missouri and Indiana. It may even make it out to San Diego or L.A. for all I know.
Let me be clear about my feelings about cabaret. I had never been before meeting Kim fifteen years ago. Since I have been to a lot of cabaret, some great and some less than great. I have enjoyed it thoroughly and consider myself fortunate to have been introduced to it and to the characters that inhabit it. It is easy to forget about what music and song do for our souls. There is a reason people sing in church and temple. We are elevated by song. Some wonder if this is Kim’s last show. I seriously doubt she can put that talent away for good…and I’m not so sure Lennie would let her.