In promotion with our upcoming Cabaret Fest October 1st & 2nd, here is the next installment of our member features.
One cannot speak of TCCAN without the mention of Erin Duffy. Not only did she serve as our first president through a number of terms, but she was part of the original seed that brought us into being after conversations with other local colleagues that had experienced the Yale Cabaret Conference. It was predominantly her vision to create some of that same ideology with the population of cabaret artists here in the Twin Cities. She used her business sense to establish our ranks which aligns with her strong artistic integrity. A consummate cabaret presence, she has found a loyal audience with her recent show I Never Went Away in collaboration with Ben Krywosz & Tom Linker.
Why Cabaret:
Like everyone else noted so far, she is drawn to the intimacy of the art form. "I enjoy every
aspect of deeply connecting with an audience by telling the story of
a song. Ever since I was very young, when I listened to a piece of
music, it was always the lyrics that grabbed hold of me and took me
away. My imagination would just take off. The words became mine and I
would hear and see the stories for each song and live them, making them
my personal songs." She originally juggled theater as her creative outlet. Then steered her vocation into the corporate world. "It wasn't until I was older that I
discovered Cabaret. And, when I did I thought I finally found home." Erin
gets gratification from conversations with audience members after a
performance. Connections that are mutual resound with her. In
particular, tapping into a lyric and finding that listeners identify
with her discovery in the same way. "I found very often after performing maybe a
standard or very familiar tune, audience members would come up to me and
say "Is that what that song is about?" or "it's like I never really
heard that song until you sang it."
Cabaret Snapshot:
Erin talks in her one-woman show about the magic of meeting Julie Wilson. She was in Chicago for a friend's celebration and Julie was the entertainment at that party. When she entered the room "she was the most stunning woman I had ever seen, with her hair - a gardenia perfectly inset. She walked up on the stage, looked out over the audience, smiled that gorgeous smile and began. She owned that stage, she owned that room! And although there were 100 people in the room I felt in that moment that it was just she and I."
In promotion with our upcoming Cabaret Fest October 1st & 2nd, here is the next installment of our member features.
Jennifer Eckes has to be one of our most prolific members. She has a family where everyone shares a musical talent of some sort. Theater is a mainstay where she has had roles in everything from Sondheim to Frank Sinatra tributes. Work at the Ordway, Artistry and the Plymouth Playhouse shows her versatility. If that isn't enough, she has regular stints with the MN Opera where she is currently in Romeo & Juliet. Along with fellow TCCAN members she merged the worlds of cabaret, theater and pop culture in the successful venture of Pop Up Musical. But the cornerstone has always been her engaging cabaret sets and shows where she is afforded the chance to show us her true identity.
Why Cabaret:
In her own words: "Coming from a background of doing musical theatre, operetta,
and opera, I’ve been cast in roles based on my vocal type, my movement
capabilities, my age and gender, and how I look. In cabaret, I can choose to sing songs that I normally never would be cast to sing, and I get to reinvent them to suit me
and the audience. It’s challenging and
fun for me to take a song out of its original context and make it something
new, something my own, and to make the audience hear it in a new and
provocative way. In cabaret, there is no “fourth wall” as there is in theatre -
we create a connection to the audience, and taking that audience along is part
of the journey of the moment, which we all get to experience together."
Cabaret Snapshot:
For her cabaret shout out, she talks about finding the humor in her set. We talk at length in TCCAN about making sure our choices are not always a therapy session where we lay our personal struggles out in the open for everyone to sympathize with us. There is something to be said about opening up in the same way, but finding the humor in the hubris. "I really love to make people laugh, especially unexpectedly.
There’s a story I like to tell about an old pen pal of mine who used to make mixed
tapes for me, and I sing a song he once recorded for me, “Won’t Last a Day
Without You”. It’s a beautiful lyric, a song about getting through tough times because
of a loyal friend. But about halfway through the song, I start to sing it as my old
pen pal did... which was terribly off-key, but nonetheless dedicated and above all, totally sincere in his delivery. I
love the moment when this juxtaposition happens, and the
audience goes from being pleasantly content to being a little
bewildered, and
then laughing hysterically at the absurdity." I have seen Jennifer present this and it is indeed endearing. There are many ways to tell a story and she always finds one that is uniquely hers!
In promotion with our upcoming Cabaret Fest October 1st & 2nd, here is the next installment of our member features.
Vicky Mountain is a long time veteran of the Twin Cities Music scene. Her cabaret sets have given us glimpses of her many personalities along the way; from bar-band queen in the 70's to Jazz warbler with a killer whistle. She spends her days teaching voice at MacPhail, but in addition to her cabaret work, she also pens original pieces and always brings her unique stylings to every offering.
Why Cabaret:
We always try to refine what cabaret is by saying it is a collaboration between story and song. But Vicky goes one step further by calling it a "collision of story and song." The semantics of this single phrase means that she brings an unpredictable quality to the stage. From the theater side of the genre she appreciates the "absolute uniqueness of each performer." From her jazz roots she explores "the vast possibility of styles and repertoire" at her disposal. It then becomes her job to forge that intimate connection that holds an audience "attentive" and under her control.
Cabaret Snapshot:
Among her memorable moments in the cabaret world, one that resonates with her goes back to our showcase project 5 years prior. It was a project called Women: A Broad View which gave our members the chance to do material that had anything remotely to do with women. Some chose women composers, others told stories about strong female role models. For Vicky she was really drawn to focus her experience through a lens of her own early roots in the Rock and Soul era of the 70's. In particular numbers like Carole King's It's Too Late and Nina Simone's End of the Line.
