Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The subject matter of the show, 'Cabaret,' was more than risky. And the emcee I would be playing didn't have a single line of dialogue. Still, it was full of possibilities, and it was mine.
I don't know how to explain how, probably to my detriment, unselfpromoting I am. I used to have a cabaret act and I didn't even like to tell me people about that. I really hate selling myself.
Manchester was a fantastic place to go out in. There were 10 clubs with world-class cabaret and comedians. You'd go in and Tom Jones might be singing, or Shirley Bassey or Engelbert Humperdinck.
In 'Mr Shrimati,' I had a long role as a woman. A cabaret number was also picturised on me. I really worked hard in that film and feel that to date, no man has matched my level when playing a woman.
A cabaret song has got to be written - for the middle voice, ideally - because you've got to hear the wit of the words. And a cabaret song gives the singer room to act, more even than an opera singer.
I spent thousands of thousands of hours playing the piano, and by thousands of hours, I mean playing in cover bands or wedding bands or disco bands or original bands or playing cabaret for Todd McKenney.
We then took a shortened version of what we'd been doing in the pubs, with the best gags and things like that, out to cabaret clubs and things in the north of England for six weeks. And we became a big success.
Cabaret is a much more up close and personal experience, which I enjoy very much. This is a tremendous difference to being in a large theatre, doing a book show, where there is more separation. But both have equal importance.
I played piano for cabaret stars and stuff and then eventually moved from my hometown of Perth in Western Australia to Melbourne, and somewhere in there, I decided to book myself a room and do a cabaret show of my own material.
The satellite and digital space is where the audience for 'Cabaret' lies: a discerning lot who don't rush to the cinema hall on the first day, first show, and prefer instead to consume their entertainment at their time and comfort.
Cabaret presents different challenges, as it is all on me. I love having the freedom to say anything you want - do anything you want. It is a lot of responsibility, and if it works, you get all the kudos, and if not - all the blame.
You realise that people do things differently to each other and, more and more, I realise that there's no right or wrong. You can be a pop star and singing cabaret, and the entertainment of it is your flamboyance, it is your attitude.
That was something we were trying to figure out: Are we allowed to do a jazz song? Are we allowed to do cabaret? Just from hearing the Beatles, it was like, 'Well, they did it. It's okay to write something other than a standard rock song.'
What a turnaround in sentiment 'Glee' exemplifies. It was only a few years ago that pursuing the dream of a Broadway career or cabaret stardom relegated some poor yearning dope to a lavender ghetto of losers, self-deluders, and social rejects.
The idea behind Jinkx is that she's a single mother and failed actress. One time she went out to a gay bar with her son, who's a gay adult, and started singing torch songs on the bar and became a hit. Now she's every gay boy's favorite cabaret act.
Over-the-knee socks remind me of the 1920s, silent films, and the stars of the era who wore the rolled-down stockings. They sort of referenced that in 'Cabaret,' when Liza Minnelli was singing 'Mein Herr,' and I love the way she looks in that scene.
I loved 'Cabaret.' I loved what it had to say and the whole style and brilliance of the book. It was my first time performing Fred Ebb and John Kander's work. They took risks. Even when their shows are fun and funny, they are about very serious issues.
Usually I like playing other people. I like finding myself through other characters. But when you do cabaret, you are yourself. I think it's the most fun, and I tell you, if somebody had told me that, I would have done it fifteen years earlier than I did.
I just love to dance and 'Cabaret' seemed like an opportunity where I could explore that. I wanted to take a chance and see if people will accept me in this kind of role, if what is expected of other women is expected of me. Or maybe it's for shock value.
Méret Oppenheim was a very erotic woman. She also liked provocation, and if you could provoke surrealists at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich, or similar Dadaist hangouts in Basel, where you could normally get away with these things, you were truly a provocateur.
In Yale they convinced me I had no talent, even though I was always working. They cast me mostly as prostitutes and old women, and I stayed because I loved the writers. I loved Chris Durang and Wendy Wasserstein. I was always doing their work in the Yale Cabaret.
I'm really excited to share cabaret, the art form, not just with the generations that are above me, but also my generation and the generation under me. I think it's an art form that's incredibly important, and I think that my generation is a little unfamiliar with it.
After university, I was working as a stylist in the Paris theatres when I had a flash of inspiration. I made necklaces from the bikinis designed for the cabaret performers of Folies Bergeres. I was so happy with them that it was only then that I sought out formal training in jewelry.
In the early days of the Libertines, we used to put on Arcadian cabaret nights. There'd be some girl climbing out of an egg; we'd try and get a couple of mates to tell a few jokes, performance poets, and then we'd play in the middle of it all. More people were on stage than in the crowd.
I think one of the traps of theater - what makes it so amazing is that it's not able to be mass-produced, but it also makes it hard to get work seen by people because if you're a creator, you do a cabaret or something, and maybe 100 people will see it and then it ends the night that you close it.
When you are preparing for a role, you have a script to comb through and the writer's help in telling you about the character, and then you can fill in the gaps. When you are doing a cabaret show, it's very personal. You have the opportunity to share parts of yourself with an audience and figure out how you want to connect.
I discovered lots of music; electronic synth bands from the mid-'80s like Depeche Mode, Soft Cell and Cabaret Voltaire. My friends and I used to take two-hour trips to the record store in Newcastle and we started buying copies of The Face and i-D. And then I went to art school and as time progressed, I ended up where I am now.
Getting to do 'December Songs' in a cabaret-style format was so interesting because it's like a one-woman song cycle that actually tells a story. It feels like a theatrical experience more than a cabaret because I didn't talk in between. We went from one song to the next, nine songs in a row - bam - I told the story in half an hour.
I grew up listening to bands like the Cure, Joy Division, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance - these are the bands that I actually grew up with, and I always had these things in my taste, too. And I always loved industrial music as well: I listened to Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Cabaret Voltaire. And shoegaze bands like Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine.
