I’ve envisioned myself on a stage alone, singing up a storm to an enraptured audience, since I was a senior in high school. Again, it was that damned Nancy in Oliver! who put the idea in my head. I saw myself in drag, no less, got up in a whorey red dress and wig, with plenty of fake these and those, belting out “As Long As He Needs Me”. I used to love to listen to that song, and the other ones that the character sings in the musical, and imagine how I might do them…cutting loose in the rowdy, rollicking manner of the old English music-hall, fun at last…instead of the drab, unsmiling, inhibited and miserable teenager I was.
As I grew older, the drag idea stayed with me…a couple of my friends commented at one time that I would be great at it. “You’ve got the hips, anyway,” said Fred, the actor who played Dracula to my Renfield in 2003. And even now, I wouldn’t be opposed to doing drag…but only within the proscenium arch. I am not the least bit interested or impressed by improvisational comedy–never have been–and so the notion of going around in public done up in some outrageous costume, flaunting my feminine side through some even more outrageous feminine persona, holds no attraction at all. I would, however, love to play a character in drag within the context of a show…and among my top choices of characters that would allow me to do this is the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz (a favorite fantasy since childhood)…
Margaret Hamilton as WWW
and Miss Hannigan in Annie…
Dorothy Loudon as Miss Hannigan in the original Broadway production of ANNIE
It could happen, I know…because it has happened. I read online about an actor (not actress) who has played the WWW seven times onstage, and he’s not the only one. And I’ve found at least one production through googling Annie images where Hannigan was, um, non-traditionally cast.
Aside from these exploits, I do have a very real and serious desire to sing and to entertain an audience without the security blanket of a surrounding cast and script. I mentioned not having much use for improv, and so the idea of doing a one-man show is about “as fer as I can go” in that direction. I’ve spent years thinking about the format this show/concert could take, and the content I would choose for it.
The video above is of Adam Pascal singing one of my all-time favorite songs, “Maybe This Time”, from Cabaret. His look, with the ratty jeans and T-shirt and such, is about what I would adopt for the evening. I would be content with a single accompanist behind me, because getting a group of musicians together is, I would guess, probably just as much of a pain in the ass as getting a group of actors together to do a community show. Besides, I don’t know too many musicians, and I’ve never felt accepted by that crowd, anyway. It may have something to do with the fact that I don’t play an instrument, but that’s just a thought.
I think, in the end, I’ve got the urge to pursue this crazy endeavor because I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with singing, and other singers. When I was in choir in high school, I didn’t like it much. I found it boring and tedious and annoying, what with the lack of focus around me and the constant bitchery of the “ahdvahnced singahs” who took not only chorus, but Varsity Chorale and Show Choir as well. In retrospect, our choir wasn’t that great, really…and the elevated singing classes were no better. They thought they were, though, and that’s what kept me down. I was told by many people that I had an excellent singing voice, but it was a baritone voice. All the best male songs and musical parts are written for tenors, and that’s just the way it is. On the other side, altos have the same problem with sopranos. Sopranos+tenors=bitches in my musical math book. But I digress. The point is, after watching the handful of tenors in our chorus groups getting all the accolades and attention and the best parts in the musicals (I’m still mad as hell that I got the role of Doc–read, “got screwed”–in West Side Story my senior year), I backed off and no longer thought of myself as a singer.
In college, I took some voice lessons, and that built up my confidence a little, but I still didn’t feel I had what it took to pursue a lead in any of the musicals done by the drama department. As always, they were in a higher register than was comfortable for me, and as I cannot even fake my way as a dancer, I was, once again, shafted.
But the dream never died; that of getting up there and just standing and belting my heart out. And so I began to think to myself…fuck the musicals. Why not just go out there alone and sing what I want to sing?
A little hobby of mine in recent years was to record tapes of different songs I would love to do in a concert format, in the order I would do them, and listen to them, miming my way through them and developing a performance style and movement for each one. I’ve graduated now to making a master list of songs that I add to frequently. These songs are obviously not your mainstream Top Forty hits; they’re all show songs (read “fag songs”) with the exception of a few. Would you believe, that in addition to “Maybe This Time”, “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “Anything Goes”, I’ve always wanted to have a crack at Billy Joel’s “She’s Got a Way”, or that English group’s anthem, “Let It Be”?
Well, who knows? I’ve made a friend within the past year who is a really good pianist, and I’ve already asked him, should the occasion ever arise, if he would be open to working with me on some selections. Beyond that, the steps involved would be to narrow down my song choices to a reasonable evening’s worth of material, and to think up some halfway witty patter for in-between the numbers. A venue would present itself when the time was right, I feel. If I really want it, it’ll come along. And I do want it.
As my grandfather says, I’m young yet.
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