Putting it together.

I sit before my computer screen on a bright and breezy Sunday afternoon, at my desk, tucked away in my creative corner of the apartment. My face is covered in a slick sheen of black which is slowly crusting and fading to grey. No. You do not get a picture. Because, while everyone else seems perfectly content to post pictures and videos of every minute detail of their daily routine, to me... at least some things are semi-sacred, and putting on a charcoal beauty mask is one of those things, so you are left with your imagination on this one. The mask is part of my steps of productivity today. I am working very hard to get small things done every day, and to avoid as much as possible the trap of insidious computer phone games, the re-runs of classic sitcoms, and the teeming torsos of tumblr that seem hellbent on pulling me from creativity.

I'm working on organizing, purging unneeded items, and on a couple of larger creative projects. The one that has my most focused attention this month, is a Christmas cabaret featuring Cathy Dresden. I'm not certain that I'll be able to mount it in time for this year, but at least I plan to have it completely written and structured by the end of the month of July. This focus is inspired by Camp Nanowrimo, a virtual writer's retreat, which is extremely flexible. So far I've used every day in July to work on the show, and while as of this moment it has been more planning and research than actual writing, I do feel like progress is being made, which pleases me.

It's hard creating a cabaret, as anyone who has ever tried can tell you. Some people think it's just a matter of finding a bunch of songs you like and putting them together. Plugging your individual favorite songs into a formula. But it's more than that. You do need to find songs of course, but they have to be the right songs. Right for your voice, right for your presence and personality. They have to sound good through your instrument and look natural emanating from you from an audience perspective. Either that or they need to be framed in the right way so that the audience will accept your singing something you normally wouldn't be expected to.

And you don't just need ten to fifteen of these songs, you need to find fifty to a hundred of them. Why? Because they all need to work together to create a large piece. A piece that works thematically, with every song supporting that theme, and your expression of it. Not only that, but there needs to be a real reason for you to sing the song. How can you make a particular rendition of a song unique? How can you make it mean something different than it has before while keeping the integrity of its original message? How can you make it your own? Can you???  And keep in mind that you can't have to many of one type of song in an hour long show, or not only will the show seem kind of monotonous, but it won't be taking a journey to anything.

And then, what if there's something to say that you don't have a song for? It's something that absolutely has to be in the show, it's the capper, it sums up the night, and you don't have a song that assists you in doing this? Well then you have to go hunting. Or try and write it yourself (I would not suggest this for most people) or try to do it through patter or a story. There's a lot to think about, and a lot of research and compiling, and testing of the songs before they go into the show. And that's before you even think about where they go in the show, which can cause so many more complications. It's surprising to think about how many "perfect songs" get cut from shows because they fit the show as originally conceived, but once things start coming into shape, the song no longer does what it should.

An example from my own work is the song "As Long As He Needs Me". It's a beautiful number, sits well on Cathy, shows off my high notes, and I love singing it. And yet, it is the kind of show stopping number that you can't place too early in an evening of song, and for my first show, which was in essence about a woman coming into her own power, you can't end on a song about a woman who will love a man no matter how much he hurts her, as long as his being with her is serving a purpose to him. You just can't. And so... it's not in the show.

And this is all on paper! You have to finish the thing up on paper (the dialogue, songs, and running order) and then start working stout in real life with a director and a pianist, until the songs and dialogue and blocking and lighting and sound are as good as their gonna get. And that's its own heap of complications.

Cabaret is never just a collection of songs. It's story telling, through songs, and every aspect of those songs has to fit the story you are telling. How you contextualize it, how you perform it, where it goes in the evening... all of it. And yet, as daunting as that can seem at times, you have to start that journey if you want to try to perform a cabaret show. And if you want it to be good, you have to work to make it 40 percent better than you think, so that you can allow for some falters and nerves and miscommunication from singer to hearer. It's that old "shoot for the moon and land in the stars" philosophy. Of course it gets easier as you continue, and the more times you start a new show, but it's never easy, because you never want to repeat yourself. You are always working to create something new, and find new and better ideas than your last.

Lecture over. I didn't expect to go on so long, but it does explain how the mere planning of a cabaret show on paper can take longer than a month of concentrated work to come to fruition. And even then it will continue to morph and change, way beyond the first performance.

And now I have stop, because I still have this mask on my face and it is calcifying.