It was a pleasure to compose and perform for Sandbox Radio’s first new episode of 2019 at just-reopened, fabulously renovated Town Hall! It’s always fun to lead the Sandbox Radio Orchestra, and this episode featured some great special guests, including NPR storytelling favorite Willie Wier. Thanks to all who came to the show! I’ll be back for another episode on December 30…
The Love Markets had a fab time bringing our music to Burlesco Notturno May 4. Who wouldn’t want to share the stage with reigning 2018 Queen of Burlesque INGA, Waxie Moon, The Atomic Bombshells, and Madame X and her Lawyer? Join us for the next one in Open Space’s Grand Hall on November 2nd… Day of the Dead! Oooooooo! Can’t wait. Show photos by Ricky Osborne Photography.
From opening night at Triple Door with The Love Markets on Feb 27 to my closing night singer-songwriter set at Egan’s on March 30, the 2019 March Is Cabaret Month Festival has been a wild ride. Twenty-six acts from Seattle and San Francisco to New York stretched the already-flexible boundaries of live music cabaret with offerings of blues, jazz, opera, show tunes, funk, folk, parody, a cappella, American songbook, original tunes, and genres hitherto unknown. I had a swell time hosting the last three weekends of shows and performing the closing set. See you all next year!
Another beautiful experience working at Seattle Children’s Theatre! Thanks to Courtney Sale for directing this lovely emotional show, Robertson Witmer for writing a great score, my castmates for enchanting me onstage every day except Monday, all the gang on staff and crew, and all the kids and grownups who showed up at the Charlotte Martin Theatre to go on Edward’s journey with us.
Our first time performing on The Triple Door mainstage! Beautiful venue, brilliant tech crew, magnificent audience. Thanks to March Is Cabaret Month Festival for producing the night, Arnaldo for hosting, and Sirens of Swing and Sweet Spot Combo for sharing the bill with us. Photos courtesy of Sue Corcoran and Maria Lamarca Anderson; video stills courtesy of Mike Falcone/Anarky Productions.
Three cheers for TV’s “ArtZone with Nancy Guppy”! This is my sixth time on the show: twice performing with The Love Markets, twice performing solo, another as part of a best-of music episode, and now - for the first time - curating the calendar. Great fun to share my picks for artistic goings-on about town, which just happened to include my own show with The Love Markets at The Triple Door. Thanks to Nancy and the AZ gang for being tireless champions of Seattle arts.
Always nice to end my year bandleading a Sandbox Radio show - this one featured the terrific Pamela Reed (The Right Stuff ) and a cameo from Seattle Police Chief Carmen Best, along with musical guests The Love Markets, Lisa Koch, and Eric Lane Barnes’ Puget Soundworks.
12th Annual Tom Waits Night at Conor Byrne… yep, this thing gets better every year. The Love Markets and I have been participating in this delicious event since 2012: as always, an incredible lineup of musicians and bands playing all Tom, all night. I love this night and look forward to it every year. Thanks to Rich Zollner Photography at Ballard Vox Press for taking great pictures - check out the full gallery for the night at https://ballardvox.com/galleries/tom-waits-tribute-night-conor-byrne-12-08-2018/
Many mysteries were “Unveiled” at the new installment of Vashon Island’s BURLESCO NOTTURNO! This one marked The Love Markets’ eleventh appearance with this great burlesque/cirque series, hosted as always by Madame X and her Lawyer. Other featured artists included the glorious Paris Original and The Atomic Bombshells.
The Love Markets and I had a great time collaborating with UMO Ensemble on a special piece created for ACT Theatre’s 2018 Gala. From the music-and-dance-in-every-room cocktail hour to the featured performance before the auction to our Love Markets set at night’s end, it was a wonderful event raising funds for one of Seattle’s most treasured theatres. Gala photos by Alabastro Photography!
Photo: Alabastro Photography.
Photo: Alabastro Photography.
Photo: Alabastro Photography.
Photo: Alabastro Photography.
Photo: Alabastro Photography.
Photo: Alabastro Photography.
Photo: Alabastro Photography.
Photo: Alabastro Photography.
A great night at Seattle Public Theatre on Greenlake as Sandbox Radio performed and recorded its newest episode, “Silvery Moon”. I had the pleasure of leading the Sandbox Radio Orchestra and playing my new road-trip song “Roll On” in honor of our very dear departed Peggy Platt.
Yeah, the A/C wasn’t working til intermission. Thanks to the audience for sweating along with us!
Thanks to all who joined us for another great night at the Jewelbox. The Love Markets love you!
Looks like CBGB’s, sounds like Twin Peaks!
Seldom has a retiring artistic director been sent off with such love and theatrics! After 25 years, Steve Tomkins stepped down to serious musical theatre fanfare at this Village Theatre gala May 27, 2018. Steve directed and/or choreographed me in more than 10 shows over the years and, like so many others, I’m grateful to him for the work, the joy, and the memories. What a treat to join the gang onstage and off at this gala occasion, and to relive favorite “Steve shows” together (a few pictured below).
Singing to Steve with the rest of his “Dreamgirls”.
Rehearsing the “Dreamgirls” number featuring several decades’ worth of VT leading ladies and dance captains!
Steve losing his mind.
As Ruth in “Wonderful Town”, my first show for Steve.
As Molly in “The Unsinkable Molly Brown”.
As Elsie Campbell in “The Bootlegger”.
As The Incomparable Rosalie in “Carnival”, one of my all-time faves. Stilt-walkers, aerialists, a pony, two dogs, a boa constrictor, a rabbit, magic acts and puppets. I brought it up to Steve at his retirement dinner and he said “What the hell was I thinking?”
“Humming” (pictured with Dale Green).
As Billie in “Babes In Arms”, with Jason Collins and Greg Michael Allen. Another all-time fave.
As Gloria in “Damn Yankees”.
As Sally Bowles in “Cabaret” (pictured with Mark Sparks).
With Steve on closing night of “It Should Have Been You” (2012).
Nothing like singing “Yes, We Have No Bananas” in English, Portuguese and German amidst a burlesque celebration of the banana! The Love Markets and I always have a great time at Burlesco Notturno; this one featured Luminous Pariah, Madame X and her Lawyer, and The Atomic Bombshells. The perfect fruit.
My fourth year co-producing and hosting Seattle’s March Is Cabaret Month Festival, produced by Pacific Northwest Cabaret Association since 2008. This year I performed solo singer-songwriter sets as one of twenty diverse West Coast acts playing to early-sellout crowds. Thanks to sponsors Bill Colter & Brian Silkworth and The Cricket Foundation, Ted and Suzanne at Egan’s Ballard Jam House, and all the awesome festival fans!
This fabulous project produced by the Rendezvous and made possible with a grant from 4Culture commissioned a handful of diverse artists to create pieces based on the history of Seattle's colorful Belltown neighborhood from 1890 to the present. I wrote and performed songs about Belltown's Film Row years in the 1930s and the origin of the Millionair's Club, founded in 1920 and still providing jobs and meals today. Kudos to director Jane Kaplan and to Ken Workman, great-great-grandson of Chief Seattle, who welcomed our audiences every night with his own take on Seattle history in both English and the Salish native tongue. I adored being part of this! Cast: Ade, Eric Ray Anderson, Jennifer Jasper, Angie Louise, K. Brian Neel, Markeith Wiley, and Shin Yu Pai. Photos copyright Eddie Rehfeldt.
It's always wonderful to be back at the 5th Avenue! This time it was to workshop another iteration of John Longenbaugh and Bruce Monroe's new musical "Anybody Can Do Anything", based on the memoirs of Betty MacDonald. Directed by Makaela Pollock; music direction by Josh Archibald-Seiffer. Cast: Alexandria Henderson, Justin Huertas, Cayman Ilika, Eric Polani Jensen, Angie Louise, Corinna Lapid Munter, Tatum Poirrier, Patrick Shelton, Jenny Shotwell, and Billie Wildrick.
Last show of 2017! I had a great time composing for, performing in, and music directing/bandleading this end-of-the-year episode of Sandbox Radio (my fifth and the series' twenty-eighth). Especially singing Sharon Jones' "Big Bulbs" with Sarah Rudinoff and Leslie Law with giant flashing Christmas lights adorning our bosoms...
Oh, how I loved spending the last few months of 2017 in yet another production of the enchanted and enchanting "Go, Dog. Go!" at Seattle Children's Theatre, with co-creators Steven Dietz and Allison Gregory back at the helm! Between the end of September and the end of November, over twenty-three thousand humans saw our show - and for at least half of them, it was THEIR FIRST PLAY! What an honor. I worked my tail(s) off reprising my 2011 dual role of the notoriously fashion-forward pink poodle Hattie and the always-loyal Spotted Dog. Thank you to the amazing folks at SCT, my castmates old & new (Chris Ensweiler, Basil Harris, Jojo Abaoag, Laura Lee Caudill, Nastacia Guimont, musical director Robertson Witmer), and of course the audiences and ever-curious, ever-hilarious KIDS!! A beautiful experience.
Thanks to theater simple for producing and curating this cool showcase for the Western Arts Alliance Conference. MASHUP featured my band The Love Markets ("A deliciously dark carnival" - Seattle Magazine); Vancouver illusionist Vitaly Beckman, famous for fooling Penn & Teller on their own show ("Incredible" - Penn & Teller); excerpts from God is a Scottish Drag Queen (Victoria, B.C.'s Mike Delamont, Heart of America (San Francisco's Black Swan Arts), "acrobaticalist ninja theatre" from NANDA ("Devilishly inventive" - Seattle Times); and The Master and Margarita from theater simple ("One of the great theater events of the decade" - The Stranger). Always fun to be one of an assortment of different-flavored bonbons!
